Let’s start with Putin’s war against Ukraine. Whatever his motives, his consequence might last a millennium. What consequence? Why, the consequence of a stewing hatred, one that will divide Slavs from Slavs, Ukrainians from Russians. Generations from now, regardless of the outcome of the war, descendants of today’s Ukrainians will harbor ill feelings toward Russians, even though neither tomorrow’s Ukrainians nor tomorrow's Russians will have had anything to do with the past.
Or, take the persistent conflict in the Middle East. The emotions today were generated in power struggles long gone, the original antagonists long dead. Or take the antisemitism of Europeans from ancient to modern times. Was Christ’s hanging on a cross one of those moments buried in the heritage of Christians that made them anti-Jew? Was Joseph ben Caiaphas yesteryear’s Putin? Did he set in motion the judgments of the ensuing two millennia, judgments that we see today?
Much of what each one of us is lies deeply rooted, sometimes so deeply rooted that we are unaware of the connections between today’s leaves and yesterday’s roots. How many of your judgments belong to eras long gone? Are you, in effect, today’s equivalent of tomorrow’s Ukrainians?
Along the path that led to your present lay numerous Putins and Caiaphases, some known, but many unknown. You, a leaf on the twenty-first century tree, grew on a branch that emerged seemingly recently, but that is an offshoot of a very old tree. The winds that shake you are frequently the same winds that shook your known and unknown cultural ancestors. The inheritance they left you was attitude, prejudice, and preference.
About ten years after the attack that led to American involvement in Afghanistan, a reporter asked some young Taliban fighters what they knew about 9/11. They hadn’t heard of it. The very reason they were fighting was buried in a past only a decade deep. Some, maybe all of them, might since then have lost their lives in fighting for…
Maybe tree leaf is the wrong metaphor; maybe grass blade is better. Those rhizomes that creep beneath the surface emerge where and when opportunity affords new growth. To what cultural rhizomes are you connected? Discover that, and you’ll see you aren’t as “modern” as you think, not as independent as you wish, and not as rational as you pretend.
Or, take the persistent conflict in the Middle East. The emotions today were generated in power struggles long gone, the original antagonists long dead. Or take the antisemitism of Europeans from ancient to modern times. Was Christ’s hanging on a cross one of those moments buried in the heritage of Christians that made them anti-Jew? Was Joseph ben Caiaphas yesteryear’s Putin? Did he set in motion the judgments of the ensuing two millennia, judgments that we see today?
Much of what each one of us is lies deeply rooted, sometimes so deeply rooted that we are unaware of the connections between today’s leaves and yesterday’s roots. How many of your judgments belong to eras long gone? Are you, in effect, today’s equivalent of tomorrow’s Ukrainians?
Along the path that led to your present lay numerous Putins and Caiaphases, some known, but many unknown. You, a leaf on the twenty-first century tree, grew on a branch that emerged seemingly recently, but that is an offshoot of a very old tree. The winds that shake you are frequently the same winds that shook your known and unknown cultural ancestors. The inheritance they left you was attitude, prejudice, and preference.
About ten years after the attack that led to American involvement in Afghanistan, a reporter asked some young Taliban fighters what they knew about 9/11. They hadn’t heard of it. The very reason they were fighting was buried in a past only a decade deep. Some, maybe all of them, might since then have lost their lives in fighting for…
Maybe tree leaf is the wrong metaphor; maybe grass blade is better. Those rhizomes that creep beneath the surface emerge where and when opportunity affords new growth. To what cultural rhizomes are you connected? Discover that, and you’ll see you aren’t as “modern” as you think, not as independent as you wish, and not as rational as you pretend.
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