Fragmentation

Two distinct events on different continents occurred, one week ago, on the first day of October this year. One an act of evil, the other a declaration for independence. Both, however, involve history, and this post will be a brief examination of the role or history in these two events. Without history we would not know change, and today, sometimes, change seems to be occurring at an ever greater pace.

Mandalay Hotel, Las Vegas
Knocked out windows on the 32nd floor

During the early night of October 1 we all know that Stephen Paddock, a multi-millionaire and child of a bank robber who was once on the FBI’s most wanted list, went on a shooting spree in Las Vegas, NV. Articles on the event have talked about his father’s psychopathic tendencies, his gambling habit, and his plethora of guns. Investigators are attempting to find a motive for his action that warm fall night in the urban lights of Las Vegas. To look for a motive detectives look to his past, they delve deeply into his personal, financial, and family history. Who we are in character, is formed not just by our DNA, but also by our experiences, our relationships, and our interpretations of events. Or, as historian William Cronon puts it: “The past is the world out of which we have come to the multitude of events and experiences that shaped our conscious selves and the social worlds we inhabit.” In the case of Stephen Paddock, the question is what drove a successful (since earnings are culturally viewed as success) man to undertake such a horrendous act? Detectives are now historians interviewing past acquaintances and friends, delving deep into the record and paper trail of gun purchases and gambling, not to mention other life events and experiences of that led to Stephen Paddock’s 32nd floor hotel suite overlooking the festival grounds. As of today, there seems an increasing concern that a motive has yet to be found.  Mass shootings, unfortunately, have become a not irregular occurrence. One reason why investigators want to find a motive is to help further knowledge of the personality type of the criminal.

On the north shores of the Mediterranean Sea a completely different, and unrelated event took place. It too makes one wonder how history can explain the drive for the Catalonia to secede from Spain. The Catalanonian vote is but one in a recent history of successful or attempted separations, or fragmentation, of current states which has become common in Europe. There was the peaceful separation of Czechoslovakia (into Czech Republic and Slovakia), the break-up of the Balkans, the unsuccessful vote in Scotland to separate from Britain, and varied moves by the Basque region of Spain to separate. It is a paradox that at the same time as globalization is ever increasing in the world, we see fragmentation increasing, if not in practice than by desire. Does it represent a desire for self-recognition and determination? Or, perhaps change and globalization are leading to a yearning for a long lost past, and a desire of recognition of their cultural group.

Rally in Catalonia supporting secession from Spain

National boundaries are lines on a map, some of those lines are the result of treaties from past wars, some due to conquest, others relative to culture. As shown by the Catalonians, Scottish, and Basques there is an apparent desire for grounding and recognition. Wisconsin historian William Cronon has written something I fin relevant to this situation: “the past matters because public and private meaning are crucial to all that makes us human.” The collective remembrances help create a cultural identity and tie past to present. It is perhaps hard for an American, we a nation of immigrants, to understand the separatist desires of European cultural groups. Spain as we know it has been around since over 60 years before the American Declaration of Independence, although as was common at the time, it borders were set by conquest. Yet, Catalonia has over the intervening centuries maintained some aspects of their own culture, and that cultural identity seems to be ever increasing as time, and globalization move on. Although as a wealthy region of Spain, it may in large part be economic. But, economics cannot be separated from culture, nor from history.

Rather adamant on the collective value 

History shows that, while time frames may vary, integrations will often fail: think Roman Empire, British Empire, USSR, the Balkans. In other words, a boundary is not the only test of a nation. A nation is determined by its shared values, its shared ideas, its shared histories. To paraphrase the geographer Yi Fu Tuan, space becomes place when it is endowed with value. That occurs not only on the neighborhood level, or on the local level, but also at the state and national level. (Marshall Erickson a character on the long running TV show "How I met Your Mother" had a line that was to the effect that but for their nice nature, Minnesota would be just like Wisconsin.) These histories, the values and ideas of a people, form to bind people together. The past informs the present. Las Vegas detectives are looking to the past to find clues to inform about a terrible shooting. Spain and Catalonia are working through a divisive period informed by history.

Images from Google