On Living Through History

At least prior to coronavirus, I had a secret envy of the framers of the United States Constitution. While these individuals certainly made history — and the foundation for our system of government for that matter — their accomplishments were made possible by a unique historical environment. In ordinary times they would have simply been lawyers, merchants, or even forgotten military figures. But they were living through history, and they certainly knew that.

Today we have no shortage of reminders that what is going on around us is significant. We too are living through extraordinary times. The virus is everywhere, and pretty much all we do is talk about it. It dominates the headlines and opinion pages of newspapers, makes appearances on late night comedy shows, and even spawns meme pages. All sorts of people are asking questions and making predictions about when the pandemic will end, what will change after it’s over, and who, if anyone, we should blame.

We are constantly revising drafts for the history of today.

Yet where I see agency and possibility in interpreting the past, our excessive historicization of the present has become alienating and stifling. The more we look at the constant flow of news, statistics, and analysis, the more the virus comes to define all facets of our existence.

I don’t feel like the framers. I don’t even feel like Forrest Gump. As I go about my life, I am not trying to master history or even appreciate the significance of the moment. Right now, I just want to get through it.

The Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou’s celebrated film “活着” (“To Live”) captures this idea of living. His film depicts the trials of a family who lives through the tumult of modern Chinese history. The father, Fugui, is conscripted by both the nationalists and the communists during the Civil War, the son dies during the Great Leap Forward, and the daughter passes away in childbirth as the student “doctors” of the Cultural Revolution watch helplessly.

Yet at the end of the movie, as the father sits down with his infant grandson, he still expresses an abiding faith that from henceforth, “The days will get better and better.” The source of this hope is not a historical “lesson'' that Fugui drew from incredible external events. Fugui’s family does not live through history in neat or obvious ways: His forced conscription and loss of fortune saves the family when communists take over his village. His son dies not from the starvation caused by the destruction of technology in the Great Leap Forward, but from being struck by a modern car. The daughter’s death is especially cruel. The family rescues a competent real doctor, but accidentally overfeeds him and he is unable to assist her in childbirth. Instead, Fugui’s hope is rooted in a deep resilience which exists outside of, or even in opposition to extraordinary historical circumstances.

The decision to rely on an inner strength in the face of unfolding chaos is certainly not unique to Asian cinema. However, what distinguishes this resilient approach to living from say a Buddhist’s is that Fugui doesn’t turn his back on the chaos, he embraces the challenge of living head-on.

If the challenge for Fugui’s place and time was resisting radical disillusionment with history, I believe that our challenge is to resist excessive engagement. Even as we are told to stay in and practice social distancing, we have the disposition, and for many the occupational obligation, to look out at what’s going on and obsess over it. This is probably the worst time to take a break from the news, especially political news, but it is important to try. Like Fugui and his family, we cannot let history swallow our entire existence.

Let’s save our over-examination and historicization for later. To live through history, we must remind ourselves and our neighbors to have a life apart from it.

Eric Yang ’22, is a History concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Tuesdays.