Sunday, February 22, 2015

Is it a Rerun or a Repeat?

The interesting thing about looking at history and then attempting to draw parallels with a contemporary situation is that you can fall into a trap that will mislead you. To see how this can happen, imagine yourself turning on the television set and seeing a riot happening somewhere in the world. You watch for a minute and then turn off the TV because you believe you saw this scene before.

As you ponder the meaning of the riot, a question begins to nag you: Was that a rerun of the tape I saw before? Or was it a scene that has unfolded in the way that it did before? In other words: Did I see history repeat itself exactly as it did before? Or did history put on a show that only mimicked what it did once before? And there lies the dilemma of looking at history then trying to match moment for moment what happened in the past with what is happening now.

In addition, what we must keep in mind is that our view of history is only an interpretation of the never-complete knowledge we have of it. Also, our view of the contemporary scene is only an interpretation of the facts and the fiction that we choose to believe in. Thus, the attempt to draw parallels between history and a contemporary situation is an exercise that can be no better than ten percent science and ninety percent art. But how useful can that be, if it can at all?

To answer this question, we look at five thousand years of human thought on the subject. Surprisingly, we find the record to be remarkably simple and remarkably consistent. It is that thinkers, writers and ponderers – sages all – have boiled down the whole thing to a two pronged approach to life. They say that one prong will lead to a happy ending while the other will lead to a tragedy. But considering that in every unfolding drama, the two prongs do exist simultaneously, how do we know which side to take and which to suppress?

Well, it seems that Victor Davis Hanson is trying to answer that question. His latest attempt comes in the form of an article he wrote under the title: “Our Dangerous Historical Moment” and the subtitle: “Obama and European leaders are repeating the mistakes of their 1930s predecessors.” It was published on February 19, 2015 in National Review Online.

After drawing blow by blow parallels between the present and a past which he says has caused “the most destructive war in history,” Hanson posits in a very subtle manner that the world is made of a handful of good people, a handful of bad people and a whole lot of indifferent people. He then says that the destructive war happened because the indifferent people were too apathetic to join the handful of good people who wanted to confront the bad ones, and stop them before they do the damage that they did. And he suggests that the same thing is happening again at this time.

Of course, if Hanson's cherry picking of historical events are the only legitimate highlights of the era, if his interpretation of these events is the correct one, and if his description of the current situation is impeccable, then his conclusions as well as his suggestion will have to be considered absolutely correct. And the consequence of this will have to be that the world must mobilize right away, and go on a rampage to kill everyone that is pointed at by the finger of a Jew.

But this is not how the thinkers, writers and ponderers of the bygone eras are telling us to look at events. In fact, they caution that you cannot always judge someone by their appearance, and that a wolf comes in sheep's clothing … which is why every script has its unexpected twists and turns. The sages also say that the apparently indifferent people of the world are actually active both mentally and emotionally, except that they move slowly because they are a cautious bunch. These people take their time, say the sages, before deciding on something, but when they take a side or suppress one, they are always correct.

This being the case, the very fact that humanity has always sided with the Jews at the start of an event only to turn against them after the latter move to Jew the world, says that the silent majority of the human race is the good bunch that brings order back each time that the Jews screw it up.

And we should expect the same thing to happen again sooner or later.