You're Not History, And That's Good

This originally appeared under the title "An Essay on History" in the Maryland Cow Nipple, the University of Maryland's finest and only humor magazine.

What is it about history that fascinates us so much? Most of the time, we wander around trying to forget most of what we just did, because by and large it was horribly embarassing, at least in my case. If anyone ever wrote a book about my life, it would be the biggest comedy classic in the Western world, and I don't mean because I go around spouting clever punchlines all the time. (That much should be obvious by now.) If there's one thing I don't want other people to read about, it's my history.

I suspect you, the reader, don't want other people to know that much about your history either. Like remember the time you asked that tremendously attractive individual to dance at the prom and said person laughed in your face? And that was when you realized that someone had written "IMA LOZER" on your face in black permanent marker while you had been passed out from drinking too much "liquid courage" before you got up the nerve to ask the attractive individual to dance? That's nothing you want to read about, even in a sophomoric humor magazine with virtually no circulation.

But then we study history. What is history? It seems, in fact, primarily devoted to reading books about horribly embarrassing things other people have done. Like Hitler invading Russia, for example. If there was one thing the Napoleonic Wars should have taught future generations, it was this: Don't invade Russia if you want to have a working army. It's cold there. More importantly, Russians have too little to lose. They're perfectly content to burn all their crops just so you can't eat. They're not worried about not being able to eat, because they can't eat anything anyway, because they couldn't afford food even if it did exist. If they start thinking too much about their hunger, they can drink some vodka, which is made from potatoes and thus is unaffected by crop-burning activities. All this should have been manifestly obvious after Napoleon went in with the Grande Armée in June 1812 and left with the Punée Armée that October.

So what does Hitler do? He knows about all this, surely; weren't the Napoleonic Wars the big hot topic in Viennese art schools early last century? Anyway, at first he seems like he gets it and signs the Non-Aggression Pact and concentrates on whupping France, which falls quicker than a centime piece dropped from the Eiffel Tower. But then he decides, "Ach, I think I'll just go invade Russia!" Even a Russia which was laboring under a temporary rename and the direction of Joseph "Kill All The Civilians" Stalin still got its act together and first froze and then kicked Hitler's army's ass, leaving just enough Nazi scum so America could make a bunch of cool movies about how we single-handedly won WWII, often with the aid of Clint Eastwood or Steve McQueen.

So, quite apart from his obviously reprehensible ideology, we have to ask: Wasn't Hitler an idiot? Just telling that story makes me feel a little better about the fact that I am manifestly a loser, because while I may be a loser, I'm not stupid enough to doom an army to certain defeat by forcing it to fight an unbeatable foe, and thereby lose any chance of my dream of world empire actually occurring. Hell, I barely left my apartment this weekend, but at least I haven't done that.

Therefore, we realize that history is the science of finding people even stupider than you are to take your mind off your own past failings. This explains a lot about the professors in the history department. It also goes a long way towards explaining why the Maryland Cow Nipple's dedicated staff felt it necessary to devote a whole online issue to the topic. After all, if you had just written 600 virtually joke-free words about history, you'd want something to distract you too.

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