Were there really glory days? Are we progressively getting better?
Barbara Tuchman’s tome on the 14th century, A Distant Mirror, is a long walk through a dismal history. It takes the vantage point of a certain Enguerrand de Coucy as it looks through the century. But even with this “personal” view it is a hard read.
The book traverses through the entirety of the century, dipping in and out of details as they punctuate the evils of the era. The Black Death. A scandalized church. A misaligned chivalry. Some things were unexpected catastrophes. Others were a sustained shame. And some were broken from the start.
I had hoped to gain some grand insight from the assignment but I came away with frustration and disgust. It was only in the title that I gained the biggest reminder. This century truly was a distant mirror—a way for us to see our own countenance. This century only goes to show us that there were no glory days. The evils of then exist today, though our methods may have changed or become more “civilized” (but perhaps not), and yet we continue to trumpet progress.
My questions prodded further when I watched the Scorsese film Gangs of New York. Housing a couple great performances (Day-Lewis and Dicaprio), it is a debauched story of the dark history of New York in the 1800s around the time of the Civil War. Albeit a dramatic story, this painted a picture no less dark than the century 500 years before.
But after the 13th century we boasted of the Enlightenment and the Reformation. Unfortunately, after that bright spot came The Civil War, the Great War and its sequel (to put it in gross simplifications). To me, the history of man and his practices on the globe seem to be more cyclical than a constant progression toward perfection. We ought to study the past to see how we have acted rather than assuming the chronological high ground and claiming our spot as the most progressive. Just because we are further down the timeline does not mean we are more noble in the way we treat each other. This could be a bright spot but I shudder to ponder what reflection of that distant mirror could be in the future.
Matt Chandler said it well, “There were no glory days. There is going to be one.” All of this pondering of our status in the grand scheme of human history should have us putting our hope not in our current status but in the future, one and only, glory day.