Today’s disputes have historical roots

The ancient Greek thinker Heraclitus observed that one cannot step in the same river twice. In the interval between the first and second step — be it a moment or a year — the water keeps flowing, the current shifts at least slightly, sediments in the riverbed move or erode or dissolve. Some reword his insight as “the only constant is change.”

Speaking of change, longtime readers of mine in this publication and others will have noticed a gradual but unmistakable shift in focus. While I still write about current events — recently praising North Carolina politicians for enacting health reforms and castigating them for blowing tax money on sports arenas — historical subjects now claim more of my attention.

You can credit (or blame) the calendar only in part. We are in the midst of our country’s semiquincentennial, and I have indeed been chronicling North Carolina’s many contributions to the origin story of America. But I’ve also written about other historicaleras and personalities.

Nor is it just that I have my own anniversary approaching. You see, it was in July 1986 that I wrote my first bylined column for a commercial newspaper. A year from now, then, as everyone is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a somewhat-smaller crowd will also commemorate my 40 years as a regular columnist for North Carolina media outlets. (I expect fewer fireworks.)

Over the years, I’ve assessed mayors, county commissioners, state lawmakers, federal lawmakers, governors, and presidents. I’ve covered elections, legislative debates, business openings, and natural disasters. I’ve discussed taxes, education, regulation, transportation, health care, housing, and other policy issues. I’ve described past events and predicted future ones. I’ve repeated tall tales and told small jokes.

Many readers appear to have enjoyed the ride. Others tell me otherwise, often with blunt language and colorful metaphors. For those who opine for a living, it has ever been thus.

It has ever been thus. Sounds inconsistent with that constant-change bit from Heraclitus, doesn’t it? Other thinkers have emphasized historical continuity, the persistence of humanity’s fallen state, and the recurrent patterns of behavior it produces. “What is government itself,” asked James Madison, “but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?”

A careful study of history, I have come to believe, reveals the crucial interaction of possibility and constraint. Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, one of the first editors of France’s oldest national newspaper, Le Figaro, put it well in 1849: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Human beings are capable of great good and monstrous evil. We always have been and always will be. Still, the conditions of our birth, the substance of our intellectual and moral education, and the institutions and incentive structures within which we live our lives can all influence the choices we make — and their consequences for ourselves and others.

Our political arrangements, in particular, can help align our common interests with the individual pursuit of happiness. History shows, I would submit, that free societies do it better than autocracies. Free economies combat poverty and promote abundance more effectively than command economies.

When I write about the history of North Carolina politics and government, then, I aspire not just to inform or entertain but to help readers see recurring patterns and how our institutions have evolved in response to them. At the national level, the Freedom Conservatismproject I co-founded seeks to apply the timeless principles of the American Founding to current controversies. FreeCons reject the platforms of both the progressive left and populist right because their supposedly “new” ideas are merely iterations of old collectivist ideas that time has already tested — and found wanting.

History isn’t a set of handcuffs. It’s a compass. To quote one more sage, the British thinker Edmund Burke, “a disposition to preserve and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.” By shining a light on North Carolina’s past, I hope to brighten North Carolina’s future.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy and American history.