A History (with Empathy)

Very recently, I’ve become intrigued with history.

This is ridiculous, unacceptable even. As ever, I feel late to the party. That becoming enthralled with history at this time only reveals how little attention I have paid to it previously. Oh well, at least I have (finally) found the party, even if I am absurdly late.

And this particular party is a hell of a buzz kill.

I am currently listening to a podcast by Dan Carlin (Hardcore History) about the Great War – the First World War. This particular series is entitled “Blueprint for Armageddon”. Each podcast is roughly four hours in length and there are six entries in the series. That’s about 24 hours of podcast. And I am absolutely enraptured.

I love podcasts for a number of reasons. I am learning something on a regular basis – while doing the dishes! While folding laundry! While undertaking any number of monotonous chores or tasks. Ideally, I am both efficient and entertained! But like I said, that’s the ideal. Menial tasks such as unloading the dishwasher, folding clothes, vacuuming, weeding – take far longer than they should.

Mostly because I’m not there.

I am transported, transfixed, and (in this particular series) tormented. I am recreating these giant battles as they unfold before me in my mind. I am listening to the heart wrenching accounts of these soldiers, politicians, generals and townsfolk. I am amazed and surprised at how history unfolds, even as I thought I knew the main outcomes and plot points.

Carlin repeatedly apologizes for his shortcomings, continually identifies that he is not a ‘true historian’, but I would beg to differ with him. He is a masterful storyteller, but I think it’s his burden to always focus back on the human drama that has really pulled me in. If the death of one man is a tragedy, and the death of millions a statistic, then Carlin’s work has helped combat my previous indifference to the horror and humanity of World War One.

And because it’s pulled me in to such a degree that I have willfully and happily surrendered all my free time to it, I naturally want to tell everyone about it.

Funnily enough, not everyone wants to discuss the horrors of war over lunch. Nor do many people seem especially fascinated by events that occurred roughly a century ago; events which did not occur in either their, their parents, or (usually) their grandparents lifetime.

The other day I met a 99yr old, and found myself thinking of the war. Born in the middle of the war – what must her parents have thought? What did they hope for her? What did they fear? Did her father serve? Did he survive? Did he come back broken? Did he still fear the devil or believe in God after seeing what so many could only describe as hell on earth? Could he still go back to normal life, to church on Sundays in 1919?

Everyone has heard the saying, “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”. I think that’s true, but I also wonder if we don’t run the risk of reducing history to mere lessons – “do this”, “avoid that”, “never get involved in a land war in Asia…”. If we’re just looking for the Coles notes of history, it will of course look dry, and lifeless, and alien. But if we can see the personalities of generations past, hear their stories, revel in their accomplishments, identify with their greatest hopes and fears, then we can actually empathize with those in the past, not just learn facts and statistics about them!

Because if something is a tragedy, the worst thing we could do is turn it into a statistic.

I’m sure I’ll continue to write about empathy again and again and again. Is anything more important than empathy when we are looking for meaning and connection?  Empathy continually rejects the label of ‘the other’, finds connections where we thought there were none. It is the rejection of the easy story.

I’m so thankful for Carlin’s work on World War One. It has introduced me to so many stunning stories. And none of them are easy.