If you could change one event in history what would you change?
October 25th 2006 11:28
I’ve recently done a post about travelling through time and not only did it raise some amazing time travel scenarios, it also raised some really interesting questions. (Shameless plug 1: http://www.swansgal.com/if-you-could-time-travel-where-would-you-go-and-what-would-you-do/#comments) It also meant I had to put a new blog up, since I decided the Sydney Swans and esoteric History posts weren't really compatible.
The two posts that I found really fascinating in their implications were:
Saving Jesus from the cross (Thanks to Luke)
and
If you change something, does something worse take its place? Or does it all change for the better? (Thanks to DuskDevi)
When I conceived of my time travel post I thought of the many possibilities of changing history, but didn’t really focus on them as I wanted to keep it a little more ‘light fantastical’. I mean, how cool is time travel? I wanted people’s imaginations to take them on whatever journey they desired, to whatever time they wanted to visit. But the idea that you could make a major historical change did come into the equation, as did the question about whether changing one event could actually make life better or worse. Now, combine all of this and you go beyond time travel for time travel’s sake.
You get to change the course of history.
When Luke decided to save Jesus, the first thing I did was imagine a world without Catholicism. My siblings and I spent our entire primary and secondary education being schooled by nuns and priests. My entire educational background would have been wiped out by this one choice. Not to mention that, with millions of Christians around the world, their whole belief system would be null and void. It would never have existed in the first place. Or would it? Was it more than his death on the cross that made Christianity. At the very least, Christianity, its icons and its symbolism, would look vastly different.
With DuskDevi’s response on both a global and personal scale, I wondered what it would be like to have the two people I have loved who have taken their own lives still in my life. Could I have saved them? Would it be better to still have them around? Would that one intervention have turned their lives around or would it have prolonged their suffering?
So taking into account the incredible social, religious and personal impacts changing history would bring about, what would I change?
My first impulse was to stop Hitler. But going beyond the simple question of what would I change, I had to ask myself how I would change this event? And what do I imagine the consequences will be? The first question was easy: I’d prevent him being born, most likely by preventing his parents from meeting in the first place. Once he was born, the implications of taking out another human being were too much for me, so prevention was my only solution.
But by preventing Hitler, am I paving the way for a far worse evil to take power? Or am I opening the way for a more enlightened and less brutal regime to take power? I believe that the state of the world at that stage was the deciding factor and by taking Hitler out, I would most likely be making a space for another psychopath to fill. Depressing? Pessimistic? Definitely. But I also think it’s quite realistic.
Would I still do it? Yes. I’d take the chance. "Most likely" and "definitely" are worlds apart in their implications.
This is a much more difficult question than simply time travelling for the heck of it, which is just plain fun. I found this to be quite a confronting concept and one that, for me, even though I made the call in the end, has no simple answer.
The two posts that I found really fascinating in their implications were:
Saving Jesus from the cross (Thanks to Luke)
and
If you change something, does something worse take its place? Or does it all change for the better? (Thanks to DuskDevi)
When I conceived of my time travel post I thought of the many possibilities of changing history, but didn’t really focus on them as I wanted to keep it a little more ‘light fantastical’. I mean, how cool is time travel? I wanted people’s imaginations to take them on whatever journey they desired, to whatever time they wanted to visit. But the idea that you could make a major historical change did come into the equation, as did the question about whether changing one event could actually make life better or worse. Now, combine all of this and you go beyond time travel for time travel’s sake.
You get to change the course of history.
When Luke decided to save Jesus, the first thing I did was imagine a world without Catholicism. My siblings and I spent our entire primary and secondary education being schooled by nuns and priests. My entire educational background would have been wiped out by this one choice. Not to mention that, with millions of Christians around the world, their whole belief system would be null and void. It would never have existed in the first place. Or would it? Was it more than his death on the cross that made Christianity. At the very least, Christianity, its icons and its symbolism, would look vastly different.
