65 - Those who remember history
Hey there, !
Off the back of the Internet Nation post, one of the key concepts I wanted to expand upon was the idea that ‘things are (relatively) permanent online’, because I think there are some…not-as-great implications that come from it.
The past changes
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it
Memory is a really fascinating topic to think about. A short story from Ted Chiang describes the story of a young man in a tribe who has just learnt how to write. He marks down the histories of his tribe, but when the chief announces that they’re joining up with another tribe from the ‘same’ lineage, the young man spots the re-writing of history (“you said we were descended from someone different!”). The chief tells him that he never lied - that’s just how it is.
The role of changing a memory here was a positive one, and my takeaway from that piece was the valuable concept of forgetting.
When we forget things, our recall becomes fuzzy and every reconstruction changes the memory just a little bit. Maybe the table tennis ball was white, instead of orange. Maybe you were kicked at the pool, not at your friend’s house. Maybe you don’t remember an entire trip to Sydney at all!
The stories we tell are examined through new, different lenses as we grow older and accumulate more experiences, creating new explanations and formulations of what happened, and why. Sharp pains become dull throbs, and euphoric happiness becomes fond memory. A wiser version of yourself gets to examine things more closely, more objectively, and you can constantly reinvent yourself by telling a different story that helps to explain how you got to where you are now.
I wonder where the quote up above came from. Trying not to repeat the mistakes of the past is a valuable idea, but I don’t know if it holds the same wisdom as it has before.
Something’s fundamentally changed.
The future…changes?
The world is in a pretty fricked place right now. Think about the type of right-wing ascendant organisations, e.g. neo-nazis, that are returning with a vengeance. Think about the fight against income inequality, black rights, women rights, abortion, police brutality - these are issues that have been politicised and argued about for decades, and we’re still talking about them…
…do things really change? Or is it that change happens really slowly?
In an examination of history, it seems that these things…just keep happening. They don’t shift, or at least, they don’t seem to change all that much. There are shifts with women’s rights, gay rights, environmental protections…but…I feel like the attitudes still stick around. They just evolve to become more sinister, hidden and manifest themselves in different ways.
When I was younger, and more foolish, I thought that ‘well, all these silly, outdated attitudes will just die out with the old fogeys who believe it’. I truly believed this about racism and climate change deniers; that only old people held these beliefs, and once they died off our lives would become so much better. Only when I started seeing younger people with these same beliefs, on videos, and posts online, that I realised that those attitudes were being passed on to the next generation.
As I said, super foolish.
I’m kind of confused why we have to keep coming back to these points. If we’re still fighting about the same stuff we were fighting about 50 years ago, or even 100 years ago, how are we ever supposed to progress? Why does change take so long?
Seriously, how come we still have Flat-Earthers?!
Having different lenses on history is good, and the reinvention and reinterpretation of history in terms of oppression and patriarchy help to shape how we can progress in the future, as we come to terms with the wrong we’ve wrought on the world before.
But reinterpretation isn’t always good - it also means that subversive actors can use those same reinventions to spread harmful interpretations of history. They can learn from the techniques that previous oppressive governments used; tools of propaganda, old-school methods of undermining democracy, or gaslighting the crap out of the world.
And that just keeps the fight going on and on and on…
The past and future as an amorphous blob
How can one ‘forget’ on the Internet? History is re-examined and re-interpreted, but instead of having those views die out over time, they take root and flourish online. The attitudes of subcultures fester and grow more malicious over time. Even if particular sites get broken up, or disconnected, the Wayback Machine, or archive.org, is tracking and keeping as much of it as they can.
Everything exists, and continues to exist, for a long long time.
The old techniques of denial, disorder and mistrust grow rampant, and as we separate ourselves from those areas of the internet over time, or try to root it out (blocking sites like 8chan or Breitbart), we allow those wounds to continue to fester, and the sores to grow until they unleash their pain upon the world once more.
These days, I feel like those who remember history get to perpetuate the same harmful stories and stereotypes as the past. The cycle continues, as does the fight.
I’m not sure what the solution is, really. Cynical thoughts from a tired point in history.
Dear Future Vince, have we solved anything yet?
Chat soon :)
✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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Exhalation by Ted Chiang - the short story collection mentioned above, which I believe I’ve recommended before. One of my favourite stories, The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate is in this collection - highly recommended. Also see Stories of Your Life and Others - which includes the short story that the movie Arrival is based on!
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The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker - a really great book on why we’re living in one of the most peaceful times of human history, and how that change has occurred over time. I’ve heard that Enlightenment Now by Pinker is another great read, so I’m going to get on that too!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Lots of Overnight Tragedies, No Overnight Miracles - a really good piece from Morgan Housel again which talks about how the rate of change of good things happens really slowly, but the bad things seem to be more eye-catching, and that’s why things seem more abrupt when they’re bad.
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YouTubers are upscaling the past to 4K. Historians want them to stop - bit of a clickbait title, but some Youtubers are trying to colourise and up-scale the quality of historical videos to try and make them more ‘real’ - however, that interpretation of the past (re: colours and quality) may affect how people will understand the past.
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Japan’s Hikikomori - the lost generation in their 40s/50s, jobless and living with their parents - a sobering look at a generation of people, socially stunted and unable to join society because they can’t get a job, and find it easier to stay home and do nothing. Everybody wants to be better, but how?