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For so long, history was a black hole to me. I'd learn a tidbit of trivia here, a fact and figure there, but despite my best efforts, they'd inevitably tumble into that yawning chasm of space and time, floating loose with all my other historical knowledge. But that all changed when I came across a form for this shapeless void to fill—the arc of Dr. King.
Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." This conception of history as a great, ethical narrative building to liberation resonated in a place deep within me, a place where one could mine the ore of my identity and witness the fusion of my living narrative. The planetary core within my being turned towards King’s imagery.
It could finally call the magnetic pull it had always known by its true name— justice. Something inside me clicked. My cosmos shifted.
What I had known only as a black hole suddenly spiraled out before me, sending comets of once lost knowledge whizzing, rippling into a new shape across the blackness. I found myself face to face with history as a vast night sky, gently arcing along the curvature of the earth. Lying on my back, I was able to trace historical moments along the backbone of this galaxy with my fingers—they had found their home among the stars. And now I had a framework that made sense to me, a place in my mind where I could stargaze at history.
From atop this grassy hill, the Milky Way of our shared stories dances across the horizon in that familiar arc, one the human eye has known intimately for tens of thousands of years. This starry arc leaves us mesmerized whenever we reacquaint ourselves with it, craning back to absorb as much of it as possible, and the historical one in my mind has the same effect. Yet something else about this mental encounter is just as familiar, just as essential to the human experience as really reflecting beneath the stars.
By looking at time through a lens of space, it becomes clear that history’s vastness is as expansive and unfathomable as the cosmos itself. The wonder of it all is utterly enveloping. And when you finally manage to reel your consciousness out of the constellations and back into your body, everything seems to shimmer with the finite.
This, my dear human friend, is the great feeling of insignificance, and it is a gift to our kind.
The first person who ever clambered up a hillside and sat in awe of the celestial expanse felt insignificant, as has every person since. This is how our human understanding of size and distance manifests itself— we are instinctually aware that, in terms of space, we are small. Yet, in that grasping of insignificance, there is a power to be harnessed, a uniquely human power. Only through possessing an accurate awareness of my current state can I hope to harness my full potential in this reality and push its limits in targeted ways.
An encounter with the cosmos brings on the realization that one’s whole existence is occurring in a teeny, tiny corner of the universe. It is small. And nothing can be done about it. But in that moment of acceptance, the perspective flips. Life is small, but even in all its finiteness, it is still ours. We might as well unfurl all the authentic parts of ourselves and fill our particular corner of this space with what really matters. And even alone, this is powerful. But perhaps the best part about this truth we can all unlock is that it can be found just by glancing upwards.
You were meant to face that ocean of stars, and thus were meant to feel the size of your space. To be human is to get to know that space and to fill it.
History offers us that same, awesome power. But not by transfixing us every time its our turn to take the trash out on a clear night. Time is more elusive than that, sneaking up between blinks. Engaging with it isn't as simple as stepping out the front door at dusk; to encounter time, we must look for its fingerprints and listen for its echoes. Moments in time are caught on film, relived through oral storytelling, and captured between the pages of books. Through these mediums, we can engage with time through the lens of human stories and begin crafting star charts for the historical galaxy in our minds.
For just as every human is fated to be humbled by the night sky, so too were we meant to be humbled by our shared past. It doesn’t take any special skill to engage with history— listening to and learning from stories of the past is inherent to the human condition. Children do it before they even speak their first word. Triangulating where our story falls on this great timeline is just what we do to try and understand how time moves. It is our eternal attempt to grasp the length and breadth of our space in time.
It wasn't until I neared the end of my third decade that I had finally pieced together an understanding of time that was satisfactory to me. I had lived just enough life to be at a unique intersection in time— I was old enough to have a sense of how short life is, but young enough to have a sense of how long it is. Sure, it's beautifully fleeting and all, but it's also an exhausting grind, one that I discovered, not through studying but through living. And I was surprised how confident this little definition of time made me feel. I mean, I was 30, and like, wise now, but even so. This simple way of looking at my lifeline made me feel as if I was standing on more solid ground, as if time could stop being a vague threat and perhaps become a tool.
