Linear Perspectives

A recurring theme in many of my classes so far this semester (which have been keeping me exceedingly busy) is a certain skepticism towards the perceived linearity of history. Of course, there's that old saying, "History is written by the victors," and to some extent it is very much true. Yet there's a certain level of subjectivity that generally goes into deciding which events are memorable, as well as how they ought to be connected to others. In this way, a great deal of isolated occurrences may be strung together on history's ramrod straight trajectory.

The simplest example here is that of art history: An arbitrary selection of impressive artists are placed chronologically and connected by some semblance of compulsory progression. It makes it seem that the development of Post-Impressionism was inevitable after the realistic perfection achieved the the great masters of the Renaissance. The problem is, a prodigious amount of valuable contextual information is omitted by such selective streamlining. All the fat is cut out. Juicy, juicy historical fat. Such we could use to feed and inform our emaciated present.

And this phenomena is clearly not limited to the realm of art history. It just happens to be the subject that my poor class registration time this semester forced me to undertake; though it has actually proven to be quite thought provoking thus far. It makes you wonder who decides what's historically relevant and who is simply forgotten, trampled under the hoofs of time. I think it's important to realize that we're getting all our fact secondhand, plucked by some invisible farmer of antiquity. And we're suppose to believe all these events are inextricably linked by some sort of fate or coincidence. This mode of conceptualizing the past forgoes much of life's randomness, or to use David Oates' favorite word, "wildness."

I for one think we ought to be skeptical of this linear viewpoint. In fact, its acceptance is a main cause of today's misguided environmental movement. The linear model imposes imperatives, as in, "If we cut down these trees, nature never be the same." The regenerative and cyclical properties of our world are ignored in such a case. There are ways establish working relationships between man and the organic resources he requires. Nature will survive us; its tenacity is beyond our comprehension. Things sure look bad when conceiving of history in terms of human life spans, but going above and beyond that perspective, our actions often will have very little effect on Earth. Yet it is certainly possible to cause irreversible damage, and the human race already has in many places. I cannot condone many current practices. What I'm trying to do is remove false imperatives so that we can begin to engage nature in an informed and cooperative manner. Environmentalists are too often afraid of potentially injuring what they love or tainting its perceived virginity. The best kind of environmentalists, however, are those who can effectively work with nature, and are not deceived by the typical short, linear perspective.

I guess that's the gist of it. Linear history is largely a construct of mankind, and it's often worth your while to question who exactly constructed it. Take a look outside, see the unadulterated randomness and uncertainty in life, operating in incomprehensible cycles. Think a million years in the future. Earth will most likely be empty of humans and will have reclaimed what was once ours.

So there's my attempt at connecting art history to environmentalism. Hopefully it all came out coherently enough.