Events in my own day-to-day life as well those of the world at large often
support the idea of of a never-ending story cycle. Or, history repeating itself.
I mean, beyond the deja vu of a President Bush wanting to waltz into Iraq for
some flimsy reasons in his mid-term. I mean, there’s also the censoring
of inciteful speech and the current affrimative action shuffle addressed by
Atrios
(found via Kip).

Example: a great new technology that promised to change the way we communicate
and experience the world that caused a frenzy of investment. The dotcom boom
of the 1990s or the Telegraph boom of 1860s? And take a look at this
timeline—scroll down to 1872. Now, does the Credit Mobiler scandal
remind you of any somewhat recent headlines?

I often troll Periodicals
Paradise, which sells used magazines and books, for entertainment and research.
Beyond having about every National Geographic you could ever want, they
have an impressive collection of Life. Someday, I am going to go and
buy every one that talks of this or that Wall Street crash based around the
rise and fall of some new technology.

And this era hardly has a monopoly in horrendous crimes and murder. Please. Reading
Stewart Holbrook and other sources has made clear that we have forgotten more
tragedy than we could we ever create. I seriously doubt that there are proportionally
any more murders now than at any time in history—we just have convienent
websites deicated to serial murders and 24/7 news coverage coast-to-coast (and
the gross fact that death sells). Take a good look at political advancement
in classical Rome. Or at the number of people gunned down by John
Wesley Hardin beginning when he was 15 years of age—without the inspiration
of video games.

I of course despair at our lack of long-term memory, but also can experience extreme amusement when someone decries “there has never been anything like this before.” The names might have changed along with daily costume, but, yeah there has. It might not be the same exact catalyst and the ramifications might be different, but the impact is similar.

I’m not urging complacency or surrender to fate—far, far from it.
The struggle insures the cycle can continue as well as further social progress.
I worry when people take refuge in the specialness of their situation, setting
themselves apart from the rest of humanity. To claim that no one has ever experienced
or could experience your pain, to deny another way of life is as worthwhile
as your own or thinking that “for the grace of God go I” means “God
likes me best” can lead to a blindness and a lack of compassion that starts
the worst part of the cycle all over again.