ENGL 200 D: Reading Literature: Literature in the Marketplace

“History is nothing but the succession of the separate generations, each of which exploits the materials, the capital funds, the productive forces handcd down to it by all preceding generations, and thus, on the one hand, continues the traditional activity in completely changed circumstances and, on the other, modifies the old circumstances with a completely changed activity.”

Karl Marx is stating that history is an important tool for human beings to use for their own advantage.  Also, because mistakes can and will always happen, humans can learn from past mistakes in order to prevent those mistakes from happening again such as war, famine, and the like. However, there are a few situations where events are inevitable. One situation would be the current situation of the economy. Our economy, as we all know, is struggling in an economic depression but this has already occurred in the 1930’s-the Great Depression. Perhaps, when the economy has stabilized, our future successors will prevent another economic downfall. Thus, we learn from our past from ancestors, past successors, etc, we can better ourselves economically.

History helps us define ourselves and have a better understanding of what we are. It gives us a sense of identity because every human has his/her own history to claim. We create our own history (past, present, future) which can cause problems such as our current economy. Yet, we can also produce optimistic events, for example, having an African American president. The citizens of America created history when we elected Democratic candidate  Barack Obama as president because we tore down the racial barriers that prevented non-Caucasian candidates to be presidents.

The past gives us an guidance on how to govern ourselves and to help us economically. And the future gives us, perhaps, an optimistic view for the unknown. In some way, it gives us a sliver of hope that things will get better because it has already happened in the past. We are a part of history whether we play a large or small role.