A Snapshot of History

The philosopher G.F. W. Hegel (1770-1831), for all his many failed attempts at explaining life, has an interesting idea in relation to the passing on of ideas and events through history. This idea is known as Aufhebung. Perhaps fittingly, Aufhebung is contradictory in definition. It refers to both cancelling something, and keeping it. Contradiction is not a great obstacle to Hegel. A quick explanation of Aufhebung would be to consider some historical event/idea. This event/idea, as time passes, is somehow packaged up in its bare essence and moved forward as one complete big picture idea. For instance, when considering communism most might consider Stalin, government taking control, and many deaths. When considering Napoleon people might have a snapshot of him taking control of much of the world, failing, coming back and failing again. Or perhaps when considering the industrial revolution people might think about lots of pollution, slave labour, and the old way of life changing. In other words, events and ideas have a way of condensing into their bare essence, and being remembered only for this.

Now whether or not Hegel actually believed that events and ideas ontologically changed is besides the point. Forget about Hegel now. The point is that there is some truth to how we often only remember certain principles or general details of history. Perhaps in our modern day culture I fear our events and ideas are often reduced to even a single photograph.

For instance, mention the American Civil Rights movement and most people will picture something like this:

 

Mention Iwo Jima and you will get this image:

Muhammed Ali?

9/11? Something like this:

Perhaps more recently, even certain news events become memorialized by a recent picture. 

Pope Benedict XVI's resignation:

The whole Obama/Notre Dame controversy:

Well, I fear if you mention president Trump's meeting with Pope Francis, the enduring image will not be pretty. The two leaders held their highly anticipated meeting. The interest in this meeting was heightened after Pope Francis took some shots at Trump in the weeks leading up to the visit. So what did they talk about? Was Trump put in his place? Did Pope Francis get the arrogant Trump treatment? Was some form of understanding reached? Are they more or less enemies? Words have been shed over the meeting, but all in vain. What the meeting will be remembered for is this:

Modern day Aufhebung. Whatever events and ideas arise can be reduced to a simple picture. For better or for worse. The Hegelian message, then, is further reduced to one principle: Always remember to smile.

Or maybe that's the whole point of the picture?