History and claustrophobia
History, the many stories from the past that created the world we live in today, is both a blessing and a curse. Americans have relatively little history- our country is a baby compared to many other nations- and relatively little sense of history- Gore Vidal once called America the United States of Amnesia for just this reason. On a personal level, Americans act as if history doesn’t matter much, thinking nothing of moving from our natal city to one far away from our family and friends. Indeed, we cherish the idea of a fresh start: we admire a man more if he’s torn up roots in one spot and made a living for himself somewhere else. Despite a famous statement by F. Scott Fitzgerald to the contrary, America is all about second acts (and third and fourth…). I suppose growing up in America I have absorbed all this in my psyche; I know live far from home, in a city that is relatively clean of personal history or familial contacts, and I kind of like it that way, just for its newness.
More and more, though, I’ve realized how atypical this relation with history is, compared with that of many other peoples. A recent acquaintance of mine, for example, takes pride and obvious joy in living only a few blocks away from where he grew up in Spain, within walking distance of his family. And there simply are many more centuries of history in every city in Europe, which is one of the things that make these cities so appealing to Americans. Paris, for example, has at least 10 centuries of history in its walls. It’s enchanting for me as a write, for when I visit I can ponder all sort of historical coincidences and ironies. It’s also a bit like visiting a historical theme park: “oh look, that’s the café where Voltaire often dined.” It’s a lot of fun for me, but strangely claustrophobic; there’s too much history, nothing seems new, just bits of recycled history. It’s perhaps the grand challenge to Henry Ford’s famous quote, “History is more or less bunk.”
