Regret

William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Indeed, the past lives on. The question to then ask is: Is that a bad thing? Is remembering and reliving the past harmful or helpful? I’m of the belief that remembering is a good thing simply because it’s what we are capable of through evolutionary design, and that must be for a purpose. Not only is remembering a sign of acknowledgment that something happened, a lack of remembering—an unwillingness to, is a willful acknowledgement that we don’t want to face our past. Even the worst of times need remembering; no matter how painful they may be, remembering facilitates a salubrious process of discernment that yields a more productive fulfilling life.

Denial, the clear opposite of remembering—at least an acknowledgment of the past, has its own ramifications. Denial breeds contempt and a willingness to relive the past through repetition. We don’t need to expand on this any further. We need only to find in our lives the areas where denial is our reflex response and root out what it is in our person that benefits from that denial. Such introspection can at least serve as a start to considering all that has happened and to entertain the what if—what if I did it a different way?

The point of all this, the remembering, the denial, is whether or not we are capable of change. I guess that is the question: Can people change? My reflex response is an emphatic no. My mantra is usually to leave people alone. They are who they are and it’s all deeply rooted in their early history. All that went on in someone’s childhood and teens has long been cemented into history and changing someone means bringing a jackhammer to their historical foundation and doing some serious work. This is the job of mental health experts, breaking the foundation that was poured wrong and hardened with a slant, and pouring new concrete, only this time making sure it’s perfect, level, or at least functional.

But when I’m not in a flippant mindset, when I do the actual work of studying human nature, I’d have to admit that we change all the time. We change with big things and small. We change instantly and slowly, over time, almost imperceptibly. And when we do change, it’s usually because we’ve experienced some form of regret. That word sounds horrible, I know. It’s something we usually don’t embrace—we avoid it at all costs. But, in truth, regret is always the beginning of change. I don’t mean a change that’s innocuous. I used think yellow was my favorite color when I was a child. I changed. I look back at that idea and wonder where my head was at. It’s now blue, like everyone else. Most everyone, anyway. Some earthy shade of green might be a close second, but I digress. This type of change is obviously not what the focus of this blog is about. Change in a way that lightens the heart, deepens our attachment to others, or opens our mind to the previously unwanted or unknown, that is the kind of change we are talking about here. It’s the type of change that makes us a better person, and that definition of better is one that the world stage would agree with. That would be a stage where inclusion is good and exclusion is bad, where compassion is good and self-aggrandizement is bad, where generosity is celebrated and where greed is denigrated.

I’d have to admit that this is all philosophical blather, so let’s set it in stone. Let’s carve our image of what all this actually means. As we near the end of February, the month of Social Justice and Black History, I’ve noticed a repeated effort by news journalists to remind the listening/reading public about our past, and asking us to reckon with our misdeeds from prior generations. It doesn’t take much, as these journalists remind us to see that a reluctance to even admit that events took place, reveals not just a desire to deny the past, but a likely admission that we are still perpetrating some act of infamy in our present day. As such, admitting the past would require changing the present, which has altogether different implications.

There is one glaring example of admitting past atrocities that stands out as a way to embrace history, rather than the all too familiar malignant attempt to rewrite it—that is, to deny it ever happened. That example would be current day Germany and its handling of the history of its Nazi era. Germany doesn’t hide behind ultra conservative denialists that would have us think Naziism was simply a political way of life, that there were no pogroms to eliminate the frail, the genetically handicapped, the mixed races, or the Jews. Germany, as a people and as a government, whole heartedly embrace its past. Children learn the heartache that was Auscwitz, which is preserved to stamp into history a physical remnant of its past atrocities. Streets bare signs reminding passersby that on that spot something horrible happened, or a sign in front of a house tells the story of a prior owner that was forcibly removed and latter sent to concentration camps for extermination. You can not live in Germany and not see the public reminders of their past. This is by design. Remembering brings regret, which forces change.

