HISTORIANS WHO STRESS UNDERLYING ECONOMIES KNOW THE SUBJECT POLITICAL, SINCE IT OPPOSES WHAT IS USUALLY SAID
Historians who stress individuals or philosophies, on the other hand, think that approach apolitical because it follows assumptions that are usually held.
Proof of how viewing the past has practical effects:
- Emphasis on economies and social upheaval appeared briefly in the U.S. during the Vietnam War. In France it lasted for a generation after World War II, due to collaborationists' discredit and respect for the largely left-wing Resistance.
- Stress on individuals and philosophies coincides with dominance of the right, in the U.S. with the Cold War* and in France with the rise of multinationals from about 1980.
*Personal memory: Classes in modern European intellectual history at Vassar College and Russian history in the Soviet Union Program at Harvard did not mention Marx and his insistence the underlying economy even once.
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The presentation of a city and its past is part of the wanted mindset. The ads that hover over great cities* express it:
*First noticed in Paris in 2011.
Richard Nahem, 2020
Union Square in Manhattan, 2025 / Elisabeth Rawson
They glamorize...
- Emotion: The images give no logical reason for buying the brand, a mindlessness that discrediting expertise and leads to accepting authority. Lists of historical facts with no link to tangible forces correspond to that attitude.
At the Châtelet crossroad in central Paris, June 2022
- Isolation: The figures are almost always alone. Buying temporarily stills the loneliness that comes from capitalism breaking social bonds and promotes disconnection. Erasing insurrections fits that point of view.
Top of the Hotel Lutetia in the elegant 7th arrondissement.
- Void. Empty backgrounds tell spectators that they cannot impact the outside world. The extremely limited vision of Paris blends with that absence, and now even that postcard vision can be deleted:
The ads on that facade began in 2023.
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Like the Old Regime humble who insulted each other with "your father was a valet!", the depth of engrained assumptions leads historians to ignore their strengthening the system that subjugates them, an error that is all the more powerful in that it is sincere.
Comparable myopia leads most Parisians and visitors to ignore oddities that should jump out at them: the long, wide, straight streets leading to voids that are much too vast for traffic, the references to Louis XIV at Napoleon's tomb, the painting of an orgy that covers a ceiling at the heart of the Opéra... .
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Old Regime acceptance of hierarchy changed when the economy did: "What gave you all that wealth? You took the trouble to be born." That may be happening now.
Take a huge panel made in 2024, which by recalling the victorious combat for the eight-hour day breaks in a spectacular way from the mainstream:
It covers a third of the ground-level wall of the métro line that connects Orly international airport in the south with the Saint-Denis stadium in the north. Thousands of soccer fans pass it at every game.
Dark colors express that fight...
Bright ones celebrate a victory that improves lives now.
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It was commissioned by the Social-Democrat government of working-class Saint-Denis — waking from its sleep? — and coincides with protests that are taking place world-wide.
In the United States they began* when ordinary people from the left and the right joined in support of the alleged murderer* of a health-care provider's CEO, who made 10 million dollars in annual by denying health care to people who had paid for it:
*Luigi Mangioni is accused of shooting Brian Thomson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, on December 4, 2024.
Video: zoom
A similar alliance contributed to the election of Zohran Mamdani, an unknown Muslim immigrant and Social-Democrat, as Mayor of New York a year later.
I mention American politisation because the impact of its current right-wing government is world-wide. But mass demonstrations taking place everywhere. The sparks are local, but underlying them is globalized capitalism's destruction of traditional economies, and so of the most sacred ties, most cherished philosophies, most venerated ways...
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| Harald Wolff |
That oligarchs' control replaces.
The struggle is between über-capitalism backed by far-right parties and democratic socialists providing solutions to the problems that face us all...
Throwing light on a manipulation of which we are usually unaware is part of that fight.
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| Harald Wolff |
That's why I wrote these blooks.
If you find them useful,
please pass them on.
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