Because, to the surprise of no one, my newly-found confidence had much less to do with that delusion of aged wisdom, and much more to do with the fact that I had a new tool, one that was helping me answer the question of time in a way that benefitted me. By working from this new ground and engaging with stories from the past, I began to construct a better understand the bounds of my own existence, especially once I had the arcing historical universe before me. This visual tool allows me to experience the size and shape of my time in a more familiar, more visceral way. Every historical memory I come across becomes another star in my sky. The universe of the human story that I know expands, the horizon of my perspective widens to encompass it, and that little figure on the hill better understands her place in time.
The historical stargazing I was able to accomplish on my own helped me begin to understand the limits of time surrounding my existence, but it wasn't until I had the language of critical theory that I felt liberated to truly claim that time.
A human certainly can experience history in all its richness with no special training, but for me, theory has been the key to unlocking a particular sense of personal liberation and historical confidence. Perhaps you, too, could find a more secure sense of self by harnessing the power of history with the help of critical scholars.
After all, when you’re stargazing, it sometimes helps to have a telescope and a star chart or two.
As soon as you have a language that has a past tense and a future tense you're going to say, 'Where did we come from, what happens next?' The ability to remember the past helps us plan the future.
Margaret Atwood
Critical educators come in all shapes and sizes, and while Margaret Atwood is an author of fiction, she uses this medium to share her insightful ability to identify how power moves in the lives of real people. With this quote, she analyzes the uniquely human power of language. By looking closer at this universal ability of ours to communicate in ever-evolving ways, it becomes clear that the past is built into our existence as creatures with language.
Reflecting on the basic building blocks of the human experience in this way is central to the critical tradition. These theorists recognize that in the Western world today, we have been steeped in a future-focused discourse, one that presses ever onward without looking back. And through this refusal to truly reckon with the past, we neglect an essential part of what it means to be human. Critical theory wants to help you reengage with those lost parts of your humanity, to reclaim your history. And Atwood, like all great storytellers before her, is able to call our attention to what we often forget to remember— the lessons of the past.
She also makes us realize that since it is our capacity for language that endows us with a past and future, it is through language itself that we become historical beings. The great scholar Paulo Freire agreed. When he wrote the book that established the field of critical theory, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire argued that our historical nature is what makes us distinct from other animals.
Indeed, in contrast to other animals who are unfinished, but not historical, people know themselves to be unfinished; they are aware of their incompletion. In this incompletion and this awareness lie the very roots of education as an exclusively human manifestation.
Freire, 1970 p. 84
To live a human life is to exist with a general understanding that it is a limited time offer, and education is how we learn to deal with that.
Learning gives us the chance to discuss this reality and reflect on what it means. Hearing stories of how others used their time will give you knowledge that will manifest in the choices of your life, even when you’re unconscious of it. This never-ending process is why Freire argues that education is an inherent part of our nature. This drive to learn stems from ancient knowledge within you, where you hold the inescapable truth that you are one small part of a great history.
And this history is much more than a required course that spews out bland and shallow retellings that are immediately ingulfed by that black hole in your mind. Critical scholar Henry Giroux argues that historical memory is such a deep well of resources, overflowing with different kinds of knowledge, that to only reflect on history between the four walls of a classroom is a grave mistake. The past offers us lessons that flex our intellectual muscles, yes, but also our ethical, political, and social muscles. Not only do schools need to expand their understanding of history for the sake of students, but all aspects of society need to let history in and allow its lessons to restore our institutions. Giroux argues that in order to take full advantage of history's gift to humanity, there are two fundamental questions we must continually pose:
"What is it about the past that we don’t want to repeat? What about the past do we want to appropriate?"
Giroux, 2015
With these questions at the front of my mind, the past had a new, irresistible pull. The historical galaxy in my mind began to twinkle with shiny purpose, and it wasn't long before the once grassy path up that hill had been beaten down as I scrambled up it with my telescope every chance I got. Each new historical fragment I learned would catch my eye in the night sky, adding depth to the constellations I thought I knew so well. By exploring the past, I was mapping out answers for my present.
