I love history. It was my favorite subject in school but has also been a lifelong passion.
I wanted to teach History. But, alas, that was not to be. I had a teaching degree that qualified me to teach it, but no one was interested in a history teacher who couldn't coach a sport. That didn't diminish my love of history, even though I am only an amateur historian.
One of the writing projects that fired me up in my late teens and early 20s was the idea of a novel inspired by James Michener, entitled Saginaw. It was intended to be a multi-generational story crossing through the history of the Saginaw area.
It would start with a conflict between two native American tribes fighting to control the Saginaw area. Subsequent parts would deal with French fur trappers and their battles with the English, the timber era and how Saginaw became the center of the lumberjack barons and their demolishment of Michigan's great forests, the rise of the auto industry and the new immigrant groups that came in (Polish, German, the South), and finally, about the 1970s and the white flight from Saginaw to the suburbs.
The point was, whether peaceful or by force, the culture of Saginaw was constantly changing, always evolving. Culture isn't fixed. It's constantly adapting, always blending.
It's essential to have a sense of history. It's important to know where you're from, understand what has happened in the past, and learn lessons from it.
What we must never do is think we can freeze culture where it is and never let it change. We cannot, for example, apply Bedouin cultural standards to modern industrial society.
Technology and knowledge change things. Sticking with fossil fuels when we know what damage they do is foolish. Because people were comfortable with child brides in the past doesn't mean we should be comfortable with them today. Because women didn't have the right to vote over a century ago, it doesn't mean they should be denied it today.
We don't live like our grandparents did. We don't get around in horses and buggies or Model T's. We can travel to Europe without it being a weeks-long ocean voyage. We've gone from radio to a TV station to several TV stations to thousands of streaming choices. We've gone from socializing through day-long church events and town festivals to social media that connects us around our globe in ways that both free us and connect us but also enforce our worst instincts and spread hate and ignorance as well as love and knowledge.
Some things have stuck with us for centuries, like our holy texts, Shakespeare, and silverware. Others last for decades, like some of our foods, our sporting games, and our religious rituals. Before we know it, other things are in and out, like fashion, music, and what we find funny.
Sports do ebb and flow. Baseball used to be our national pastime. Now it is American football. Who knows? In another few decades, it may become soccer. Or pickleball. Who knows? Golf was high in popularity but is declining now. I wonder what that means in the future to retirement communities such as The Villages in Florida, which build their communities around dozens of golf courses. That, too, is the nature of things. Cities that seemed vital in the past become less meaningful over time, with many becoming ghost cities.
There is a long tradition of gun ownership in this country. But that is changing, particularly why or what they're used for. Hunting, like it or not, is declining in this country. At one time, it was a necessity. Now it is a sport and a luxury. People keep guns to connect to their family's past, but that will mean less and less to future generations over time. Gun ownership now is mainly a result of fear of the other, the refusal to accept change, and the desire to hold back other groups and freeze culture.
That is bunk. You can't hold back time. You can't stop change.
Over time, everyone will replace us. The culture of the future will only marginally be like ours. That has its good and bad aspects. But it is inevitable.
There was another thread to this I wanted to pursue, but this is long enough. I will try to follow that other thread in a future post.
Thank you for reading.
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