Historical Arguments

If I was a historian, I think I'd be asking myself, "Am I just wasting my time?"

It was said, by someone much smarter than me, that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." You would think that would make history and historians pretty important and yet, historians appear to be the Cassandra of academics. 

Two men standing on a street corner; a Historian and a Man Wearing a Hat...

Historian: Bad things happened under similar circumstances in the past and if we don't make some fundamental, structural changes within our social and political infrastructure those bad things will happen again here and now! As well as there and later!

Man Wearing a Hat: Okay, sure, but like I was saying, do you know if there's a Starbucks around here?

Historian: I don't think you understand the potentially existential threat you're facing, we're facing, all of us are facing.

Man Wearing a Hat: Aroma Joe's, maybe? Dunks, even?

Historian: History is the blueprint, the architectural elevations, the roadmap to success and progress or abject failure, regression, and death.

Man Wearing a Hat: Any mentions in that roadmap as to where I might get a cup of coffee? I'm happy to continue our interesting if totally downbeat conversation but I'm really going to need a cup of coffee, first. And a chocolate croissant, if possible.

Historian: Walk with me; there's a Starbucks right up the street.

Cut to… The Historian and the Man Wearing a Hat sitting at a table in Starbucks with coffees and croissants...

Man Wearing a Hat: So, I hear what you're saying but I can't see how anything BB is relevant to the world we live in today.

Historian: BB? You mean, uh, BC?

Man Wearing a Hat: BC? No. BB. Before Bezos. Granted, one individual's birth is an arbitrary marker but it's evocative, don't you think? Anyway, wherever you draw the line, totally different world today. Digital. Social media platforms. Democratization of the truth. Robots. Autonomous vehicles. 3D printers. 4K. 5G. International supply chains. Crypto. Centralization of wealth and economic apartheid... It isn't all sunshine and puppies, I suppose… Call me crazy but I think we finish the giant space arks long before the planet dies. 

Historian: Giant space arks?

Man Wearing a Hat: It will be a multi-generational journey to reach Proxima Centauri.

Historian: Of course. So, you don't think it wouldn't be easier just to fix things here on Earth? Maybe examine the mistakes we've made in the past and learn from them?

Man Wearing a Hat: Fix them! You almost made me spit my coffee! Let me ask you this, then: How do you predict the future?

Historian: Well, I wouldn't use the word predict but you can certainly project a limited set of possible outcomes based on current state and inputs.

Man Wearing a Hat: So you agree; you can't predict the future.

Historian: Perhaps I shouldn't have been quite so nuanced in my response.

Man Wearing a Hat: So, how do you take these so-called lessons from an unrelated past and apply them to an unknown future?

Historian: By using a constant.

Man Wearing a Hat: A constant?

Historian: People. Human Beings. Circumstances may change. I would argue that patterns persist despite the set of circumstantial variables. but the one certainty we can rely on in predicting future outcomes from past events is people. Throughout our existence on the planet, we have murdered, stolen from, and enslaved our fellow human beings. Greed. Vanity. Avarice. Ambition. Fear. Cowards are always plentiful and heroes are always in short supply. 

Man Wearing a Hat: (raising his coffee cup) Well, at least the heroes gave us Starbucks.

Historian: (raising his cup) Let them eat croissants!

Man Wearing a Hat: We should do this again sometime.

Historian: We will.