This week's Wednesday Time Warp is inspired by /u/ParallelPain!
As historians, we often look for causes and effects, rational explanations for actions and events. Today, let's get in a time machine, pretend it is still Tuesday, and consider some of the ways and moments that people throughout history have left things to fate or to the Fates.
The sixth Ashikaga Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshinori, was picked by lot.
The fourth Shogun Yoshimochi had retired early, leaving the Shogun position to his son Yoshikazu. But Yoshimochi held the actual political powers. When Yoshikazu unexpectedly died in 1425, Yoshimochi kept on being de-facto Shogun. However Yoshikazu did not have any sons, so the Shogunate was left without an heir. In the first month of 1428, Yoshimochi himself fell ill and was on his death bed (he died later that year). His vassal daimyō ministers urged him to name a successor, but he did not. According to one source, he refused, saying (paraphrasing) "Whoever I name needs the approval of you all, so what's the point?"
In the end, the vassal daimyō ministers decided to pick from among Yoshimochi's four surviving younger brothers. Multiple sources confirmed that it was picked by lot. Of course whether or not someone cheated we don't know. However, the succession of the de-facto ruler of Japan was very much left to fate to decide.
Yoshinori was picked, and Yoshimochi said fine. Yoshinori as the fifth son of the third Shogun Yoshimitsu, had been sent to be a monk. When told he was chosen to be the sixth Shogun, he refused, but eventually gave into pressure and agreed to become Shogun. During his reign he worked hard to consolidate the Shogunate's hold on Japan, and seemingly made great progress. But his method was strong-arm and often violent, making him a lot of enemies. He and a lot of his senior vassal daimyō ministers were assassinated in 1441. His eldest son succeeded him at the age of 9, and died mere months later. His second son was chosen to became Shogun at the age of 8~9 in 1443 and formally succeeded in 1449 to the Shogun position in 1449 at age 13 as Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the Shogun who would see Japan descend into the Sengoku.
A materialistic resignation to unalterable laws is sensible but repellant to me. I will freely admit the necessity and desirability of such a resignation which is no more than recognizing natural laws — if such things be. A man who does not resign himself is like a caged wolf who breaks his heart and beats his brains out against the bars of his cage. Yet I must admit that such a course appeals to me more than that of calm submission. Foredoomed to failure, a man can still snarl and tear. Many and many a time, when one is reeling and dizzy and sick at heart and soul, broken and tossed by the blows of fate or destiny or whatever it is that makes life a hell on earth, one may wish for the ability of philosophic resignation; but with a slight renewal of strength the old blind fighting lust comes surging back and makes him break his fangs on the iron bars anew.
I’m no philosopher, but resignation isn’t in my blood. I wish it was. It isn’t necessarily a hope to win that makes a man rebel against the infamies of life, vainly. Defeat is the lot of all men, and I come of a breed that never won a war. Men and women too, of my line have fought for hopeless lost causes for a thousand years. Defeat waits for us all, but some of us, worse luck, can’t accept it quietly.
Life reminds me of a fight I had, when a kid, with a heavyweight prize fighter. Round after round I rushed savagely and futilely, mad to come to grips and smash his ribs in, but hitting only the naked air. It was like fighting a shadow that wielded clubs; at the end of the fight I was swaying on the ropes groggy and dizzy, with my nose broken and my face cut and bruised, sick with a feeling of utterly helpless futility. That’s Life— it’s full of things that punish you fiercely and that you can’t come to grips with. Punishment isn’t so bad if you’re handing it out at the same time. The other fellow may be strangling the life out of you, or ripping your ear off with his teeth, but if you’re driving your knee to his groin, sinking your fists in his belly or have your thumb in his eye, you can stand the punishment. The hell of it comes when you’re up against a battler you can’t hit, or are licked and down in the muck with the other fellow stamping your guts out or grinding your face in with his hob-nails. That’s Life — fighting shadows; taking lickings that you can’t return.
This might be bucking against the spirit of the thread, but I think it exemplifies some of the particular attitude of Robert E. Howard and his fellow pulp writers who - despite living in the Great Depression, despite poverty and a general lack of higher education and the opportunities that come with it, despite constant rejection that seriously tested their resolve and made them question their ability - continued to write, to submit, to buck fate.