Past, Present, and some Hegel.

Lindsey, Mariana and I met at Espresso Royale today to discuss the Fasolt reading. We found it really interesting to think about history and past, present and future. We all agreed with the fact that in order to understand history we must look at many different perspectives in order to gain understanding of what really happened. Fasolt says you must look at multiple sources. We found this true in everything we have done in class so far. For example look at our protocols, we have two people write each class so we can get different points of view. When reading history we should do so in the same way.

We found it interesting in how to draw the line of past to present. When discussing we realized it is difficult to place a line to determine what is past to what is present since they are both intertwined. We cannot change the past, it cannot un-happen, however the way we view the past can always change in the present. "The past, if it is anything at all, is a dimension of the present and changes along with it" (16). The past is still alive since it is attached to the present. The line can also not be drawn since people do not live the same lives they do not always have the same past. "historians can actually place things past into the context of 'their' time and place" (12). We feel that this stands true for everyone. Since everyone is different, the line would be in different places depending on the background of each person.

We also found it funny on how we see Hegel everywhere. Fasolt stated, "No state could be sovereign if its inhabitants lacked the ability to change a course of action adopted by their forefathers in the past" (7). We saw Hegel within this quote. It demonstrates the diagram we did in class with history leading towards truth and freedom. It shows the idea of the antithesis colliding with the thesis. The inhabitants need to have the world spirit in them in order to make the synthesis. We found it interesting that this idea has repeatedly came up.

After I left Lindsey and Mariana I was thinking of how the past has made me who I am today. Not that I dwell on the past all the time but I have learned so much from my past experiences that it has made me grow so much. I honestly have not realized how often I make decisions by using my past experiences. Which makes my past very much alive.