History Doesn’t Exist: An Existential Discussion About the Merit of Political Debates
We, everyone, you, the President, Jesus Christ, him, Bart Simpson and you’re high school sweetheart are so infinitely small in terms of the history of life on earth that we will never be able to comprehend it. And in terms of the age of this universe, well, that’s more disgustingly miniscule still. So recently I’ve come to the conclusion that history is meaningless, it figuratively does not exist, that is to say it doesn’t need to exist. It’s not like we (again, think “we” as in everyone possible, ever) use it to our advantage. The origins of the phrase, “history repeats itself” dates back more than 550 years and even that time-span is nothing in terms of any “real” history.
Nonetheless, that has been a phrase that has stuck with me for a long time. When I was a lame-ass latte boy at the local Borders Books & Music CafÃ?©, I met a customer who loved to say just that, “history repeats itself” or “history always repeats its” or maybe just “Rome fell,” he’d say to my wide-eyed, irritated self. He was an old man who smoked White Owl cigars and drank shots of espresso by the half dozen. He’d wander around the store with his faded, Member’s Only jacket, his coffee stained teeth, reeking of cheap smokes while reading Shakespeare and bugging people. He would bug me all the time and I resented it at first, but after a few listens I realized this guy might be on to something. This was several months before 9/11 yet he would constantly go on and on about how our Great Society would soon be coming to an end. I had quit a couple of months before the attacks, but on the day those buildings fell I was convinced that “Member’s Only”, as he was known, had been a seesayer.
What’s the point of that story, you ask. Well, “Member’s Only” wasn’t a seesayer. He was just a crazy ex-professor from Harvard who liked bad stogies and copious amounts of caffeine, intelligent conversation and liberal ideals. He was damn educated, more so than I will ever be. And when ever I get into a political debate, inevitably digging myself a hole that I don’t have the facts to get out of, I think of him. You see, I’m trying; I’m trying desperately hard to get those facts, but I will most likely never get there because there doesn’t exist. No man can be an expert on all the facts and even if they are who’s to say that their version of the facts are the right ones.
It’s an endless, sad debate in and of itself. I have a desire to learn about everything, but at the same time I’ve already realized that that is impossible, thus negating my prospective effort and rendering it useless. It’s one thing not to try but it’s another thing entirely when you come to the understanding that trying means nothing.
