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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 alon
by 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 agoI 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 agoNo, 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 agoThis 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.
- ktRolster 11y ago> "Merely doing what is beneficial at the time" is >just bad advice, both on personal and social >(national) level Maybe, but it sure beats doing what was beneficial centuries ago.
- mindcrime 11y agoReciprocation is a fundamental concept in keeping social systems healthy and balanced. Very likely. But... 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). I am not a game theorist, but I have a passing interest in this topic and have done some reading on it over the years. And offhand, I'm not aware of any research that shows that IPD strategies, developed using computer simulations that run over the span of hours, are applicable to time-spans on the order of decades or centuries or that they apply at the level of nation-states. If you are aware of that research and could share a reference or two it would be much appreciated. Note that I'm not saying it doesn't exist or even necessarily disagreeing with you. I do a feel a mild degree of skepticism, just because in these scenarios you're talking about reciprocating against people who weren't the enemy in previous iterations... indeed, people who weren't even alive in previous iterations. I don't think it makes any sense to treat, say, "1650 England" and being synonymous with "2016 England", or to say that Germany circa 1917 is the same country as Germany today. As such, I question if "tit for tat" or similar strategies apply in the same way as they do in the simulations.