When They Leave You, But They Won't Leave You Alone

‘Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it’. We’ve all heard it. It’s an old adage, but the dusty cobwebs on its edges don’t make it any less true. Unfortunately, there are people out there who seem unaware of it, or at the very least act as though it doesn’t apply to them. The fact is that this is an axiom not just on the grand scale of international politics but for individuals as well, across the whole of human experience, good and bad.

  It's very easy to feel that the circumstances that apply to us individually are unique. After all, we know all the intimate reasons of what happened to us and why. We didn’t just have a front-row seat. We had an actual speaking part on the stage. Looking at everyone else, though, we’re fortunate if we’re any closer than the balcony, peering at the action through opera glasses and straining to catch every other word. But despite this feeling of singularity it’s a truth that we are all strikingly similar in thoughts, feelings and reactions. The entire science of psychology is predicated on the fact that people do the same dumb things for the same dumb reasons they always have. Aristotle once complained about how the youth of his day ‘think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it’, as just one example. And despite being four centuries old, Shakespeare’s plays still resonate.

  Unfortunately, it’s also a truth of human experience that relationships break down, sometimes quite dramatically… and bitterly. There can be a lot of leftover animosity that can develop into outright vindictiveness, where someone leaves you, but they won’t leave you alone. While we can’t control how other people act, we can do something about ourselves.

  The problem with vindictiveness is that it causes pain and breeds resentment. Here’s a little history lesson to illustrate: If you recall from your high school history classes, the First World War was caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. This may have been the single, easily identifiable event that set the wheels in motion, but the reality is much baser. The Great Powers of Europe had made a series of complicated alliances in the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire lost ground, and the political tension that erupted that summer of 1914 pulled in those Great Powers in much the same way a grade-school fistfight develops into a brawl involving older siblings, and then parents. If those Great Powers had had their wits about them the whole sorry affair could have been avoided. But each combatant looked across their borders and was afraid they saw their counterparts massing troops, so they did as well. Then the ones being watched, did their own watching, saw the other guy’s troops, and built his up more. Overtures were made and warnings were issued to cease and desist before a war broke out, but you know what they say… actions speak louder than words, and when your neighbor is telling you that he will back down if you will, but he isn’t….

To make things worse, this was the dawn of mechanized warfare and logistics depended heavily on rail systems with their fixed routes and complicated timetables. As divisions piled up on the borders, the need to keep everything coordinated – movement of personnel, food, ammunition, equipment, all coming from different places and at different times – essentially meant that, once things were under way it was nearly impossible to stop. To do so would throw each nation’s entire movement schedules into chaos, bind up critical components in useless locations for weeks, cause unnecessary loss and waste, and could cost a victory before war had even begun. This, though, meant that every time the French looked at the Germans, or the Germans looked at the Russians, or the Russians looked at the Austrians, all they saw was more buildup. It was inevitable that someone would decide they weren’t going to wait any longer and they (literally) pulled the trigger.

  As it was, that was Germany.

  The progress of the mayhem that followed has been exhaustively commented upon. Suffice it to say Germany was trounced in the end and Britain and France – the only two original combatants left standing – stuck it to Germany and forced them to pay the whole bill… and accept all the responsibility. Naturally the Germans felt they had been singled out and unfairly treated. After all, everyone had had their fingers in the Balkan pie. Maybe they were at fault, but they weren’t the only ones at fault.

  The conditions of the Armistice imposed by the victors led to the economic disaster of the Weimar Republic. This, coupled with the feelings of injustice, caused the resentment that directly led to the rise of nationalism and the Third Reich, and a second world war that was far, far worse than the first – at least in part because Hitler was able to remind Germany they had a score to settle. Now I’m not trying to justify in any way the actions of the Nazis. A million decisions were made on their own that led them down a very dark path. But the truth of the matter is, that if the Allies had shown a little restraint, there would not have been so much national angst for Hitler to draw upon and the Nazis would have been just another fringe political movement. A little, dare I say, compassion, and one of the worst tragedies of recorded history could have been avoided.

  In contrast look at how things were handled the second time around. In 1945 it was the United States as the Last Man Standing. Instead of kicking Germany and Japan while they were down, we built them up. In Germany it was the Marshall Plan. In Japan it was the Dodge Program. Vast sums of money were poured into these people that had been trying very, very hard to kill us (if you have any doubt about the teeth these ‘beaten dogs’ still had in them even at the very end, read about the battles of Berlin and Okinawa). Now, lest you think that this was the population of the Great Ol’ US of A being generous and forgiving, I’d just like to point out that even twenty years later as a small child I still heard people complaining bitterly and often about how we were ‘giving all our money to foreigners’. And yet now these countries are economic powerhouses and two of our staunchest allies (even more so than France and the UK).

  As I noted above, what’s true on the grand scale is often true in the microcosms of our lives. The point is that if you’re being kicked while you’re down, don’t let it  consume you to the point you only think about ‘getting your due’ and you wind up being more of an S.O.B. than the guy that started it. Do what you need to protect yourself, and then hold up. If you can manage a helping hand in response, so much the better (if you need a little advice on how to do that, see my post here). If you’re the one doing the kicking, watch yourself – you may just end up creating a monster.