Never
Again
Nov
7 2024
When
he said the end of history
I
doubt he meant rewriting the past.
That
is, the end of history
as
we know it
— as
if what we all took for granted
didn’t
happen after all.
Or
meant that history would end
by
forgetting it entirely
— the
memory hole
of
Orwell’s imagining.
Rather,
I think he envisioned the end
as
a sunlit upland
of
equality
prosperity
and
enlightenment.
As
a consensus
on
how to govern ourselves
and
what we value in life.
That
at the end of history
we’d
finally be done
with
all the sturm und drang
and
existential angst.
But
the lessons of recent history
as
well as the deeper past
leave
me wondering
if
we’ve actually progressed,
even
if it’s just 2 steps ahead
while
falling back 1.
So
that the history
of
civilized man
resembles
a saw-edged graph
that
keeps sloping ever upward
— somewhat
erratic, but progress of a sort.
The
way a drunk staggers out
after
last call
but
eventually makes it home.
Or
instead of a line
trending
steadily upward
as
an arrow aims higher,
does
history move in cycles?
A
closed circle,
repeating
over and over
the
mistakes we failed to learn.
Or
perhaps a pendulum
tick-tocking
back and forth;
reacting,
over-correcting,
then
changing direction again.
Because
while we flatter ourselves
that
we’ve become wiser
better
informed
and
more moral than before,
we’re
still the same human beings
our
forbears were;
no
less hypocritical
cynical
or
ill-informed,
with
the same basic instincts
intrinsic
flaws.
And
neither are we that far removed
from
our primate progenitors,
with
whom
as
with the chimpanzees and apes
so
much DNA is shared;
competing
for status and mates,
defending
turf,
deferring
to
the chest-beating egoists.
So
now, in a 21st century
that
threatens to reprise the 20th
as
if no lessons were learned,
it
would seem the end of history
is
one of both:
rewriting,
as well as forgetting.
Of
self-serving leaders
who
selectively edit the past,
while
young people
know
little of this century
let
alone the last;
of
its wars, fascism, genocides
and
strong-man rule.
That’s
“genocides”, plural:
we
may have vowed never again
but
somehow still did.
Or
will the end of history
be
none of these?
Instead,
might it end altogether,
in
whatever man-made calamity
we
sleepwalk into?
Perhaps
a nuclear exchange
or
climate change,
a
pandemic
as
deadly as the last
but
managed even worse.
And
all because
we
never learned
and
failed to take care.
Counting
down the days
until
no one remembers
because
no one’s even left.
Another
poem inspired by Trump. This time post-election.
The original title was "Francis Fukuyama", after the academic who became famous for coining the phrase the end of history. What I understand he meant was a consensus about steady progress toward a more equal world of democracy, globalism, and the liberal international order. (Although if he also had in mind capitalism -- that is, our current consumerist growth dependent sort of capitalism -- then I would take issue. Consumerism and perpetual growth are unsustainable. A market economy -- if it's unregulated, unenlightened, and libertarian -- is unsustainable. And not just in the long run!)
A
man who is not only largely ignorant the past (as well as much else!)
and twists what he does know, but is actually shameless enough to
brazenly rewrite the present! His ability to lie and distort are
pathological. Maybe even to the extent of fooling himself into truly
believing. Although I see in Trump far more self-serving cynicism
than delusion. Not to mention, as the poem says, the archetype of the
chest-beating egoist.
And
an electorate that either isn’t paying attention (people, after
all, lead busy difficult lives, and have neither the time nor the
energy to keep up with the news), or doesn’t known enough about the
past to be scared (the failure of our schools to teach history and
civics, let alone media literacy and critical thinking skills). Or
worse, doesn’t care.
So
while we are happily distracting ourselves, political discourse is
coarsened, democracy under threat, the international order
destabilized, and authoritarians everywhere encouraged. Out of
ignorance, we risk letting ourselves slip back into the 1930s: a
repeat of fascism, protectionist trade wars, and lost prosperity.
Which
would be consistent with a cyclic view of history. Except that now,
the existential threats of nuclear weapons and climate change loom.
The end of history for real.
I
find that this sort of poem is more suited to prose. So these are the
hardest to get right. Saying
not too much and not too little, while getting it to land just so on
the tongue and ear. It can be a push/pull between prosody and
content.