With DuskDevi’s response on both a global and personal scale, I wondered what it would be like to have the two people I have loved who have taken their own lives still in my life. Could I have saved them? Would it be better to still have them around? Would that one intervention have turned their lives around or would it have prolonged their suffering?
So taking into account the incredible social, religious and personal impacts changing history would bring about, what would I change?
My first impulse was to stop Hitler. But going beyond the simple question of what would I change, I had to ask myself how I would change this event? And what do I imagine the consequences will be? The first question was easy: I’d prevent him being born, most likely by preventing his parents from meeting in the first place. Once he was born, the implications of taking out another human being were too much for me, so prevention was my only solution.
But by preventing Hitler, am I paving the way for a far worse evil to take power? Or am I opening the way for a more enlightened and less brutal regime to take power? I believe that the state of the world at that stage was the deciding factor and by taking Hitler out, I would most likely be making a space for another psychopath to fill. Depressing? Pessimistic? Definitely. But I also think it’s quite realistic.
Would I still do it? Yes. I’d take the chance. "Most likely" and "definitely" are worlds apart in their implications.
This is a much more difficult question than simply time travelling for the heck of it, which is just plain fun. I found this to be quite a confronting concept and one that, for me, even though I made the call in the end, has no simple answer.
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Comment by DuskDevi
Rugby World Cup 2007
Sorry because I knew the previous post on 'SwansGal' was meant to be "light fantastical" but as I was writing my response, I started thinking how my foray into history changed that fabric in time just by having me there...hence the question I posed.
Great blog and great post.
On a personal scale...
if I changed my past, I'm scared that it would change the person I am now.
Would I know now, what I do know now?
Awareness being the product of experience.
Of course I would want to 'save' and 'stop'...but this is selfish. I would be doing this to make myself feel better. So that I didn't have to suffer the pain of loss.
I'll get back to you on the global scale one...if it's just one, this will require lengthy contemplation.
No matter to what time and where I go, I will sway towards the positive
and pray that the vacuum left by the departing evil, that I have conquered,
isn't filled by more of the same.
Changing one thing, changes everything.
Comment by Adele
Lost Fanatic
Day Break TV
I think you're right that killing Hitler would prove fruitless. Not so much because another psychopath would take his place, but because he was only one in a group of psychopaths who rose to power in that place and time. Their success was dependent on so many other social, political, and economic factors that I think removing only one from the group would not leave a hole.
However, you're welcome to try and I'll gladly eat my words if you prove me wrong.
I'm not sure what I would do to change the past. I wonder if I could make a difference. It seems anything that would save more than a few people would require some sort of political or social power, which I wouldn't have because I had just stepped out of my time machine.
I hate to be such a defeatist. I'll think about this some more and see if I can come up with something.
Comment by KarenC
Genghis Gal
And Adele, I agree. Risky taking out only Hitler, but I'd still do it. And Hitler changed the face of the modern world as well, so if I did succeed in stopping the death camps would Israel exist? Would the Vietnam War have begun, as the roots of that war are firmly embedded in events immediately after WWII. Would America be the super power it is today without that conflict? The implications are endless.
Of course, nothing changes the fact that we can't actually do it, but I love to think about the possibilities that could arise from just one action. And I firmly believe that one person can change things - for better or worse.
I look forward to hearing your history altering changes.
Comment by Ragin Cajun
Observer's Post
Death By Myopia
I'd like to go back to the Garden of Eden and chop down the tree of Forbidden Fruit. Or I could prevent Eve from offering the fruit to Adam or prevent Adam from eating the fruit. Or I could just kill the damn serpent. Anything to prevent their eviction.
Comment by KarenC
Genghis Gal
Am I the most useless replier in the history of blogs or what? My apologies for being so lax ... I am still trying to figure out your first paragraph is my only excuse ...
As tempting as it is to change that moment in time, how boring would life be without temptation and the wonderful feeling of succumbing to something you know you shouldn't be doing but you do it anyway? Although, it would be beautiful in the Garden of Eden, wouldn't it?
Hm, an intriguing quandary ...