The Freight Train of History

I was never sympathetic to the idea of historical determinism. If anything, I've always had a knee-jerk reaction to it. I've even written a bit about it, and about how it's not only an untenable theoretical position, but also how it's symptomatic of a deeper despair from which we’re suffering. However, lately, I feel like I maybe get the appeal. Not that I'm actually entertaining the idea of historical determinism, but by the same token, I suspect that I'm not alone in feeling like history's wheel turns because of forces that dwarf any of us.

I always liked Marx's description of capitalism where he spoke of it in terms of the story of the Sorcerer's apprentice. Like Mickey Mouse in Fantasia, capitalism has unleashed such awesome forces that not even the most powerful capitalist is capable of controlling them. Imagining that Mark Zuckerberg, that silicon valley dweeb, is powerful enough to do anything about the state of the world is laughable. He drops 100 million dollars to fix Newark's schools (just one small city in one small state) and all he gets is a receipt. He's certainly one of the winners at this game, but he, like all our billionaires, is totally impotent when faced with any of our collective challenges. Elon Musk isn't fixing climate change, he just plays the guy who does on Twitter.

However, I always understood Marx's description in more economic rather than historical terms. I understood it as a description of how the inexorable pressure to produce ever greater quantities of goods at ever cheaper costs was a process from which no one was immune. But now, I think I better understand the historical nuance. It's not just that we're all victims to these economic processes, but that we're victims of history too. We're on a runaway train hurtling towards the horizon and while we might be able to imagine ways to stop ourselves, the sheer power is awesome. We could throw ourselves by the thousand-fold in front of this train without slowing it down in the slightest.

I don't mean any of this as symptomatic of my own despair. I'm depressed like everyone else, but also, maybe more hopeful than most. I feel like I've been waiting my whole life for people to wake up (and I've had things I've been asleep on too - but at least I wanted to wake up), and now, many people are. So, I'm mostly just writing because I feel like we're getting this incredible lesson in history, and I'm curious if others feel this too? But perhaps this is one of those things where I've been asleep, and others have been waiting for me?