Justification

History never appealed to me as subject matter. Sure, there's much to be learned there, and I've never been one to call any discipline of education a waste of time (save sociology, which is beating off with a catcher's mitt), but history just never accepted my claws when I tried to dig in. There are a few major occurences I enjoy, a few time periods that I'm truly interested in, and a basic understanding of the events leading up to my existence is possessed on some level... still, it just doesn't jive. Who knows why.

Thing is, I watched a movie last night with a scene that took place, specifically, in December of 1982. This was six months before I was born, roughly three after my parents had done the fun and conceived me (inconceivable as I am). I was not alive. At least, in the pro-choice sense.

This got me thinking. When I watch movies, I experience them, as anyone watching with any concentration does, and thus we become part of the story, part of the period. Stopping and thinking, dangerous as it may sound, showed me that, indeed, I wasn't alive during this scene, fictional as it may be.

I recently saw "Alexander." This took place thousands of years before I even existed. I was nowhere near being made, yet this movie took place in a world that would follow a path, like a bowling ball down a lane, and eventually get to a point where I was. A line could be drawn between the two points, and at one end of the line, I simply wasn't.

This is surreal. Also, slightly disquieting.

Thinking more on this, I started to wonder how much history actually has to teach us. Yes, to show us where we came from, or at least where the world we inhabit came from. Perhaps outside of geological history the point is moot, but historical studies maintain their validity through the retoric of the tried old phrase, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."

Is this really so? Have the mistakes of the past not made for us now a world where such mistakes are much less plausible? The mistakes of Hitler and Napolean taught me never to invade Russia in the winter. Would anyone need to invade Russia in the winter anymore? If they did, hasn't technology gotten to a point where it no longer matters when you want to invade, but more what brand of night-vision, infrared scope you'd like on your voice-commanded automatic personalized Rooskie-wrecker?

And yes, some lessons are important, but they're not so much questions to be answered by history as they are to be answered by ethics or critical thinking. Logic. Is it wrong to kill others? Should we wipe out entire races or religions? What would happen if I added hydrogen to chlorine? Why does that hurt so much?

History, I feel, has little left to teach us. History serves the purpose to orient ourselves in the span of time, and to bring the immense vastness of our heritage, our existential heritage, to some point of perspective.

We live short lives, compared to the span of time. To the universe, we're hardly itches on the pinky toe of the cosmos. To our children, we are gods. To our governments we are sheep. To cats, we are merely space heaters, and the legs that come before the food.

To add upon our many views that of "insignificant speck in the eye of all time" is perhaps too much to ask of the everyday consciousness. Knowing our history, knowing the history of the world in our minds, perhaps brings us closer to it than we could ever actually be, bringing us a calm we might otherwise not know. Without history, without the knowledge of what came before, what a precarious existence we might lead. To not know what came before, to not know what lead to what we are, who we are, is a frightening prospect, even upon the heap of knowledge our predecessors have built and left for us.

We stand on the shoulders of giants, giants we'll never know or be able to truly understand, but at least they're giants we can see.