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universal face-palm- the lament of a history major

If you've been online today and catching snippets of news you may have seen a report that the Pro-Russian government of Eastern Ukraine had been passing out leaflets informing that Jewish citizens were being required to register with the government. At this moment it's not entirely clear if this is a real thing or propaganda against the pro-Russians in charge. It's not good either way, because it's incredibly tragic that the world keeps coming back to the same tactics as it always does as a political ploy. Or actual racism. 

I want to believe that we've moved past this, but unfortunately I was a history major.

Being a history major is super depressing y'all.

The inherent problem with studying history is that you can't ever make the argument that history doesn't repeat itself. Study it long enough and you realize that humankind sucks and we're pretty bad at learning not to screw things up (disclaimer: I studied German history). History is written by the victors, but the victors are always very clear about why they are victorious, much to the dissatisfaction of the losers. I believe this is why so many southerners are still proudly southern and holding on to the states' rights aspect of the Civil War. I can't think of anyone that I know well in the south that wouldn't agree that slavery was terrible and the Civil War ending it was a good thing. I also know a lot of people who will make arguments that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. We interpret things in ways that try to protect our heritage and dignity- it's human nature, and there are shades of truth to both sides. Neither side of any conflict can claim to have purely altruistic motives. Even in WWII, the United States didn't really enter the conflict until it was bombed. We want to be motivated by altruism, but we're more often motivated by self-preservation.

And it's not an American problem, it's an every society problem. And that's why being a history major is depressing. You can't escape the brutality or apathy of humanity. Albeit that the majority of humanity will never be recorded in a history book and will more than likely never do anything so terrible to warrant being in a textbook. At the same time, the amazing people society remembers is impressive given how dwarfed they are by battles and genocides and intolerance and indifference. 

I don't take a lot of stock in personality tests. Knowing what my Myer-Briggs/Strength Finders/ennegram/astrology/blood-type/West Wing character is can be helpful, but some answered questions and anecdotes about myself will never make a complete picture. Especially given my hunger and tired levels when I take them. But all of those have led me to believe that my personality is inclined to be an observer. My brain wants to find connections between things. I collect stories about people and try to paint a more intricate picture, to look at how something in your life has caused you to become who you are. I think this is why I'm drawn to history, especially social history (and it's children anthropology and sociology). 

But my tests also indicate that I have a strong sense of hope and idealism that seems to be resilient to my history courses. I am a a paradox. I both know that human history has a terrible track record of not being terrible, but also a great hope that despite our inability to get things right, there is still an innate quality of the world that is good. 

I think that's why I'm a historian turned theologian (if you can call me either of those things). My impression is that there's something good in the world that persists despite how dark and bad things are, or how we more quickly repeat the tragedies of the past. I don't believe that we are evolving to be better, more moral people. I do believe that we were created good and we forget that and in forgetting that we strip away our goodness and hurt one another. I believe that it's easier to not be good or to believe that we're on a trajectory to eventually being good, then to admit that maybe we are good all along and take ownership of returning to that. 

Mother Theresa said that "if we have no peace, it's because we have forgotten that we belong to one another," and she has a point. If I believe that I'm good and you're good, at our most basic levels, it's impossible for me to hate you. How can you hate what's good? I can hate what you do. I can tell you that something you're doing is so bad it's evil (although I'd probably just tell you that what most of what you are doing is just annoying since I don't think I'm friends with any sociopaths), but you, you as a part of this creation were not meant to be bad. You were meant to be good. You are good, we've just forgotten how to be who we are.

 I love Umberto Eco's quote from Foucault's Pendulum about history: That's just the point. Everything is repeated, in a circle. History is the master because it teaches us that it doesn't exist. It's the permutations that matter.

So maybe we are just stuck in a circle. The great thing about permutations is that every once in awhile they are broken in  It's too early to say happy Easter since we haven't gone through Good Friday yet, but Happy Easter- happy broken permutation.
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I'll update on the progress of various blog things on Monday when I have some extra time.

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