The Need for Historical Primacy
It is with great humility and with great pride that we tonight will make history for our country and progress for the American people. — Nancy Pelosi1
This president seems particularly fixated on doing something for the sake of historical magnanimity. His election was historical, healthcare reform is historical, cap and trade is historical, we’re at a cross roads in history, etc. The list is long and arduous–historical moments are what this government is all about.
And we may very well be approaching some of the most important events of our era, but our identification of them as such should seem dubious. Who are we to say what will be considered important details in one hundred years time. Certainly President Obama’s election would be one moment, but the passage of a flawed set of rules and regulations that do not approach the change they were believing in?
Perhaps. For good or ill, I don’t know.
I’m just a little unnerved by this unhealthy need to create these moments for the books; it is incredibly egotistical and narcissistic of the lot of them.
Should a man seek history’s pen or should history’s pen seek him? Depends on who is in charge when said pen strokes paper, though I suspect telling everyone you’re doing something historic does not equal historicity.
Cross posted here.
- Pelosi, Nancy. Making History, Making Progress, and Restoring the American Dream. The Gavel Blog. Accessed 4/15/2010. http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=2209
larry • 2 years ago
i understand what you mean mike.
when truman did his thing he was just doing what needed to be done. ergo, history’s pen found him, as you so eloquently put it.
Pointing out the historicity may be a little narcissistic but that doesn’t make it untrue.
Mike • 2 years ago
Teddy Roosevelt advanced a sort of “health insurance” himself, though unsuccessfully, under the progressive banner. In Europe, the newly unified Germany enjoyed a “public health insurance.” That particular fight has been advanced for well over a century here. There is a difference, however, between here and Europe in terms of our governing traditions. What makes our current predicament so historical is our slow abandonment of those principles; but, when we’ve been doing so for over a century, you have to wonder if those are even our traditions anymore. At any rate, I suppose we’ve still not achieved what the Kaiser could.
Pointing out your achievements as historic, however true, belittles those achievements; history judges based on merits (or the historians take) and results. We may yet find that this is the beginning of a wonderful era in our culture, though I suspect not, as the West continues to refuse to defend itself and slowly rot.
larryl • 2 years ago
OMG! The West is turning into a ZOMBIE!!
Mike • 2 years ago
In way that might be a very accurate description. ZOMG!