There is an awful lot of history. Preliminary to whether we imagine the past vividly enough for it to carry proper weight, we must select a cannon of ``important″ events to which we turn our attention.
I drew attention to Argentina because the story of Argentina’s 20th century economic disappointments jars uncomfortably with the cultural tradition in which I swim. I swim in a cultural stream in which the misfortunes which may befall a country live in a hierarchy. At the top are the bad misfortunes, losing wars, and fighting wars. Somewhere near the bottom are petty misfortunes: many countries are under the thumb of absolute rulers and if the caudillo retains power by pursuing popular policies then his rule is not so bad.
I know little of Argentinian history and understand it even less. What little I know threatens my hierarchy of misfortune. It looks as though well meaning but economically unsophisticated absolute rulers are the top misfortune. They are much worse than wars, which are intense, but brief.
I want to overcome my bias by learning about Argentinian history. I find myself struggling. There is a standard way of looking at recent history with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Great War etc. I notice that I’m very dependent on social support and just get sucked into that looking at history from that point of view because it is the common one.
So there is a second sense in which History may or may not be available. Frist it is important to feel the force of history sufficiently strongly. But this could make things worse if we cultivate our feeling for a limited selection of history, chosen to support our standard narratives. The second requirement is for breadth, and this is very difficult if the people around you aren’t interested.
There is an awful lot of history. Preliminary to whether we imagine the past vividly enough for it to carry proper weight, we must select a cannon of ``important″ events to which we turn our attention.
In a recent thread on Reddit: http://reddit.com/info/2k77b/comments/c2k80o
I drew attention to Argentina because the story of Argentina’s 20th century economic disappointments jars uncomfortably with the cultural tradition in which I swim. I swim in a cultural stream in which the misfortunes which may befall a country live in a hierarchy. At the top are the bad misfortunes, losing wars, and fighting wars. Somewhere near the bottom are petty misfortunes: many countries are under the thumb of absolute rulers and if the caudillo retains power by pursuing popular policies then his rule is not so bad.
I know little of Argentinian history and understand it even less. What little I know threatens my hierarchy of misfortune. It looks as though well meaning but economically unsophisticated absolute rulers are the top misfortune. They are much worse than wars, which are intense, but brief.
I want to overcome my bias by learning about Argentinian history. I find myself struggling. There is a standard way of looking at recent history with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Great War etc. I notice that I’m very dependent on social support and just get sucked into that looking at history from that point of view because it is the common one.
So there is a second sense in which History may or may not be available. Frist it is important to feel the force of history sufficiently strongly. But this could make things worse if we cultivate our feeling for a limited selection of history, chosen to support our standard narratives. The second requirement is for breadth, and this is very difficult if the people around you aren’t interested.
Perhaps it’s a bit late, but the best source of breadth I’ve found so far is called Big History.