Finding Hope in History
History is about contingency, about possible worlds
Modern Medieval
by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele
As we’ve mentioned, we had an event yesterday at Porter Square Books (in Cambridge, MA), gracious hosts in every way. This was, in fact, the very first dual in-person event we’ve ever had - either for The Bright Ages or Oathbreakers. And it went swimmingly.
Our crowd - of about 50 people - was inquisitive and engaging, and we got to meet a whole bunch of people and talk with them about our new book, as well as about the excitement of studying the past more generally.
We even signed a lot of books! And there were a few left over… So, if you want a rare double-signed copy of either Bright Ages, or Oathbreakers, you can order directly from Porter Square and they’ll mail it out to you! IF YOU HURRY, SHIPPING IS FREE!
But we also want to talk briefly about 1 great question from the audience. The question basically was: “You guys write in this book about empires falling apart and elite greed. Sometimes this seems really relevant to the present. How do you - do you? - find hope in the past?”
It’s true. Oftentimes, looking to the past focuses our attention on the blood and the grit of the period. Oathbreakers is absolutely about a world that begins to collapse because some people aren’t willing to compromise, because greed wins out, and then people suffer - grievously - for it.
But what Matt said in response was this. Again, paraphrasing:
For me, hope is found in the contingency of the past. Oathbreakers is a book about people who made bad decisions - sometimes it seems like nothing but bad decisions. But in every case, there was another path, another choice that could’ve been made. For everyone counseling violence, there were others speaking truth to power, counseling justice and mercy and compromise and reconciliation. We tend, I think, too often to think of hope as the same as optimism, but it isn’t. Things aren’t inevitable - they won’t necessarily get better, but neither will they necessarily get worse. We were never somehow “meant” to get to our present moment and things always could’ve been otherwise. Hope is about possibility; it requires people to do things, even in the face of it all falling apart. And history is filed with people doing things to make the world better, even if they sometimes fail. But then others dust themselves off and try again. History is, at its core, about hope.
BECAUSE we understand how the past works, BECAUSE we can see contingency and possible worlds - the roads that were taken and not taken (but could have been) - we have hope.
We think of the past with James Baldwin:
When I was very young, and was dealing with my buddies in those wine- and urine-stained hallways, something in me wondered, What will happen to all that beauty? For black people, though I am aware that some of us, black and white, do not know it yet, are very beautiful… I could also see that the intransigence and ignorance of the white world might make that vengeance inevitable—a vengeance that does not really depend on, and cannot really be executed by, any person or organization, and that cannot be prevented by any police force or army: historical vengeance, a cosmic vengeance, based on the law that we recognize when we say, “Whatever goes up must come down.” And here we are, at the center of the arc, trapped in the gaudiest, most valuable, and most improbable water wheel the world has ever seen. Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world. If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!
We think of the past with Frederick Douglass:
Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country.” Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must… work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age…
God speed the hour, the glorious hour, When none on earth Shall exercise a lordly power, Nor in a tyrant’s presence cower; But all to manhood’s stature tower, By equal birth! That hour will com, to each, to all, And from his prison-house, the thrall Go forth. Until that year, day, hour, arrive, With head, and heart, and hand I’ll strive, To break the rod, and rend the gyve, The spoiler of his prey deprive- So witness Heaven! And never from my chosen post, Whate’er the peril or the cost, Be driven.
We think of the past with Natalie Zemon Davis:
The study of the past has been a constant joy, a privileged realm of intellectual eros… Moreover, the study of the past provides rewards for moral sensibility and tools for critical understanding. No matter how evil the times, no matter how immense the cruelty, some elements of opposition or kindness and goodness emerge. No matter how bleak and constrained the situation, some forms of improvisation and coping take place. No matter what happens, people go on telling stories about it and bequeath them to the future. No matter how static and despairing the present looks, the past reminds us that change can occur. At least things can be different. The past is an unending source of interest, and can even be a source for hope.
The past is a place where people before you had dirt on their face and blood on their knuckles. They, like us, got back up and got ready for another go.
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