Essay: The only lesson we can learn from history is that we cannot learn from history

To understand our nature, history and psychology, we must look back on our ancestors past through their perspective. For example, the hunter-gatherer diet provides a useful lens for reexamining concepts we believe to be true such as the benefits of the Paleo diet. However, in order to accurately access this oldest branch of humanity’s culture, we must let go of any preconceived notions and rediscover each innovation in technology – even those as primal as the alphabet or language – as it if was each one was a foreign and unimaginable concept. Relinquish any complex suppositions about human interaction such as the concept of rank and status or any suppositions about social structure. At last, it is only when all predetermined assumptions are abandoned, that we are able to permit ourselves to understand the reality of human experience.
The Neolithic Revolution, encompasses the passage in homosapien history from nomadic hunter-gatherers to the creation of permanent agricultural settlements. Although there is no single factor that lead to the development of farming, the amalgamation of climate changes at the end of the ice age favored the domestication of plants and animals and lead to the formation of complex societies. The emergence of civilizations, however, was also marked by the apparition of record-keeping, symbolic expression and the alphabet. This transition from primary oral culture to literate culture, which featured the invention of writing, necessitated an increasingly complex set of linguistics in order to keep up with the rapid pace of evolution.
In a word, language is inextricable from our culture. Words are more than just a means of conveying information to one another, they are the foundation upon which we think, interact and communicate. In essence, they are the building blocks of human expression which permits social cohesion. In fact, oral cultures embody the earliest forms of verbal expression, delineated by aggregate syntax, situated conceptualization and agonistic intellectual combat. Thus, language is incapable of translating and expressing the fundamental reality of human experience since is intrinsically individual, as are our emotions or our intimate thoughts.
However, there is no thought without language; consequently, as long as it is not formulated, all thoughts are indefinite, without object or precise meaning. Our intuitions can only be transformed into thoughts when we express them through language, because this process necessitates us to clarify what we want to convey. Although it is widely considered that the advent of writing was a favorable step in the evolution of humankind, Harari, similarly to Lanchester, emphasizes that we cannot neglect the negative consequences that literacy had on our culture and society.
On a primal level, society is a universal war involving everyone against everyone, due to the opposition between the unlimited characteristic of desire and the limited resources. It is only the social pact among humans that establishes sovereignty that allows the development of a peaceful society where other pacts become possible. In essence, society is derived from the natural obdurate inclination of humans to exchange – a phenomenon which is not seen anywhere in the animal world – which is fundamentally cooperative and is a coextension of the division of labour. In fact, it was the ability to tax, which was brought about by writing and record-keeping, which led to the creation of complex societies. This not only affected how we interacted with one another but also how we communicated and refined our thought process.
Language is the instrument that enables us to define ideas, affirm values and develop arguments. Consciousness, which is expressed through language, implies a dialectic : an individual’s identity can be defined by their independence and by opposition to others, however, this also implies a certain dependence within the relationship. Individual awareness is then a subset of the awareness that a certain collective conscience has of itself. Ergo, society is the natural environment of homosapiens -the only environment in which our nature, rooted in thought, finds itself nourished and grown by debate – notably political in origin.
Every language is fascist in the sense that every language imposes – through its semantics and syntax – limits and a strict order of what can be said and thought. Personal pronouns, for example, govern how a person can be identified in terms of gender; however, an author could invent new pronouns to give expression to non-conformist gender identities. The function of literature is to be culturally liberating by revolutionizing language. Therefore, in a world where we are unable to access our conscious thinking and governed by imposing prohibitions of the superego, we must strive to demolish anything that controls our ability to foster evolution.
In conclusion, the only lesson we can learn from history is that we cannot learn from history. In effect, a historical event is by definition an event that never happened before, and never will happen again. An event is historical precisely because it was unpredictable and unique, embedded in a context so absolutely particular, that no general rule can be drawn from it. We of course have an understanding of history as it follows, on the scale of humanity, the same type of development as the individual during his or her life: a process of progress (scientific, moral, political, etc) that is that of his freedom and self-awareness. However, the interpretation of each stage and transition in this process can only be done after the fact. Furthermore, historical processes are less readable a priori since they are dialectical, consisting of constant reversals of trends. Overall, we can analyze the oldest branch of humanity infinitely, but that does not mean that the observations we make and the conclusions we draw will be applicable relevant if applied to our modern society.
2019-2-11-1549869347