The Words of an Eminent Historian

 

I wrote down the following powerful words spoken by the historian Yuval Noah Harari in a recent talk with historian Anne Applebaum. His words should give us pause in our current moment since most of us have no experience with what type of world is trying to beat down our door in the form of Trumpian authoritarianism and the like. Like he says of Canada below, we need to appreciate what we have and build on it, because it can get much worse. My transcription isn't perfect, but the words moved me so much I had to write them down.

 

"It is very hard to recognize something that you have not experienced yourself. The people who really understand what is at stake are the people who are 80 years old, are 90 years old-- it's the people who still remember on their flesh the Second World War and to some extent the Cold War. For them it is a reality, but for the younger generations that were born afterwards its very difficult to learn from history if isn’t your personal history. It’s just almost inconceivable what people can do to each other, what can actually happen in the world if you just read about it in books…The only thing that separates us from the horrors of the Second World War is time. That's the only thing–we are the same people. If you now live in Ukraine, you know that time can be traversed very fast. That what seemed to be the distant past.--oh, that was in the 1940s it can’t happen again. It can happen again, because it is just time…

I’m now in Canada. People yesterday told me about the political anger and bickering that is now in Canadian society--and you know it is almost inconceivable if you think about what is the best place in human history Canada in the early 21st century probably qualifies. And yet people are angry and are fighting about these local issues because they take for granted what they have. The kind of peace, the kind of health care, the kind of infrastructure that people in Toronto enjoy, they just take it for granted and it's very hard to realize that just time and a very short time can separate this amazing period of peace and prosperity from the worst horrors of human history, which can come back at any moment." If you want to watch the whole talk it is here.