When History Fails “Life is just one damned thing after another,” Arnold J. Toynbee
What, if anything, can the 2017 events at the University of Virginia campus teach about where we are as a country? For one thing, it tells us that we have done a poor job of educating our citizens about not only our country, but the world-as-a-whole. The images of white American males flooding through a college campus spouting a slogan that has no historical significance for them was disturbing on several levels. Add to this the fact that not even our President understands what level this historical dysfunction reaches are catastrophic for our nation. We are now faced with a national crisis of greater historical significance, and once again, our understanding of history fails us.
When I teach American students about World War I, I must provide a background in European history so that they can begin to understand the underlying problems that led to the hostilities. Most survey courses focus on the preparations for war and the various battles and then the one-sided peace treaty that set up the economic catastrophes of the depression of the 1930s. But there was another story paying out at the same time as the war’s ending, events that also had a hand in setting up conditions that contributed to the disastrous 1930s, the Spanish Flu pandemic. As I pointed out in a previous post: The statistics of the 1918 pandemic were astounding: An estimated 500 million were infected worldwide, with somewhere between 20-50 million deaths. In the United States 675,000 flu deaths, a figure ten times the American WWI battlefield deaths. Many European countries saws even greater decimation of their population. Coupled with the war dead, these losses left a void in the generation assuming leadership positions in the decade after the war. This left the European post-war governments open to radical ideas.
When I teach about the events that led to World War II, I must provide a level of background for today’s students that I took for granted coming of age in the 1960s. The rise of Nazism in 1920s and 30s Germany took place in a period of economic and political upheaval created by the conditions of both pre- and post-World War I Europe. The rise of socialism which accompanied the wide-spread industrialization of Europe broke down many of the old class divisions weakening the hold of the traditional European monocracies. This time period also saw the consolidation of regional entities into new nations. These conditions were especially significant in the unification of Italy and Germany. In the case of Germany, its new nationhood was directly tied to a concept that assumed might-should-make-right. But when Germany lost World War I she was left adrift as historical events proved this to be inaccurate. Old alliances and enmities were drastically swept away and Germany was left at a devastating disadvantage after It and its allies lost the war. This coupled with the successful Bolshevik Revolution in Russia left European governments uneasy about the future.
As each of the European nations tried to recover from the burdens of the world war they found that in each of their countries a segment of their populations, primarily the working classes felt the economic pinch of the war more keenly, and demanded relief. This regional condition was exacerbated by the looming world-wide economic depression of the 1930s. Each country responded to the deepening economic crises in specific culturally relevant manners. Great Britain saw the rise of the Labour party which comprised of social democrats, democratic socialists, and trade unionists. It focused on greater state intervention, social justice and strengthening workers’ rights. Italy saw the rise of the Fascist Party, and Germany, the rise of Nazism. In the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt used the socialist leaning New Deal programs to ease the economic burden of the Depression.
Before we go any farther in this discussion, I need to make clear what I mean by socialism. According to an Oxford University scholar, Tejvan Pettinger: “the main difference between capitalism and socialism is the extent of government intervention in the economy. A capitalist economic system is characterized by private ownership of assets and business. A capitalist economy relies on free-markets to determine, price, incomes, wealth, and distribution of goods. A socialist economic system is characterized by greater government intervention to re-allocate resources in a more egalitarian way.” The realities of the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s was so economically devastating that only national governmental interventions could cope with its scale. But how that played out over the course of the decade differed from country to country. Eventually extreme ideologies and economic insecurities would lead to another World War.
What has been lost are the lessons of history that the 20th century should have taught us. The reality of human history is that no matter what has happened before, human beings will react in much the same way to certain conditions as their fore-bearers did if they are not provided alternatives. As historian Arnold J Toynbee noted: “Life is just one damned thing after another, whether it is private or public life. And looking back upon history (which in reality, of course, has never stopped happening, even during our brief halcyon days), one can see that in almost every age in almost every part of the world, human beings have had to live their normal lives and do their normal business under conditions of uncertainty, danger and distress. . .” from the 1952 article for Woman’s Home Companion titled “You Can Pack Up Your Troubles”
The 1918 Flu Pandemic caught medical and political leaders off guard. The medical community was not advanced enough to understand the differences for treating viruses from bacteria. But they did finally realize that the sure way to stop the spread was to keep people apart, denying the disease a new host. This did not happen early enough in the beginning of the pandemic because of wartime news blackouts, and military concerns. Once the war was over, it was already too late for many, and millions would die. “Social distancing” did eventually see the end to the disease which had run its course by the end of 1919. People soon forgot about it during the frenzy of the “Roaring 20’s”, the despair of the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the destruction of the war torn 1940s. As I noted in an earlier post there have been other flu epidemics throughout the late 20th century and into the early 21st century, but nothing on the scale of what we are living through now.
As with the 1918 Flu, humans will survive and the economy will recover, and some politician somewhere with take credit for “seeing us through”. But it is the modern medical community which has learned the lessons of the past. Listen to them: Stay Home, Stay Safe and wash your hands!