Daniel Pink’s The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, tells us that having a healthy acceptance of regret in our lives helps us learn from mistakes, and make us better negotiators, strategists, and problem solvers. Pink believes that disclosing regrets to others enhances ones position of authority and encourages coöperation in a team setting. His focus is leadership skills for the workplace, but what can be applied at work can also be effective in the home. Likewise, skills learned in the home—listening well, patience, and other forms of generosity, certainly can help us stand out in our place of employment. Skills are rarely singular when dealing with people.

A recent NPR story addressing social justice, focused on the Trujillo massacre along the Dominican Republic-Haiti border back in 1937. The Haitians in the story remembered the atrocity like it was yesterday. The Dominicans, not so much. They didn’t deny something happened, but they minimized the loss of life and the importance of the event on world history. The atrocity has become known as the Parsley Massacre due to the methods used to root out native Haitians living on the Dominican Republic side of the border. Race alone would not sufficiently distinguish between the Spanish speaking Dominicans and the French speaking Haitians. But, pronouncing the word parsley in Spanish was very difficult for native French speakers to articulate. It was a lethal mistake. My research of the event revealed that Haitians had massacred Dominicans back in the early 1800’s after they fought for independence from France. Haitian hubris encouraged expansionism which meant attempting the takeover of the rest of the island. The then stated reasons were to prevent Europeans from re-instituting slavery on the island. But when military tyranny is involved, reasons get muddied, and how the oppressed remember is likely to be different from how the oppressors remember.

It’s all an interesting story. Arrogance and a lack of regret, expressed to the victims of your atrocity, results in their returning the favor—the atrocity, some one hundred years later. And, once again, there is denial of the Parsley event over these past ninety years. I believe we haven’t seen the last of these two countries facing off with each other.

England is still confronting its past with the likes of Winston Churchill’s antics in Bengal, India, and Kenya. Barbaric by today’s standard. Likewise, his statue is not the only controversial figure demanding a reëvaluation of history. There are others in England linked to the benefits of the slave trade. The English government, of course, is reluctant to remove deification of Churchill as the national standard-bearer.

We were also reminded in the month of Justice, that Holland came to terms with its past in the slave trade, acknowledging that many businesses prospered to the extent they campaigned against abolitionism and demanded restitution for what was lost when the slave trade ended. The government itself has yet to concede.

New Zealand, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and Mexico, have all come to terms with their past. These countries have demonstrated regret, at least on a national level, for actions in their past that harmed their Native or First Peoples. I am not naïve in thinking that mere acknowledgment on a grand scale, percolates down to legislative and policy matters, or even affects a person’s decision in their family, neighborhood, or place of work. But, acknowledgment follows regret, as President F.W. de Klerk from South Africa said in 1992. We have to start somewhere. With reasonable expectations, the arc of history should bend towards justice.

Where is the United States in all this? Well, we’ve had our flag burnings, our statue demolitions, and also our apologies. The latter came with a caveat. After readily acknowledging the wrongs of Japanese internment during WWII, and encouraging the Japanese to likewise apologize for use of Chinese “comfort women,” Congress reluctantly apologized for slavery and the postbellum Jim Crow laws that so devastated a people. I say reluctantly because the idea had been kicked around Washington for almost a decade and when it was finally passed, it was hidden in a forty-five page budget appropriations bill, with no fanfare and no public announcements. This, after supporting a cultural way of life for hundreds of years that nearly tore the Union apart. Feckless.

This blog is not meant to be a history lesson, it’s meant to be an analysis of what it takes to change. A true change of the heart, nationally or personally, must start with regret. If we truly admit we have thought wrong or done wrong, then regret and change are possible. If we fail to admit, if we deny or simply fail to remember through subconscious or cultural means of forgetting, we are likely to remain wedded to ideas that can deprive others of life, liberty, and a pursuit of happiness.

© Eric Clark 02/28/2022

Photo by: regretful-455633_1280.png