Yet, this was not what liberated me; in fact, I was rather irked. The more answers I found, the more historical figures I uncovered that I had not known, despite their accomplishments and worldwide acclaim. How could it be that I had struggled hopelessly for years over questions that had been answered many times over, by an array of great thinkers, none of whom I knew? Why hadn't my years of education helped me to answer these big, unavoidable questions of life? And most of all, why did I leave school assuming that in these struggles, I was all alone?
Paulo Freire would claim that this is because the education system I was sent through was not one of liberation. If power moves in a way that squashes humanity instead of sparking it, it acts as a dehumanizing force, oppressing anyone it touches.
Freire argued that a system of dehumanization "always reduces the oppressed understanding of historical time to a hopeless present."
Kincheloe, 2008 p. 72
This hopeless present was curled up in the diploma I was handed on graduation day. I had this fancy certification, yet how much did I know? If I had not found satisfactory answers in a renowned refuge of learning, perhaps these questions of mine were not worth asking. And I did not think to look too closely at history for answers, for school had all but crushed my historical curiosity. After all, the curriculum had cycled through repeatedly during my time in the classroom— how many times could one hear the same, old stories about Ben Franklin and Abraham Lincoln? Certainly, I thought, if history had something to offer me, I would've heard it already. No hope was to be found in the past.
But education can function in a liberating way with a very simple shift, by allowing history to reshape and restore it to its original purpose. Instead of mindlessly repeating the same historical clichés, education can help students develop their sense of historical space and triangulate their place in this great galaxy of stories.
By stargazing at the past with telescopes of critical theory, all of human history is revealed to simply be story after story of humans in hopeless presents resisting the immovable and achieving the impossible.
History holds rich amounts of hope, but not simply because it exists. Its hope is borne only from the potential it offers the present, the infinite amount of ways it can be used to transform the future. The more you interact with the past, the more you spark that hope. And in time, this hope will unlock an ancient knowledge within you, one that speaks in a gently powerful voice, reminding you of something you’ve always known— you are meant to overcome struggle; it is your legacy. As you develop your own understanding of the time you were given as a historical being, you cultivate what Paulo Freire called critical consciousness.
A deepened consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as an historical reality susceptible of transformation. Resignation gives way to the drive for transformation and inquiry, over which men feel themselves to be in control.
Freire, 1970 p. 85
The past reveals that your future is in your hands. It is yours to transform, a critical analysis of human nature says so. Your time may just be one flickering little twinkle in this sweeping stream of stars, but it is a unique human gift, one that is meant to shine bright.
This is the freedom the past offers you. It is simply inhumane to allow your insecurities, fears, weaknesses, and failures to get in the way of your story. Your humanity will only be fully experienced when you overcome struggles, and that includes the ones you create for yourself. You will never overcome any meaningful struggle on the path towards justice if you cannot first get out of your own way. Historical confidence gives you the justification to be fully yourself. We simply don't have time for anything else; we've got obstacles to overcome.
So, trust your humanness. Do not hesitate to ask for what you need, express yourself in authentic ways, and align your stars with justice.
But as you clasp this great human power in one hand, you cannot forget to hold great human insignificance in the other. Look closely at the glistening galaxy of the past; none of the stories in this entire universe were written alone. To realize your full human power, you must be part of a movement. If you are to struggle in a historically meaningful way, you must answer this great human call and join with others.
Dr. King's vision of a moral universe winding its way towards justice keeps our historical focus on what really matters: the quest for liberation, our grand adventure. With this focal point, we can see that each time dominating power was overcome, it required a collective of people, not merely the singular hero often celebrated by shallow historical understandings. Dive deeper into this sea of stars and find your full humanity by immersing yourself in the lessons of your ancestors. You'll turn back up with historical confidence in one hand, humbling insignificance in the other, and eyes shining with celestial fire.
That great, historical galaxy is there waiting for you, whenever you need it. Don't wait too long to go stargazing, though, because as Margaret Atwood reminds us...
Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space.
References:
Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. p. 84, 85
Kincheloe, Joe. 2008. Critical Pedagogy Primer. p. 72
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