Interaction with stories we tell ourselves
@daily @ireland @history
In a two parter of TNG, Worf goes to find his father, whos said to still be alive on a Romulan outpost holding Klingon slaves. When he arrives he finds that its a community of intermingling Romulans and Klingons where the Klignons have gotten rid of or forgotten who they ‘were’ and just become fine with who they are now. Ancient weapons are used as gardening tools and stories are told that represent a different reality of the Klingon race. Worf tries to explain what the Klingons are or were as well as revealing the true reality of the Klingon war that they still believe persists.
I’ve yet to finish the episode but I can’t decide if it’s a good things for Worf to try and ‘convert’ people to Klingon culture. In a sense, their lives are better, they don’t have the yolk of past stories in the sense of placing some past conflict on a present generation.
It occurred to me that this is the reality I essentially hope to see for Irish history. Is that what we would want though? no stories of the past, no stories we tell ourselves? Historically, we’ll probably just invent one anyways, its important to be part of something bigger as well as elevating our position as a community above others (not always something that happens, but often). Instead, theres an empathy one can have with people of the past. The thing I dislike most is a perpetuation of vengeance, or ‘unfinished business’ to the next generation. I see this through rebel songs in that they perpetuate this notion that there is something to be angry about and someone to blame. For me, this means stagnation and thankfully we don’t have to stagnate if we don’t want to, we’ve other options.
On the other hand, to disregard our past seems wrong, many people whether we agreed or not with their broad beliefs died in the same of the nation in which we live and in no small part the nation exists now as it does (whether it would have eventually arisen without them is conjecture) because of these people. My initial feeling is we don’t need to live in a constant state of being grateful.
Songs, poems, language that express some personal struggle or relationship with the ‘land’, with the commonality between us that is physical, that is not cultural is what is pure for me. It’s part of why I see the Irish language as the true culture. It’s a dynamic entity that imprints the history on it. It’s an interaction with this land that has created the words and some interaction with culture that’s created the idioms or phrases.