Time and the Human Condition: History, Human Identity and Historical Narrative

Historical fact and narrative reality are often different depending on the interpretation of human identity in time. This statement alone implies that human identity is at issue in the determination of historical fact and narrative. A human identity in time represents historical ego if not self-realization of the soul through the ego. Assuming that both of these are fundamental factors underlying the emergence of historical fact and narrative reality, a study of this in time with reference to various thinkers and writers will show this connection. That is to say, differing themes such as those relating to freedom, suffering, God, guilt, memory and forgetting are evident throughout historical interpretation and indicate the elements of identity and time as influencing what actually becomes 'history', and blurring what becomes self understanding.

In The Myth of The Eternal Return, Mircea Eliade discusses the regeneration of history in new beginnings. This is described to be a practice of archaic man but may still play a role in the formation of history today. That is, even though in contemporary history, memory of the past is included, new beginnings are still present. In The Texture of Memory, James Young provides an account of Holocaust memorials that do just this, remember the past and make possible new beginnings. Such a new beginning was the founding of the state of Israel due at least in part to an international response to the Holocaust. Although this historic tragedy is remembered, Kibbutz's and monuments to military leaders represent this new beginning. It is not the new beginnings that are at issue as much as the various accounts of history, and how new beginnings are remembered in the human identity.

George Hegel, in The Philosophy of History, determines that history is indubitably a realization of the absolute spirit in time and of a divine freedom.[1] Consequently, history becomes a sequence of events that represent and/or are influenced by the freedom associated with Hegel's absolute spirit. For example, Hegel refers to the Reformation, French Revolution, and the signing of the Magna Charta as great historical events symbolizing this free spirit. In this case, history and identity takes on an individualist form rather than the collective history of struggle and persecution over time such as with the history of the Jewish nation. Yet both histories occur within the same time, thus a question of narrative reality emerges in terms of human identity in time. Moreover, if Nietzsche's animals had conscious memory they too would a have a history, but a history far different to that of the Jews and Hegel. Thus, memory plays an integral role in the formation of history.

This brings us to the idea of intent in history; if no purpose is served by events in history then history is historicist and if it has purpose then it is historical. For religious history, the events that occur, whether painful or not are aimed at some end of salvation and are therefore historical. This is the case with Augustine who proclaims in The City of God, that "by his omniscience, God could foresee two future realities: how bad man whom God had created good was to become, and how much good God was to make out of his very evil."[2] Thus, for Augustine God's City eventually becomes manifest and eternal, making the end of history divine. Should Friedrich Nietzsche have debated with Augustine, he would have claimed that God represents asceticism and is therefore destructive to both humanity through an ascetic ideal of the unreal. This is so, despite Nietzsche's understanding of virtue in The Genealogy of Morals. Augustine would respond by saying, "In Immortal life we shall have a body, but it will no longer be a burden since it will no longer by corruptible."[3] The contention is that Nietzsche does not believe that such a thing as an uncorrupted body can exist where as Augustine does. Thusly, for Nietzsche, history has no end other than to serve the advantage of life, whereas for Augustine history serves the end of God and not that of God's creation that constitutes the 'City of Man'. Moreover, an important distinction between Nietzsche and Augustine is that Augustine favors the creator in his account of history whereas Nietzsche favors creation. This is evident in both The City of God and in On The Genealogy of Morals. For example, Augustine claims "What is not good is to abandon the Goodness of the Creator in pursuit of some created good..."[4] where Nietzsche states "whoever has at some time built a "new heaven" has found the power to do so only in his own hell."[5] In response Augustine might claim that such a hell is not necessary and Nietzsche could respond again by saying, even so does a spiritual reality not promote poverty, humility and chastity in favor of some other reality that is not of this Earth.[6] So, if a history advocating this type of suffering is not advantageous, what then should history include and why?

According to James Young and The Texture of Memory, history serves as a record of a people's past, present and future. That is to say, it provides a narrative account of what has occurred in the past. This for Hegel would constitute 'original history'; in the sense that it is a recording of historical events from a unique perspective.[7] However, the history of Hegel is also original as well as that of Augustine. So the questions become how to choose history and then how to reflect upon it? In the holocaust memorials discussed by Young, a similar terror of history also referred to by Eliade is remembered in memorials all over the World. By terror, one means "the 'evil' that is bound up not with man's condition but with his behavior toward others."[8] Holocaust memorials reflect this terror but are historicist in the sense they do not imply that a destiny of history will or must occur, but rather that a human virtue of responsibility be preserved artistically. To artistically refer to memory is not as harsh a provocation as Nietzsche's relation of guilt to debt.[9] However this concept does exist in the memorials in the sense that the holocaust was wrong and that is should not be done again despite free will to "possess one's own measure of value."[10] Consequently, memory is used as a catalyst for guilt where one is free to either remember or forget depending on if he or she wishes to reflect upon the memorials. Thus, the memorials are a historicist tool of virtue that combine, guilt, memory suffering and freedom together. The memorials are also historical as in the case of The Chamber of the Holocaust at Mount Zion, which conceives of Jewish history as having had a goal of rebuilding itself and interprets certain events in history as realization of this.[11]TEMPORAL-HISTORICAL IDENTITY ACCORDING TO ELIADE, AUGUSTINE, HEGEL, NIETZSCHE AND YOUNG

PERSON NARRATIVE HISTORY HISTORICAL IDENTITY

Eliade Renewal of time and history, Temporal rebirth, Idealized

Freedom to forget through ritual. state of primordial being.

