Re-litigation of anything is a tricky business, as it attempts to re-wind, re-phrase, review things that really are lost in the fog of then, vs. now. Dueling links and arguing “facts” about what was only increase the fog machine. Even history does not agree with itself.
The latest pick your pie flavor is the story of Clinton and her faith advisor, from 2008. I will not say one word about this, except to say my initial reaction to this story was, really?!?! And it remains my reaction to this story.
Here’s why. We are now moving towards 10 years later, and Imo, times don’t change in a nice neat linear and equally timed line, it changes, geometrically, and pops out here there and everywhere, way outside any linear line, and way outside of what we can predict. IOW, change has babies, so the more change, the more changes and faster, there will be. So what used to be considered a lot of change 100 years ago, is not the super amped up change we face today.
So when we say “history will repeat itself if we don’t learn from it,” I say, history is important, but only one slice of the pie, and one that is becoming thinner as progress moves faster. History can only teach the lessons that were available at the time, it cannot provide answers to things that were not factors at that time.
Yes, human nature doesn’t change all that much, but the things that wick and inflame our nature, in various ways, and how we respond, ARE changing at warp speed.
And, there’s a difference between looking at broader concepts of success and failure, and arguing about the same old details over and over again.
I don’t EVER EXPECT there to be an agreement on Clinton vs. Sanders on this site, and WE DON’T NEED ONE. Whatever our challenges as progressives are, they surely have and will continue to surprise and confound us enough, without putting so much emphasis on what was then. I think we’ve all learned as much as we’re willing to learn from the 2016 primaries and election at this point, and no one is convincing anyone of different, and it saddens me to see the energy wasted trying to do so, and swiping at each other over things we can no longer effect, and times that have moved past us.
Yes, those times HAVE moved past us. And the present is throwing us all kinds of new hard balls while we argue about the past.
As a former history teacher, I am always reminded, yes, how much we remain the same, but if you are a student of history, you also become very cognizant of how much things change. Again, WE might not be all that different as human beings, but the things that shape our responses and actions are VERY DIFFERENT.
To take an easy example, Lincoln remains one of our most respected presidents, for good reason, and yet a simple read of many of his words will show him to be outrageously outdated in many of his attitudes, as he is entitled to be, in his grave, because he isn’t here and now. And here and now IS very different than the years he lived and guided this country.
This idea that if we don’t keep arguing about 2016, we won’t do well in 2018 or 2020, is just not Imo, where it’s at. Hillary will not run again, and in the end, I doubt Bernie will either. So, we will be faced with new personalities , new opportunities and new problems in whoever our candidates might be.
And while those candidates will certainly take a page or two out of history, they will have to be on their toes enough to realize that history follows us, not the other way around.
I wish I had a wand that would cleanse us all of all the unnecessary and wasteful bickering about the past, and give us the strength to take on a very challenging future, that is going to keep accelerating change at a rate it is imperative we keep up with.