History

I am going to start out today's post with a quote from the book The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth. Because of a couple of references, you might need a bit of background to understand what is happening. *NO SPOILERS WILL BE GIVEN- ONLY BASIC BACKGROUND* The Plot Against America is an alternate history novel, speculating what would have occurred if Charles Lindbergh had won the presidential election that was actually Roosevelt's third term. Lindbergh was a known anti-Semite, and this book is told from the perspective of a young Jewish boy looking back on that time. At this point, the father of the boy has just come to a realization, and the boy is stunned by his father's sudden hopelessness.

"And as Lindbergh's election couldn't have made clearer to me, the unfolding of the unforeseen was everything. Turned wrong way round, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as "History", harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic."

This quote struck me as extremely powerful. The message that it sends is an important one, as important to us today as it was to the young boy in the 1940's. Roosevelt himself said only the election before, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I do not think this is an accurate statement. As shown by the passage, the greatest fear is that of the unknown. Over time, people tend to forget about that fear. What we all think of as "harmless history" was unthinkable and unexpected to people at that time. Today, things are constantly happening in the World that we can't foresee or prepare for. The message that I take away from this passage is to never get too comfortable with how things are, because you never know what's around the next corner.

Another point that this passage makes, though it might not appear to make it outside of context, is the message that all of our actions have far-reaching consequences. Every tiny decision you make effects thousands of things that you can't possibly know about beforehand. It's impossible to take all of these things into account with each decision you make, but it's a good philosophy to always make decisions keeping their potential impact in mind.

I have deleted the picture I posted because it was too small to read. Sorry :(