A Kinder, Gentler History
The past can seem like a timeline of horrors. But might it also remind us of our own failings – and help to put them right?
Reading history, one can often get a sense of being shown an endless parade of human savagery, as people fought and betrayed each other, invented new ways to torture and engaged in revenge and bloodlust. It does not feel very edifying. Yet, despite, or perhaps because, of all that, I have come to the conclusion that the study of history has the potential to make us kinder.
Two serious problems beset human relations: we do not know what other people think and feel; and we don’t care, or, at least, not enough. We care a bit: the proliferation of biographies must be one indicator of our attempt to understand other humans. Ultimately, though, our greatest temptation is to live in self-centred worlds, where other people are bit-part characters and the soundtrack only swells for our entrances.
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