so i was reading what is history by british historian edward carr and i came across a passage in which he talked about passing moral judgment on individual characters in history and how it was a fruitless exercise because such judgments bear little on historical events. because he is british, carr cites examples such as the “bad” King John and King Henry V, which didn’t interest me as much. but then he talked about how it was tough to avoid passing moral judgments on stalin and hitler because the actions they were associated with were relatively contemporary (carr writes in the 1960s) and the effects of their “evil” acts were still felt by living people.

this got me thinking as to how i, a korean dude living in america over sixty years after hitler’s rise, would write about the much-hated historical figure known as hitler. for all i know, my opinion of him is a product of the endless material (i almost used “propaganda” but that will get me hanged) that portray him as a demagogue with the evilest of intentions – i.e. the annhiliation of the jews. but then a part of me realizes that he was a big-time nationalist, “a product of his time” in that the germans were going through a rough period and was in want of a strong leader, and that he was, to a degree, allowed and supported by the people to do a lot of the things he envisioned (of course, there is also the argument that he manipulated the germans so well, but you can seriously only give oratory skills so much credit). but of course, i am not so stupid as to write anything about hitler without saying something negative about him or else i will be called a nazi apologist and an anti-semitic jew-hater. but what would carr say if he observed me writing a well-researched paper tracing hitler’s life, perhaps, against the backdrop of the various movements in his day, and prioritizing the “causes” of what led to the Holocaust, WWII, etc.? and in the course of my written work, i was able to avoid saying anything morally judgmental, but just wrote about the figure of hitler as an active individual unit in the course of an entire social movement (duh, i am sure this has been done many times over and over again, but just play along please)? i mean, com’on – anti-semitism, as TS Eliot most definitely proves, was an “intellectual” movement at one point.

but to backtrack on my jumbled argument above (if there even is one), i want to know if the people who are so anti-hitler today are such a way because they feel the pain still or because of a very effective campaign on the part of historical moralists to make sure that every child learning anything about history knows that hitler is evil. probably a bit of both, and i do wonder what the sentiment will be like another fifty or so years from now. will people relate less to the evil and think it as an afterthought? and how about them armenians? the turks still say they didn’t do nuttin’, but armenians claim that people died by holocaust proportions. how come turkey isn’t as evil? (okay, i must admit, 99% of my knowledge about armenians come from atom egoyan’s movie ararat)

hmm.. for my own safety, i should take the time now to point out that i have great jewish friends, and i do not endorse the actions of hitler or anything associated with the nazi party. perhaps carr should’ve mentioned that writing history is also a very political exercise.

a few weeks ago, when i moved into my 158 sq ft single in East Campus, i let wook decorate the walls by putting selected digital prints up. wook, to avoid paying for interim housing, had been crashing at my place, so i didn’t feel too bad asking him to tape up over 100 photos to brighten up my room. taping them horizontally to go around the entire room, wook did a great job and the photos really did brighten the work. i had some favorites in very visible locations, such as these two super colorful photos of tomatoes that i took at a farmer’s market in san francisco (sounds really sophisticated, doesn’t it?) as well as photos of orange and baby blue balloons from last year’s successful block party. but the more i look around the wall at the 100+ photos, i realized something that had crossed my mind in murky, vague flashes a few times before: there i was, sporting my unspectacular smile in 90% of the photos – how vain! everywhere i looked, you were almost certain that it was me, and then maybe someone else. i was glad i didn’t have any photos of myself doing thug poses or pretending to be a model, but i surely made the point that i could tolerate looking at myself with all these pictures. i wondered what people who didn’t know me too well would think of such a display. narcissist?

but that was only a minor problem to what would later transpire with the start of school. as different friends came by to check out my room, they instantly noticed the photos and, i guess by human nature, sought to find the photos they were in. i had looked around my room enough to realize that some people, no matter how close to me they were, were omitted because we simply hadn’t taken a good picture together. i realized this was a poor excuse and that it reflected poorly on me to have multiple photos of some people and none of others. some friends felt slighted and others suggested i put a new photo up to make amends. i realized that this whole picture bit was a terrible political liability. i soon began to tell people that wook had put the pictures up from a random pile, although that was only partially true. i did choose the pictures, but i did so because the quality and color of the photo stood out. i had little thought for who was really in them, although i did think it somehow more relevant to have photos with me in it. oh well, stupid me – i had found a way to alienate people by putting pictures on the wall.

take them down? nah. i’ll just have to keep answering to charges that i don’t consider someone a friend because he or she is absent from the wall. but if being on my wall is such a big deal, please, feel free to make a photo appointment, and i’ll be sure to put up a photo of you and me together.

today was a rainy day. i came out of East Campus with an umbrella and opened it as soon as i stepped outside. i looked around and noticed that some people had umbrellas open and some had them down. i looked for puddles to see how hard it was raining and realized it was barely drizzling, so i put mine down, too. and then i began to feel my shoulders getting wet and realized that it was raining hard again, so i had to open my umbrella.

i find it funny when sometimes, i forget to pay attention to anyone else walking by and have my umbrella opened only to realize much later that it had stopped raining a while before. sometimes the mind wanders and forgets what it’s doing, especially when it doesn’t look elsewhere for guidance. but maybe the mind anticipated the sun coming out and wanted to provide itself with shade.