Augustine History of suffering purposeful Division between following

In realizing the City of God. of the Flesh and Spirit.(Historical)

Hegel Self-Realization of Spirit, Individual Freedom

Destiny of Freedom. (Historical)

Nietzsche Preservation and Criticism of No God, Earthly virtue,

Past for advantage to life. (Historicist)

Young 'Monumental History' in reference Memory of past and present.

To Holocaust and Israel. Proclamation of National identity. (Historical and Historicist)

History is often originally constructed according to some ideal, insight, experience etc. of the historian. However, the freedom to choose history is also a factor as evident in Eliade's reference to rituals of renewal in which new beginnings foreclose the past if need be. Such a history is circular as it tends to renew time with a blank slate of experience. Nietzsche would endorse Eliade's acknowledgment of forgetfulness but not circular temporality. That is, Nietzsche thinks of history as being something that can be forgotten but not necessarily renewed. The past happens, and can be forgotten, but not eliminated. So, the importance of memory becomes functional in serving the improvement of life through both forgetting and remembering. With the addition of spiritual identity a myriad of themes and methods within history emerges. All represent an explanation and/or interpretation of the self whether it be as a people, through myth, in quest of advantage or disadvantage or in the service of God, no single theme is evident. However, the tone of history is one of understanding and directing the self; how to correlate, record and interpret events of human and sometimes spiritual history. It is in this understanding of the self that the narrative of history is curved, redirected, spiraled and followed in the journey of identity formation. Whether such a journey is even necessary is another story, but it is apparent in the works of Eliade, Augustine , Hegel, Nietzsche and Young that identity and history are indeed correlated to the themes of freedom, guilt, God, memory and terror.

In conclusion, if all the authors in this essay were to be combined into a single interpretation of history, one would arrive at a multi-faceted reflection of human identity throughout time. That is to say, one would find narrative accounts of past events that conflict as evident in Young's description of contention in the meaning of Poland's Holocaust memorials,[12]as well as find different reasons behind historical events. For example, Augustine would claim that events are necessary divine preconditions in the passage to eternity, whereas Hegel would not disagree that something divine exists, but would disagree that actual events in time serve the realization of the world spirit and not the City of God. Moreover, one also finds that history is both necessary and unnecessary in the works Eliade and Nietzsche. For Eliade, long-term history only becomes necessary with the memory of creation and the realization of man as fallen,[13] whereas for Nietzsche, history is an ongoing necessary tool intrinsic to human nature, as without it, man would be a beast of the present.[14] Thus, history and time are at least superficially interpreted on relative grounds, and consequently humanity's understanding of itself is also superficially relative to some extent. This does not imply that man is superficial, rather it points to the notion that historical narrative is partly a reflection of the self through various historical interpretations and recordings of humanity's past as well as partly a proof of being. Through history, humanity is not only able to understand itself in relation to its past, but it is also able to remember that it is and was an entity within time. Being an entity within time is advantageous in a Nietzschian sense as it adds richness to being through historical virtue. However, being a historical entity able to create its own narrative both in 'reality' and in 'original history', with suffering, memory, freedom, guilt and God, humanity also willingly diversifies and even blurs its understanding of its own identity.

[1] Hegel, G.W.F. The Philosophy of History. New York: Prometheus Books, 1991, P.25&50.

[2] Augustine, Saint. The City of God. New York: Doubleday, 1958, P.304.

[3] Augustine, S. p.298.

[4] Augustine, p.302.

[5] Nietzsche, Friederich. On The Genealogy of Morals. New York: Vintage Books, 1989, p.115.

[6] Nietzsche, Friederich. On The Genealogy of Morals. P.108.

[7] Hegel, Georg W.F. The Philosophy of History. New York: Prometheus Books, 1991, p.2.

[8] Eliade, Mircea. The Myth of The Eternal Return. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1954, P.151.

[9] Nietzsche, F. On The Geneaology of Morals. New York: Random House Inc. 1967, p.60-61.

[10] Nietzsche, Friederich. G.O.M. P.60.

[11] Young, James. The Texture of Memory. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1993, p.247-249.

[12] Young, James. P.114.

[13] Eliade, M. p.162.

[14] Nietzsche, F. On The Advantage and Disadvantage of History. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1980, P.9