A Little Irony

I find irony to be interesting, at least from a historical and political perspective. On the other hand, I have not cared for it much in my personal life, as irony tends to not be so great when it happens to you. When it happens to others, does it then become poetic justice? I suspect if it is someone you do not like, or that person does not matter to you, but I bet it is irony to them. Anyway, that is not really the point. I was thinking of irony in general and how it has applied to history, and if anything is filled with irony it is one of my great loves: history and her bastard step-child, politics (or is it the other way around. Did history create politics or vice versa?).

I have been reading (and have almost finished) a book on the Cold War and was struck with the fact that the author is right: most of the current generation of college students were toddlers or grammar school students when the Cold War ended. I actually began college as the Cold War ended. In fact, the first courses I took were while on a trip to Eastern Europe and the USSR as the walls came tumbling down upon them, so to speak. I missed the Berlin Wall, but got to stand in Red Square while Russia was still the Soviet Union. And St. Petersburg was still Leningrad, but just barely (I wonder how many remember St. Petersburg was once Leningrad that was once Petrograd that was once St. Petersburg... and you thought Constantinople, er... Istanbul had a crazy history... funny, both cities have been celebrated in song about the same time.. wild). Ok, that was a parenthetical out of control. I suppose that is my current mind set. I need to write, so I simply do, and let it go. In the end, it is always better that way. Back to the point on the book, aside from the little ironies... and that is how the perception of our world has changed in a scant sixty years or so. Think about it, especially if you do have a little background in history. The time scale is amazing, really. To affect change in so small a time (and in our generation as well with computers and the Internet) is remarkable. This type of accellerative history began, to me, in the late 1800's with the Industrial age, especially in the US after the War Between the States. Since then, it has seemed that the world has been on one collision course after another, and one only thinks what the next one might be. Can the world continue at this almost exponential pace? In some ways I hope so, only because of my fascination with science fiction, but the historian in me remains dubious, especially since I feel myself being left behind at times. Sure, I am reasonably computer literate, but I have only a few clues about iPods and other assorted i-things, and I certainly have no ability to speak 'Net, finding that I can type longhand a whole lot faster than it takes for me to think of the possibly shorthand (with few exceptions). And texting... just talk to me, email me, or leave a comment. I do not mind hands free phones, as they remind me of comlinks/communicators, though it is weird when I hear someone talking at me, then I realize they have a wireless headset. So I suppose I look a little to the future while rejecting it some. I suppose that is always the case.

I guess the irony in all this is that I feel at times the world has raced by and the faster it moves past me, the further I want to dig into history to recant this rampant acceleration. I had always hoped I could adjust. In some ways, sure, though in others, I want to dig into a book, cut myself off from the world on a quiet beach and ruminate and reminisce of simpler time that were not as simple as we might imagine.

As I have mentioned before, I suppose I am at odds with this decade and using the tools of this decade to comment about it. Yeah, I know... ironic.

C.