Soul: Sting - History Will Teach Us Nothing

What have we learned from history? Of course, the depth and breadth of historical facts and figures about past events continue to proliferate. It seems that there is definitely no shortage of "content" when it comes to history. Similarly, there is no shortage of courses, specialists, programs, books, telelvision programs in the media surround. But the question of what we have learned from history is significantly different.

The title of this entry comes from Sting's History Will Teach Us Nothing [on Nothing Like The Sun] [MP3: History Will Teach Us Nothing]. Sting is an artist, to my sensibilities, that speaks directly from the soul, and it occurred to me while listening to this song that perhaps there is a distinct loss of soul in history itself...

Thomas Moore feels that the greatest malady of the 20th scentury is a loss of soul.

The great malady of the twentieth century, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is "loss of soul." When soul is neglected, it doesn't just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning.
- Care of the Soul : A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life

This, the opening two lines of Moore's introduction, is compelling in a variety of ways. The idea of a "great malady" or perhaps universal illness is not hard to observe. Whether or not we agree with placing the loss of soul as the "greatest" malady of the twentieth century is insignificant, however, the "loss of soul" is at least something we can see as at least being pervasive.

Our written history is a catalogue of crime
The sordid and the powerful, the architects of time
The mother of invention, the oppression of the mild
The constant fear of scarcity, aggression as its child
- History Will Teach Us Nothing [on Nothing Like The Sun] [MP3: History Will Teach Us Nothing]

It is accurate to say that much of our written history is a catalogue of crime in the sense that it seems to focus, somewhat obessively, on the more mercurial dimensions of human activity. There is a loss of soul in written history in Moore's sense as well; a great deal of written history does tend to focus on obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning. Of course, "written" history is something less than history itself.

If we have "learned" from our collective history, would it not be safe to say that the world is in some manner a better place to live? At the same time, the twentieth century witnessed atrocities that are seemingly unparalleled. As knowledge and human invention proceeds, there is a curious tendency toward obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning. One of the problems is that the very idea of history is easily degraded into a series of facts about events in far off places. Yet history is alive within each one of us. What has been lost in history is the soul.

The idea of the soul being degraded is similar in kind to ideas about losing purpose, meaning, hope, and faith. Without these qualities we merely exist, we do not really live. Conversely, care of the soul means building and harvesting purpose, meaning, hope and faith. It is not hard to understand what Sting means by written history being a catalogue of crime, at the same time, he might also be saying that what is not written, or perhaps has yet to be written, is precisely what we need to restore.

If God is dead and an actor plays his part
His words of fear will find their way to a place in your heart
Without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse
Without freedom from the past things can only get worse
- History Will Teach Us Nothing [on Nothing Like The Sun] [MP3: History Will Teach Us Nothing]

In some ways, it is unfortunate that the idea of the soul has a close relationship with ideas about religion. I do not mean to imply that religion in and of itself is a problem, but I am saying that some of the ways in which people choose to express and pattern their religious beliefs are sometimes contradictory, and in extreme cases they can be obsessive, addictive, and violent. If, as Sting croons in History Will Teach Us Nothing [on Nothing Like The Sun], "history is the catalogue of crime" we all too often find the presence of religion in this catalogue. Should not history be more like a catalogue of the soul? The soul is not the exclusive province of religion, but it does belong firmly in the realm of spirituality - our individual and collective sense of the universal in life.

The soul prefers to imagine.
- Thomas Moore in Care of the Soul : A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life

Very wisely I think, Moore refuses to offer "a" definition of the word soul, and instead explore what the soul might be or can become. And in another sense, we might also be exploring what our sense of soul once was, but have lost along the way. It is that unwritten part of history to which, I believe, Sting calls out to. Part of the issue in caring for the soul is building a greater sense of the genuine in living, and another may be the recovery and restoration of wisdom that we fail to attend. This, to my thinking, is not unlike the message Joseph Campbell was asking us to consider.

Convince an enemy, convince him that he's wrong
Is to win a bloodless battle where victory is long
A simple act of faith
In reason over might
To blow up his children will only prove him right
History will teach us nothing
- History Will Teach Us Nothing [on Nothing Like The Sun] [MP3: History Will Teach Us Nothing]

It seems all to apparaent that for all our progress, success, invention, creativity, and problem-solving, we still fail to attend to our collective history. And Sting calls out for a a simple act of faith in reason over might, or more simply, he calls out to our soul. I wonder how many people actually listen to, not just hear, the lyrics of songs. I suspect very few, for if the masses valued the message being promoted in a song, we would have little need for the commercial "artists" that fill the airwaves today.

In Sting we hear what an artist is in an authentic sense. And an artist will cause us to explore our own perceptions, if we listen openly with all our sensibilities. And the soul prefers to imagine...

Know your human rights
Be what you come here for
Know your human rights
Be what you come here for
Know your human rights
Be what you come here for
Know your human rights
Be what you come here for
- History Will Teach Us Nothing [on Nothing Like The Sun] [MP3: History Will Teach Us Nothing]