“Denise came in and sprawled across the foot of the bed, her head resting on her folded arms, facing away from me. How many codes, countercodes, social histories were contained in this simple posture?” p. 61
“As the most prominent figure in Hitler studies in North America, I had long tried to conceal the fact that I did not know German… I was living, in short, on the edge of a landscape of vast shame… Wasn’t Hitler’s own struggle to express himself I German the crucial subtext of his massive ranting autobiography, dictated in a fortress prison in the Bavarian hills? Grammar and syntax. The man may have felt himself imprisoned in more ways than one.” p. 31
“It is interesting to wonder if he looked back from the furhrerbunker, beneath the burning city, to the early days of his power. Did he think of the small groups of tourists who visited the little settlement where his mother was born?” P. 72
I have come to see Jack Gladney’s view of history not as Hegelian, but as one that is driven by normal, individual people. In middle America, where fast food reigns supreme and people have few reasons to get out of their cars, each person is so wrapped up in their own universe with themselves at the center. Therefore, each person has an individual history that is increasingly isolated from all others. The exception is the family, where most socializing with others occurs. When he thinks about Hitler, it is not so much of his impact on the world and society. It is a personal relationship that he has with the man. He tries to get into Hitler’s mind. He tries to see aspects of Hitler within himself (the quote from page 31 about their somewhat similar difficulties with the German language). During Hitler’s last days, Jack thinks of how Hitler’s thoughts go to his mother and his childhood, not to the immense destruction he has caused. This is not to say that Jack in any way admires Hitler. As I was told by a high school teacher who had a Gladney-like obsession with the man, “to learn about and understand Hitler as a simple human, not as an evil force, is to take back some of the power that he holds over our history and society.” Aside from all of this Hitler business, Jack is well aware of how personal histories and societal histories affect us as individuals, such as in the quote from page 61. His stepdaughter is playing out a role that has been highly affected by certain historical moments that affect young women, as well as moments from her own personal history. In Jack’s view, we are a product of both of these histories, and they dictate all aspects of our behavior. This view of takes history away from the “great men doing great things” and the “world spirit” of Hegel, and instead shows how history is for all of us, and by all of us.
I can completely see and agree with your point that Jack Gladney's view on history and theories and ideologies are not so much of Hegelian as they are of just the common mindset amongst people about history and other matters. Our lives are shaped by where we have been and where people closely related to us have been. When we hear about and learn about other distant people in history we can only form an idea of how we feel based of of the information that we have been given and what emotional, intellectual and psychological effects that has on us. Never will we experience past historical events or current ones for that matter, on a first hand basis like the ones that happen in our immediate lives. We can make ourselves present for certain events in current events that will be considered historical, on purpose or by chance, but never every single moment that will shape this history that is happening now. In every moment that happens in our lives though we become emersed in what happens and so do the people around us and I believe that thats part of what Gladney was trying to see through Hitler's eyes when he thought of him or considered his events.
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