Some thoughts on the future for the new year...

Those unfamiliar with history are doomed to repeat it, or something like that. I say it's horseshit. Lewis would call this "chronological snobbery." History does look pretty ridiculous from my sofa and, while it's nice to feel so superior, my descendants will think the same of me. We all do more to recreate the past than to create the future. I think that those who do not understand why history sounded like a good idea at the time will do something equally asinine without realizing it. That seems more plausible to me. Most people I know talk about how they will somehow be a higher quality person than those who came before them, usually speaking of their parents. They say they won't have flabby arms, won't lay such tremendous guilt-trips on family members, never divorce, never drink, never hurt those they love... I say it's horseshit. The apple can say what it wants about progress, but it really never gets too far from the tree. As a society we cluck our collective tongue in condescension of events like genocide saying, "Not on my watch." We turn a blind eye to our participation in current conditions that give rise to such events. We fight a war on terror looking ever-more like the terrorists. I say it's all horseshit. Until we embrace that we too work with our fathers' hands, until we embrace the genocide in our skin, until we are willing to look in the mirror and think, "I am at times a terrorist," we never stood a chance in the future anyway.