It would be very hard to set “rules” for the uses of history. First of all, there would be no one to enforce them, so those who stuck to the rules would be at a disadvantage. To paraphrase the bandits in the old movie, “rules, we don’t need no stinking rules.” If history is the story of what really happened, there would be big fights over exactly what did happen. This can be a good thing, and maybe some rules of engagement and civility would be helpful. But “rules?” Won’t work. Instead, here are some ideas for making the best use of history.
Thinking in time is valuable: To understand anything, it is always useful to ask two questions: what is the story? And what is it like? The past and comparisons help us understand where we are and what our choices are for the future. Let’s take a simple example to demonstrate the value of history. The current financial crisis was partly produced by a belief that something that had never happened before was going to happen now. That is, that the price of something, in this case, housing, was going to go up forever. A quick review of economic history would have made it very clear that something bad was going to happen.
But suggesting that understanding the story and thinking in time are valuable assumes that the goal is understanding rather than scoring points. Let’s look at another example: the health care “debate.” The abuses of history and false comparisons that we have seen in this one have been pretty awful. And the likely consequences if these abuses succeed will be dire because they will show that falsifying history and making bogus comparisons can work in a big way if you put a lot of money behind them.
If we are to believe the opponents of the proposed reforms, we are in danger of losing the world’s best health care system and replacing it with one that would be so horrible that everyone would join it, at least until they were ordered to die. On the right, the misuses of history and comparisons to other systems, especially the Canadian, French and British, have been beyond disgraceful. Among the proponents of reform, the distortions have been not of the past, but in refusing to acknowledge that saving money means somebody has to get less.
None of the “stakeholders” seem interested in using history to understand. Only to use it as a club to beat their opponents over the head. This dishonest strategy has been successful in creating doubt and driving down President Obama’s popularity. But at what cost? The value of thinking in time and using valid comparisons has been squandered in a torrent of lies and distortions, led by major corporations and abetted by the mainstream media.
Tell the truth: In 1960, an American spy plane, the U-2, was shot down over the Soviet Union. The Eisenhower Administration said that the plane had been on a weather mission and strayed off course. They did not know that the Soviets had captured the pilot alive, and that he had confessed that the plane was on a spying mission. At the time, the fact that the Administration had lied was a very big deal. News organizations and ordinary citizens were shocked and appalled. Today this kind of public lying is par for the course, and government, corporations and news organizations, especially cable news, engage in it all the time. Rather than being shocked, we now assume that people are lying.
Descartes once stated that “the most corrupting lies are problems misstated.” We live in the age of misstated problems, and most of these misstatements are intentional. We pay a huge price in lost trust for this dishonesty. There is a pretty simple rule: tell the truth to the extent that we know it, and don’t use historic facts in a selective way that distorts what actually happened.
Be sure you know who “we” are: Who “we” are is always a question of history. Virgin Islanders occupy a half-full/half-empty position in American political life. But they are not alone. Over the past three decades, when our political leaders, especially Republican ones, have cited the will of the “American People,” I have come to realize that, in their view, I am not part of the American people. Their “American People” do not live in big cities, are white, conservative, Christian non-immigrants who like guns, don’t want to pay taxes and don’t trust the government. A lot of people are left out of “we.”
The Virgin Islands has a different take on who “we” are, depending on who is doing the defining and what they are trying to achieve. As in the case of narrowing the definition of the “American People,” the goal of those whose mantra is “born here” is to exclude others and to limit certain benefits to “real” Virgin Islanders.
History does teach us something here. It is that fanning the flames of division and exclusion is a dangerous game. When those who are not “the American People” or “born here” become the “others” and feel threatened, bad consequences often follow. These consequences typically lead to another challenge in the uses of history: the need to cover up or lie about what “we” did to “them.” Inclusion and thinking beyond our group, of a larger “we,” is hard work, but it produces much happier outcomes.
History is messy: Americans are big on heroes. One result is that history becomes the story of the good guys (us) against the bad guys (them). The result is the creation of a false reality. History is not neat. It is a mess. People, even “great” people, act for a variety of motives, and because they are people, they are inevitably flawed.
Ignoring this messiness and engaging in hero worship reduces our ability to use the past as a tool to deal with the present. Why were things so much simpler in the past? Answer: they weren’t. It was always messy and there was always a lot of gray rather than black and white. Why can’t we have heroic figures to lead us out of the mess we are in? Answer: we don’t need them. We need a lot of good people working toward a set of common ends.
Ancient history is ancient history: Israelis and Palestinians are digging around trying to prove who lived where 2,000 years ago. Competing anthropologies. That should solve the problem. Serbs celebrate their defeat (proof that they are victims) in a battle that took place more than 600 years ago. Collective memory, the way that a group remembers history, almost always focuses on something terrible that happened to us. Given the nature of our species and our treatment of one another, these memories always have a core truth. But they are often used to justify some new mistreatment of others, creating someone else’s collective memory of victimization.
What good does holding on to this version of history do? It is almost impossible to cite an example of the uses of collective memory helping to bring people together. This does not mean that history, ancient or recent, shouldn’t be dealt with. “Let’s move on” is all too often the response of those who are guilty of something. But at some point it is important to move on. The most hopeful approach to this problem is the “truth and reconciliation commissions” used to deal with the crimes of apartheid in South Africa. If the goal is to find reconciliation and bring people together, letting go of ancient history becomes easier. On the contrary, if the goal is to whack the others and make them feel guilty, why would you want to let go of it?
These are big picture uses of history, and these suggestions can be useful tools in “framing” our approach. Most of us also live in a day-to-day world where history’s impacts are present at the micro-level. These impacts are the reflection of where we are in the life-cycle of the business or organization where we work. Part III will deal with understanding the life-cycle of our organization, big or small, government agency, non-profit or business and some ideas for achieving organizational success through the use of history.
