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Thoughts on History

Volumes

You are responsible for insuring that the future that already got started in Pericles not be destroyed and omitted by you. The future has already begun yesterday. The good future, the vital future has now of course its mainsprings already somewhere in the past. So you we study history lest some part of the future, that already started a thousand years ago, be omitted.

May 4, 1959

History is the story of how new qualities in the human race are created and handed over from generation to generation. It's the bettering of the times, as Shakespeare's sonnets call it. History is the story of the events which at one time did not form a part of nature, but did enter the process of existence.

The essential effects of past events are rarely limited to that past point in time. Often, the promise offered by these events has not been completely fulfilled even in the present. More important still, usually that promise awaits some people in the future, who will be so inspired by the promise they find at the center of the past event, that they will put themselves on the line, to turn the promise of a past event into present or future reality. None of this can happen, if history is not remembered and passed on from generation to generation. Men cannot allow the present become an accident which blocks the yearning of the future for the fulfillment of the past, and the yearning of the past to grow into the future.

Future and past are in equilibrium. The future is not the product from the past or the present. But it is that amount of faith which allows people to select from the past those events which still guarantee them their our future. History is half future and half past, man stands between, having as much past as he has commitment to realizing a future. In learning history, one learns of those events, deeds, and accomplishments that must not be forgotten because they are still a program for accomplishments that have not yet happened, but will be accomplishments which men today must insure may still be able to occur.

The great thing about the historical experience of humanity is that the same event at one time was in the future, and only then entered the past. That is history. History is not that which has happened either to grandparents, or to parents, or to oneself when going to school. An event is historical only if it has been dreaded, expected, hoped for, and then been helped by men to be realized. The creative process surrounds us as much from behind as from the future. We understand that faith, love, and hope are one trinitarian stream.

The wisdom of love, hope, and faith is in this: that the man and the woman who have the three rise to their true stature. The true stature of man arises from his belonging to three generations: that he belongs to the oldest past and has hopes; to the farthest future, which he senses through faith, and to the full present of all men alive at this moment, which is opened to him by love.

Memory is a promise. Ideally, one should remember only those things that are yet unfulfilled. These remembered events have a further effect. All events which have forced themselves into the history men, are taught and themselves teach, can give men tremendous courage, because they prove that new things have been and thus can still be created.

History is a process involving successive generations. To partake in that process, men and women must form their own generation consciously, balancing their respect for the laws of the past and the inspiration they draw from the promises or prophecies of the future. To be part of this process, a man must be able to say that something he has inherited has become obsolete, and should be replaced with something he is called upon to bring into existence.

People are heirs of the past; they are founders of the future; in the present they marry and fill offices in society. The past is sung; the future is prophesied; the present is fought for.

Having generations grow up after an historical event poses an educational problem. If events are to continue to effect what people believe in and act on, such events have to be impregnated by every generation anew. That is why history must be told. Men study history to insure that some part of the future, which had already occurred a thousand years ago, not be lost. History as an active force must be recreated in every generation. A person who writes history simply changes the living picture of the past as it lives in every human being today.

God has invested in men the task of continuing creation. Every generation has done something to change the human character: that is history. Man creates history by bearing witness. To speak means to be able to testify of and verify an event before it has happened, while it is happening, and after it has happened. All articulate language is built upon a grammar, which enables us to speak about the same event as it appeares before it has happened, as it appears while it's happening, and as it appears after it has happened. We speak in order to march through time. Language is necessary because man dies, and because men will come who have not yet been born.

The Bible has held every chapter of human history together, both by inspiring and by offering the framework for the different inspirations. Somewhere in the Old Testament, every event is illuminated. That the Bible remains central to history today raises the question of how the tiny and insignificant group called the Jews has been able to reach us, and impress on us their own vision of history. The Bible offers its own historical method: the history of the world can be understood through the lens of one’s own personal experience.

The question posed by the Bible is how it happens that in every generation a previously unheard-of, unique command is followed by people, a process of continuing from miracle to miracle.

For Richard Feringer's more detailed notes on History Must be Told - 1955 click here, History Must be Told Draft click here, Cruciform Character of History - 1967 click here

The Rosenstock-Huessy lectures are available in two versions:
•     the original audio recording of Rosenstock-Huessy giving the lecture and
•     transcripts of the original audio.

Argo sells these versions in two different packages:
•     electronic and
•     paper

The electronic package of Thoughts on History is sold on a DVD, which contains

•     the original recordings of 36 hours of college lectures in mp3 format,

•     as well as every transcript of all of the English-language lectures Rosenstock-Huessy recorded, in computer text format. These transcripts are an excellent basis for word searches, to compare what Rosenstock-Huessy had to say on a particular topic or on related topics, either in different contexts across nearly 20 years.

DVDs are produced to order, which can take up to 5 weeks. 

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