Chatting Up Ghosts
I have a recurrent fantasy of speaking to one of history’s great luminaries and discussing his impact on the world decades or even centuries later. The fantasy takes two parts. I enjoy imagining how best to explain events, like the Protestant Reformation or the advent of computers, which the luminary may find difficult to grasp. I also enjoy imagining his reactions—to his own fame, to news of success or failure, to the course of events of a type he would enjoy. How would Shakespeare react to knowing he would become the single most celebrated writer? If you were to show him, say, a film version of Romeo and Juliet, would he be more interested in the performance (and possibly huffy over how he didn’t mean it to be done like that), or the wonders of film technology and Hollywood budgets? How would Jefferson react to the triumph of Hamiltonian notions of industry and finance over pastoral ideals? Would Galileo rather hear about Newtonian physics (towards which he was groping) or the vast changes wrought by computers and steam engines (of which he had no inkling)? And if the latter, how could one best explain these tools so far beyond his experience?
But despite the sheer breadth of historical figures, I keep returning to two in particular. Bach and Lincoln.
J. S. Bach died painfully aware that baroque music was passing from fashion, and that classical music was supplanting it. He wrongly expected baroque to vanish, and, by some accounts, put considerable effort towards the end of his life into writing music that would make a case for baroque music’s preservation. Look, says the Mass in B minor, the old school can do this; don’t toss it aside. Nevertheless, people did. The world turned, and Mozart, Haydn, and Rossini rewrote the orchestra in their own image. But the world keeps turning. Mozart continues to make the short list of the world’s greatest composers, but, according to several interviews I’ve heard with leading musicians, performers and composers today admire Mozart and Beethoven, but hold Bach in reverence. It does my heart good to hear it; Bach is my personal favorite, and I love him for writing the music of God. Not religious music, but perfect music—or at least flawless music. Bach captures the spirit of the celestial spheres in perfect harmony. I wish I could share with Bach his lasting status as the great-granddaddy of Western musical theory. Plus I’m curious what, just what, he would think of jazz.
Lincoln didn’t die in that same despair; he lived to see the Union victorious. Unfortunately, he missed out on the aftermath, and a chance to put things right in a way his successors could not. I’d like to thank Lincoln for his heroic achievement, and let him know things came out pretty well, all in all. I doubt he would be deeply surprised at learning of the US rise to superpower status, but I’m curious how he’d feel of our 20th-century entanglements in world affairs. Frankly, I’m curious how he’d feel about a lot of things, including events of his own day. We forget, in the face of Lincoln the legend, Lincoln the man, and how coldly calculating he could be. Because it’s my fantasy, I can picture getting answers not designed for maximum political effect. Most of all, I’d like his advice on what we should be doing now, as a mature nation, to preserve our democratic virtues against a hardening of democratic institutions.
I particularly wish I could tell these people whether history proved them right or wrong. Maybe because, on some level, I’d like to know whether my understanding of current events will eventually prove right or wrong, and I won’t be here to find out.