How far are our lives today affected by the past ?
“History is bunk”. This saying was attributed to the late Henry Ford, of the motor company. Though untrue, the statement makes the true point that no approach to the past is ever complete. Therefore the influence of the past on our lives is not easy to assess. Neither should we ignore the fact that in many contexts people deliberately reject the past for a variety of reasons. Yet, it remains true that genetic inheritance is a far more powerful influence on our lives than either upbringing or social environment, and that our genetic make-up has been conditioned by the past.
Yet, we are not entirely the victims of our physical inheritance. We learn a great deal from the attitudes of our parents and grandparents. Some we adopt, others we may reject as old-fashioned or irrelevant. The same applies to our hopes for the future. Just because father and grandfather were manual workers, does this prevent us from obtaining a good education and qualifying for a professional or business career ? Thankfully, in the modern world, and in most countries, it does not. More societies are ceasing to be autocracies, and are becoming meritocracies. The restrictions of the past make us even more aware of the opportunities of the present.
The same applies to outmoded class systems. Most countries have had class systems based on rank and wealth, supported by almost unbreakable barriers. Thankfully, this is generally less true today. Society is more flexible. If our grandparents kowtowed to the local dignitaries, we are no longer compelled to do the same. Except in countries which preserve autocratic and caste systems, education and opportunity have abolished these old shibboleths.
Yet, in many other ways we are still influenced by the past. The families and the societies in which we live are without question given their character by history. In many societies, family tradition is still all-important. Codes of morals, good manners and general behavior are instilled into us as children, and this has been the case for generations. The society into which we were born has its own standards of what is acceptable and what isn’t. Most people conform to both, or are identified as drop-outs .
These pressures to conform stem from the different histories of different countries. A primitive and warlike tribe may put their young men through horrific initiation ceremonies in order to inure them to pain and to test valor, because they must become hunters and warriors, and the young men do not question the ordeal. Families in a country which has a caste system may withhold the freedom of women to choose their own husbands, or at least veto a marriage which is not approved. Women in other countries play a subordinate role because such is the diktat of their national religion. The young people of one African tribe will instinctively hate the people of an adjacent tribe because there has been a long history of warfare between the two.
In more advanced countries, military and naval traditions, which are deeply rooted in history, play a major role, especially in wartime. So does geography. The citizens of a small country surrounded by powerful neighbors, and frequently the victim of invasion, live in a perpetual perhaps subconscious fear of a repetition, and are often slow to develop independence and a sense of national pride. On the other hand, an island such as Britain, never successfully invaded since 1066 A.D., maintains a fierce pride in its freedoms and independence — hence Britain’s reluctance to become a European state. And from this stemmed the seafaring tradition which in the past enabled Britain to build an empire.
Again, some countries have developed by evolution, others through revolution. Both kinds may now be democracies, but in countries such as France the “will of the people” plays a much greater part than in countries where anomalies and injustices have been eliminated by parliamentary and legal reform.
Perhaps the chief factor which affects our lives is education, and the style of education which any country offers is deeply rooted in its history. The teaching of history itself always has a national emphasis, which always colors the student’s outlook.
In spite of modern communication, in spite of the modern, modish concept of a world community , in spite of the rebellious atmosphere of the 1960s in the USA and the UK, in spite even of glasnov and perestroika, the main influences on our lives stem from the history of the country in which we happen to live. This is mediated through the society to which we belong, and the families which gave us birth.
