History was a trash bag of random coincidences torn open in a wind. Surely, Watt with his steam engine, Faraday with his electric motor, and Edison with his incandescent light bulb did not have it as their goal to contribute to a fuel shortage some day that would place their countries at the mercy of Arab oil.

Heller frames history as contingent rather than teleological: a jumble of chance events whose consequences spill unpredictably into the future. By invoking iconic inventors of modern industrial power—Watt, Faraday, Edison—he underscores the irony that innovations pursued for progress and convenience can, through long chains of unintended effects, help create new vulnerabilities (here, dependence on oil and geopolitical leverage). The “trash bag…torn open in a wind” metaphor suggests both disorder and the impossibility of reassembling a coherent, morally tidy narrative after the fact. The passage critiques retrospective blame and simplistic causality, emphasizing unintended consequences and the limits of human foresight.