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Not taking it personally is probably the important take-away. I always recall Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes talking about "the English and the terrible thing

Not taking it personally is probably the important take-away. I always recall Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes talking about "the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years" as it summed up much of the logic and reasoning [I mean that ironically] that led to thousands of murders in Northern Ireland. (edit: For clarity, I think Frank McCourt understood that very well and that's why it wrote it as he did.) Young and impressionable people are prone to learning about historic injustice and they trying to right the wrongs by perpetrating new injustices. That's not what learning history is supposed to do - an understanding of history is about learning how society ended up the way it is now and trying to use that to improve society without repeating terrible mistakes that lead to death and mayhem in the past. It's vital to learn history, but it's vital to learn context and the bigger picture too. Without that, it becomes the source of hatred that undoes the evolution of society (sadly there are too many examples readily available of that happening).

meric 11y ago
800 years is a bit of a stretch, but history can very well be personal. My Chinese great-grandmother was an opium addict who got kicked out of her village along with my grandmother and her sister after my great-grandfather died. That opium was imported by British merchants who the Qing government desperately tried to stop in the mid-1850's but failed and lost the wars. My great-grandmother, raising my grandmother as a single parent, was unproductive as an opium addict even during the best of times, could not support my grandmother and her sister during the Japanese invasion of China. First she abandoned my grandmother's sister, and then my grandmother was left in the orphanage for a few years. Later my grandmother was picked up by her relatives, but her sister never seen again. The lack of interaction with a father during my grandmother's upbringing meant when my grandfather had an accident working as a technician, and could not return to work, he did not receive the emotional support he could have received from my grandmother at the time, took it too hard on himself, and ended his life. That is why when I was growing up my mother treated me as both father and son at the same time. As her children we were supposed to look after her emotional needs, while our own were neglected. Listening to my grandmother's stories of having to hide every time the bomb siren went off because the Japanese were bombing the city, her starvation in the orphanage, children dying everyday, abandonment by her mother, loss of her sister, having an opium addict mother, how can I not be empathetic? It doesn't mean I have to take action or hate people for it, but how can history not be personal when it affects me and my family so deeply? Hell, I probably even wouldn't be here today if not for the turmoil in China's early 20th century causing many specific migration movements.
- mwfunk 11y ago
  I don't think that's what was meant by not taking it personally. If you were "taking it personally" in the sense being discussed here, you would be holding modern-day British citizens accountable for the opium imported by the British merchants in the 19th century, maybe even actively plotting their demise. Everyone is personally affected by history, but this article is more about holding grudges against people or nations for centuries after the events that spawned those grudges. We need to understand history to understand how it shaped us and how we can avoid repeating events that we don't want to repeat, but we also need to resist the urge to allow injustices of the past to become an emotional impetus for present and future conflicts.
  - catnaroek 11y ago
    No, that is fundamentally wrong. Every self-respecting nation holds grudges, and bids her time until the time is ready to avenge them. Also, 100 or even 200 years are the blink of an eye in a nation's history. I'm particularly distressed by the fact my country doesn't do so, which is in great part why I find it much easier to identify with my Chinese ancestors (even though I only have partial Chinese ancestry) than my fellow countrymen (who are a spineless bunch).
    - ktRolster 11y ago
      >No, that is fundamentally wrong. Every self-respecting nation holds grudges, Every rational nation doesn't hold grudges, and merely does what is beneficial at the time. Trying to avenge wrongs done to your grandparents or farther back is one of the dumbest things you can do.
      - Radim 11y ago
        This is naive beyond belief. Reciprocation is a fundamental concept in keeping social systems healthy and balanced. Read up on the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (or any number of the copious academic research on this subject; but PD is a great entry point). "Merely doing what is beneficial at the time" is just bad advice, both on personal and social (national) level. "Spinelessness" is only a part of it; worse, such greedy strategies lead to poor socioeconomic results in the long run.
irish_lad 11y ago
Ehh not some much. The attempted crushing of the Civil Rights movement by the then sectarian government of Northern Ireland and the subsequent esclation on all sides is much more "responsible" for the decades of troubles there than lingering memories of 800 years. If you found your street under attack by the police, homes burned out and forced to become a refugee (as was happening with State backing in NI in the late 60s) it's not so easy to dismiss it as "history"

meric 11y ago

800 years is a bit of a stretch, but history can very well be personal. My Chinese great-grandmother was an opium addict who got kicked out of her village along with my grandmother and her sister after my great-grandfather died. That opium was imported by British merchants who the Qing government desperately tried to stop in the mid-1850's but failed and lost the wars. My great-grandmother, raising my grandmother as a single parent, was unproductive as an opium addict even during the best of times, could not support my grandmother and her sister during the Japanese invasion of China. First she abandoned my grandmother's sister, and then my grandmother was left in the orphanage for a few years. Later my grandmother was picked up by her relatives, but her sister never seen again. The lack of interaction with a father during my grandmother's upbringing meant when my grandfather had an accident working as a technician, and could not return to work, he did not receive the emotional support he could have received from my grandmother at the time, took it too hard on himself, and ended his life. That is why when I was growing up my mother treated me as both father and son at the same time. As her children we were supposed to look after her emotional needs, while our own were neglected. Listening to my grandmother's stories of having to hide every time the bomb siren went off because the Japanese were bombing the city, her starvation in the orphanage, children dying everyday, abandonment by her mother, loss of her sister, having an opium addict mother, how can I not be empathetic? It doesn't mean I have to take action or hate people for it, but how can history not be personal when it affects me and my family so deeply? Hell, I probably even wouldn't be here today if not for the turmoil in China's early 20th century causing many specific migration movements.

mwfunk 11y ago
I don't think that's what was meant by not taking it personally. If you were "taking it personally" in the sense being discussed here, you would be holding modern-day British citizens accountable for the opium imported by the British merchants in the 19th century, maybe even actively plotting their demise. Everyone is personally affected by history, but this article is more about holding grudges against people or nations for centuries after the events that spawned those grudges. We need to understand history to understand how it shaped us and how we can avoid repeating events that we don't want to repeat, but we also need to resist the urge to allow injustices of the past to become an emotional impetus for present and future conflicts.
- catnaroek 11y ago
  No, that is fundamentally wrong. Every self-respecting nation holds grudges, and bids her time until the time is ready to avenge them. Also, 100 or even 200 years are the blink of an eye in a nation's history. I'm particularly distressed by the fact my country doesn't do so, which is in great part why I find it much easier to identify with my Chinese ancestors (even though I only have partial Chinese ancestry) than my fellow countrymen (who are a spineless bunch).
  - ktRolster 11y ago
    >No, that is fundamentally wrong. Every self-respecting nation holds grudges, Every rational nation doesn't hold grudges, and merely does what is beneficial at the time. Trying to avenge wrongs done to your grandparents or farther back is one of the dumbest things you can do.
    - Radim 11y ago
      This is naive beyond belief. Reciprocation is a fundamental concept in keeping social systems healthy and balanced. Read up on the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (or any number of the copious academic research on this subject; but PD is a great entry point). "Merely doing what is beneficial at the time" is just bad advice, both on personal and social (national) level. "Spinelessness" is only a part of it; worse, such greedy strategies lead to poor socioeconomic results in the long run.

irish_lad 11y ago

Ehh not some much. The attempted crushing of the Civil Rights movement by the then sectarian government of Northern Ireland and the subsequent esclation on all sides is much more "responsible" for the decades of troubles there than lingering memories of 800 years. If you found your street under attack by the police, homes burned out and forced to become a refugee (as was happening with State backing in NI in the late 60s) it's not so easy to dismiss it as "history"