Maybe Hegel was onto something when he suggested that history is cyclical. He tended to see this as an evolution, a development to a higher consciousness that moved from East to West. From Asia to Europe, the development of humanity, pace Hegel grows from superstition into philosophy, from basic implements to technology. I have never been overly enamoured of Hegel: I do believe that history is cyclical, but I find it difficult to equate progress with the passing of time.
Santayana and Willful Ignorance
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The question is not whether we have become cleverer, but whether we have become wiser. I am typing on a computer. I recall a time when a computer called the Univac was used to forecast the outcome of the 1964 presidential election. Bearing in mind that I was a very young fool at this time, I was struck by the faith in technological progress that was being touted at the execution of a good statistical model and a machine the size of a small building that ran the calculations. Truly, there has been little progress in the theory of computers. The basic theory remains the same: a switch is turned off or turned on. What has changed is the application of the theory. We have become more proficient at turning switches off and on. We have miniaturized and hastened the process. But the process itself remains much the same as it was when the first computers were conceived.
What we have missed is the ability to develop morally and spiritually. I will make a statement that may sound cynical: I do not believe that we are physically capable of moving beyond the immediately perceived pragmatic need of the faction of humanity that is in power. We have developed – evolved? – as predators. The act of predation is to find weakness and to exploit it to the advantage of our faction, our tribe, our need. Identity, power, and intelligence have all been as deeply seeded as our DNA to create us as we are. St. Augustine would have called this original sin: hubris and egoism that disallow selflessness. I am not convinced that history is a process of evolution. I believe that it is a cycle of destruction and rebirth that will continue until we ultimately destroy ourselves. It is not a lack of intelligence. It is a lack of vision that will be our demise.
Conflict that Drives Evolution
The study of history is a study of conflict. This is a given that requires little amplification. The engine that drives progress was defined when we were little more than small apes in competition for limited resources; we ate meat and the proteins caused our brains to grow so we could learn to hunt, kill and eat more meat. This biological necessity has become the mother of warfare, capitalism, politics, religion, and even philosophy. All are predicated on a conflict of needs and opinions, competing visions of meaning or competing for a scrap of food: progress remains a process of elimination, just as definition is a process of exclusion.
The great irony of humanity is our ability to live a nightmare and to dream such dreams of beauty and wonderment. It is the gap between day and night that causes our darkest fears to drive our lives while our deepest dreams remain unrealized. Who among us, liberal or conservative be damned, does not want to live a life of peace and joy? And yet we cling tenaciously to penultimate and finally insufficient dogmas that serve to promulgate the evolutionary conflict. There will be one winner. And when that last person is standing, she or he, too, will die. For what? A doctrine? A life-style?
Diogenes’ Lantern
I have shone the light of Diogenes’ lantern on my face and I have to say that I have failed the test, too. I am not such a cynic as all of this implies. The fact that I dare to dream, and belong to a species that dreams, says that there is yet hope. The evolutionary imperative toward competition must be altered. The competition has to presuppose that there is one humanity. We are not liberal, conservative, communist or capitalist. We are not of a race or of a sexual proclivity. We are human, first, last, and always.
What does history teach us, what is the lesson that we must learn and have, as a whole, failed to grasp? I will be presumptuous and hazard a guess: It is to see that we share a common destiny.
Beyond the First Person Singular
Forgive the awkward grammatical image: What has hurt us and has created us is the drive to assert “my” right to live over and against “your” right. Buber would have called this an “I/It” relationship. The other is a means to an end, an obstacle to overcome. Think about the epithets of warfare. The enemy is never thought of as human. The enemy is a “gook,” “heretic,” “nigger,” “fag,” and so on. The uglier the epithet, the greater the fear. Really, what have to fear in each other? Why do we need to be the greatest at the expense of the other?
