What are the most instructive historical analogies for our situation?
I muse that there are three dimensions to the current situation that would benefit from looking at three historical periods. Historical analogies are always speculative, but if they are useful, then they fulfill one of the main requirements of rational thinking.
The first two historical analogies were also attempts to reclaim public space from the ravages of war, plague and economic uncertainty. Today, social and cultural trends are operating within a restriction of public space and so have turned toward a virtual public space.
First, our situation seems much like the post-World War I, post-Great Influenza period. There were three instructive trends in that post-period. There was a desire for “hot” responses and “cold” responses.
The hot responses were “Hot religion” of intense evangelists like Billy Sunday (who often visited NYC), “Hot” sensuality that abandoned restraints in favor of grabbing intense sensational pleasures, and “Hot” ideological politics. A “warm” response was the turn toward more personal, communal forms of religion and society. The “cold” responses were the unleashed managerial capitalism, managerial religion, and a “scientism” that pretended that it had or could offer the answer to all questions. In response to an internationalist movement, isolationism also revived its hold on many Americans’ political imaginations; this turn had both Left and Right political forms.
Second, our situation is threaded with elements of the Great Depression, the period between 1929 and 1941. We are in at least a short term depression, as great as the Great Depression. The economy may be disturbed for a shorter time, but the intense lack of money and certainty will lead people to look for some sort of strong certainty and strong leaders.
Third, before the plague, our times seem to resemble the 1960s-1970s, a time wracked with cultural wars, national division in the face of great national existential threats like the spread of Leftist and Rightist autocracies and racial divisions; hedonism; social and economic cultural innovations and reforms; and a revival of conservative and leftist politics. It was also a time of religious seeking. However, this time, there is much greater awareness of the limitations of the economy and the need for practicality. Trump is similar to the thin-skinned, suspicious, embattled Nixon (with Joe Biden being the Hubert Humphrey like character in the political drama), and the media today seems to veering backward into its extreme anti-conservative, secularistic culture of the 1960s and 1970s.
The Prodigal Son is a parable for the first historical analogy: he is lost but will be welcomed back. How do the spiritually-minded welcome back the sinners, the lost, and the failures at life?
Joseph, the advisor to Pharaoh about the rich and lean years, is the story appropriate to the time of the Great Depression.
The Good Samaritan is a parable for the third and last historical analogy: how can we appreciate and talk to each other?
What historical analogy would you use to understand our time?
Readers have suggested various other historical analogies that are useful. For example, Josh Encinias thinks that the history of the responses to the AIDS plague will yield instructive insights to our current plague condition. Thanks, Josh!