Combating history

By its nature our political present assumes a particular past that develops the themes codes and principles that guide our rationality. As with any representation of ‘reality,’ the representation of the past develops with gaps, mis-steps or mis-representations. The gaps don’t represent non-events but rather events not appropriated into a cultural/political narrative. A combative theory of history finds power by undermining a dominant narrative in two ways.

The first way uses events otherwise excluded or elided by a history; i.e. the history of Native American culture hiding around the idea of the steady progress of the United States in assuming its position in the world as a superpower. Contesting the surrounding terms of historical development contextualizes the implicit violence of any hegemonic political system, undermining otherwise peaceful facades. Contextualizing the rise of a political power in this way demonstrates the possible similar costs to maintaining its hegemony in the face of other challenges. Connecting the gaps in history functions to develop alternative political rationales that serves as ‘weapons’ in a political ‘war’ against violence.

The second way comes in forms like Loose Change- seeking to reinterpret or unmask particular events as a way of achieving a specific end. This tool has inherent limits in that these particular events take on meaning primarily as a re-interpretation of past historical narratives, but also that they relate only to specific people at the specific time of happening. Even still, history of specific events plays an important role in shaping politics, and time spent addressing the use of the past also invests for change in the future.


Duncan