The Meaning of History and Life, Part II

Not only are we limited intellectually and morally.  We are also bound socially and by mortality.

All of us can count on decaying and dying.  This is, to be sure, a truism.  But it's one that modern western society does its best to disguise.  But there is no cheating death.  And death is a process.  Each day one is closer to it, and as middle age approaches, life goes South in many respects--literally as well as figuratively.  Our body, brains, and mental faculties decay.  Everything that seemed to distinguish us, to set us apart, gradually dissolves.  Aging humbles us.

We are also bound socially.  Foucault remarked years ago that eighteenth-century Europe essentially invented the individual.  And it may have been wrong.  Evolution, after all, is more of a social than an individual achievement.  Humanity learned how to speak, travel long distances, organize itself into family, kin, and other social groupings through shared rather than individual endeavors.  Again, modern life obscures this fact, tempts us to think that we are the captains of our own ship, autonomous actors, heroes in our own movie.  But our food, clothing, homes, ideas, and peak experiences are the work of many hands.  We are socially imbedded in all sorts of networks, seen and unseen.

In sum, history suggests not simply that the each human being is limited in her/his capacity.  Her/his very existence as an individual, discrete entity may be something of a modern misunderstanding.

Next week I'll examine the limitations of historical evidence and, therefore, inquiry.