HISTORY: PART II

HISTORY IS HAPPENING: PART II

(A continuation of the Previous Blog Entry)

In the history of human development, economic inequality — the outrageous gap between the “haves and the have nots” — is shortened through one of four events.  They are:

1. War
2. Pandemic
3. Revolution
4. State Failure

This is the message at the heart of THE GREAT LEVERER written by Stanford historian Walter Scheidel and published in 2017.  He gives these examples.

The Black Plague resulted in labor shortages which forced raised wages and ultimately undermined the entire feudal system.

The U.S. Civil War abolished slavery (free labor) and gave rise to the 1862 Homestead Act. This legislation awarded 160 acres of publicly held land to any U.S. citizen or freed slave, age 21 or older. Ultimately 270 million acres were claimed and settled, giving rise toward U.S. middle class development.

World War I changed the role of women in world economies and paved the way for emancipation.

World War II elevated the role of labor unions in the U. S. and facilitated the creation of postwar welfare states in Europe and the National Health Services in Britain.

In an opinion piece written for The New Yorker, John Cassidy suggests that the current covid-19 pandemic will have consequences equally far reaching.  Our government has just passed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package — about 10% of American GDP and similar to one passed following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  

Good idea? Poor use of funds? Too much given to one group and not enough to another? These things can be discussed but there is one certain fact: it was accomplished with head spinning speed during a time when party politics all but deadlocks passage of anything.

What’s to come next? Some form of medicare for all! Health services are already feeling the quakes of change. As medical delivery systems are drowning in efforts to keep up with virus demands, ordinary general health issues are being diagnosed via telemedicine. Where do doctor fees (and overhead) and insurance costs fit into that scenario?  Generations of debate about a U.S. national health system almost certainly will come to a head with this outbreak.

I may not live long enough to tract all the changes — and some surprising ones! —  resulting from “The Virus That Made the World Stop”…but changes there will be! 

HISTORY LIVED

One of many on-line games posted during the 2020 quarantine

Pay attention. History is happening.

If you are between ages 18 and dead, somebody someday will ask you about 2020 — that time when a virus shut down the world. How will you answer? You could begin with the affects of global warming. You could jump to the increasing denigration of science that led to nearly fatal skepticism of all factual evidence — especially in the United States. Maybe you want to talk a bit about disappearing boundaries — the nomadic lives and transit of goods on a planet shrunk down to the size of a grape. 

Or maybe you’ll simply shrug your shoulders and change the subject.

History is like this — day by day. While in the epicenter of events, no-one can predict how the course of human development — culturally, socially, politically, economically — could shift in totally unforeseen ways.  

My grandson called me from college one night. He had an assignment to interview someone of an “older generation” and ask “what was the greatest historic event that happened in your lifetime?” If you want to inspire interesting conversation around a dinner table, throw that challenge out and be surprised at the responses.

Clearly, some events have HISTORIC EVENT written in huge letters, i.e., the assassinations of world leaders, man’s landing on the moon, war — its beginning and its ending. But others creep into the spotlight only decades later. One man’s answer at my own dinner party was “invention and distribution of birth control pills. It radically changed the lives of women and expectations and definitions of marriage.” 

My older brother regrets that he never wrote a memoir and for good reason. He lived a unique story. He played a significant role in two wars — Korea and Viet Nam — and met with leaders who made decisions that had worldwide impact. But the memoir writing seemed an insurmountable job, a task woven into complicated political fabric, too complicated to pick apart. 

Many of us feel that our stories are not worth the telling. Memoirs, we believe, based on "best sellers," are written by people who survived extraordinary afflictions or addictions. Or those that won great acclaim, prizes, recognition. But the  stories that made Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation” remarkable were those simple letters from regular young people written from foreign stations to their family or friends back home. The wonderful Ken Burns series about the Civil War soared not with the retelling of specific Civil War battles and the Gettysburg Address but those intimate details spliced together from “just folks” caught up in moments of history.

So, "just folks,” keep a diary. Write in a journal every now and then. Use your smart phone and record a snip of yours or someone else’s conversation. Take a photograph. There are millions — well, hundreds anyway — of ways to document your life. Don't tackle all 100 years. Talk about something today -- or this week -- a funny story or something poignant. 

The point is it’s your life. You are existing in a unique time and place. You have a view from your perch that nobody else has.   

It matters.