Essays from West of 98: The Course of Local History
Do you ever look around the world and feel helpless to change things? Greed and malevolence run amok. Strong, compassionate leadership is lacking. Sadness and despair seem to engulf those who least deserve it. It feels like the machinery of history lumbers forward, regardless of our individual lives and sometimes over the top of our lives. I get it. I battle those feelings myself.
As logical as those feelings might be, they are not really accurate. Yes, the machinery of history is massive and complex. But why does it move? What changes history and alters the course of world events? It’s not controlled by some mysterious keymaster in a secret fortress. History and world events exist as a consequence and as a cumulative result of all the decisions, actions, and activities of each individual and in each community around the world.
In his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. objected to the idea that civil rights leaders should be more patient and let equality come to them over time. Dr. King described as “strangely irrational” the idea that the passage of time alone would cure ills and solve problems. He wrote that progress was not inevitable with time. Time itself is neutral and can be used destructively or constructively. The words of Dr. King are worth considering when we feel helpless to improve the world. There is no inevitability in world events. There is a long and distinguished list of inevitabilities that were disrupted by world events and by the actions of people who greatly altered outcomes. Empires that would never fall, wunderkinds who were a shoo-in for elected office, ships that would never sink, and more…they were inevitable until they weren’t.
Certainly, we cannot change history alone. We CAN and DO collectively create the outcomes of history. We can and do change the outcomes of our local places through our local culture. The outcomes of local places, for better or worse, collectively become the outcomes of regions, nations, and the world. Wendell Berry wrote in “The Work of Local Culture” that “the only true and effective operator’s manual for spaceship earth is not a book that any human will ever write; it is hundreds of thousands of local cultures.”
How does a wildfire begin? It does not spontaneously exist as a massive conflagration. It begins with a single spark that catches and carries through forests and fields. So goes the impact of local culture on the course of history. Wherever you are reading this, your local culture matters to history and the course of world events. Stamford, Texas alone will not change the course of world events. Neither will Graham, Texas; Texhoma, Oklahoma; or Odebolt, Iowa (just to name a few places with regular readers of these essays). But when the people in each place strengthen their local culture, they collectively impact far more than just the people inside their city limits. Local lives, businesses, and organizations are strengthened. The effects cascade outward. For example, when one local small business hires additional workers or pays a higher wage, how many people does that affect? The workers, their families, the businesses that are patronized by the employees, the employees and owners of THOSE businesses, and so on. What happens when success in those communities starts to influence neighboring cities or inspire leaders in another region or inspire leaders at higher levels of government? Sparks turn to wildfires. Local leaders have a tangible impact on the course of history.
Let us not feel helpless in the world. There is no inevitability in history. There is only time to be used destructively or constructively. The use of that time accumulates and creates the outcomes that shape history and world events. Wendell Berry said that a place lacking local culture was ripe to be exploited and destroyed from outside. He’s right. Communities without strong local culture are helplessly carried away by the forces of history. Communities with strong local culture find ways to alter the very outcomes of local history and ultimately world history
Maybe, just maybe, we should not feel so helpless after all.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.