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As I've often noted, it's sad that few people have a decent grasp of history.
Given that what has come before is both a strong indicator and a significant influence on what is now and what's to come, it seems odd that many folks choose to remain ignorant of the past.
History is vast. So much has gone before. And if the Doomsday Argument is considered valid, quite a bit is still to come.
As such, it seems to me that those with a reasonable interest in the future should also have a reasonable interest in history as well.
If one accepts that, the question becomes: "Where do I start?"
Given that SoylentNews is an English language site, most users likely live in cultures evolving from The Western Tradition. That seems like a good place to start.
The series entitled The Western Tradition* is a personal (as Eugen Weber points out, history is inherently a personal journey) journey through the history of Western civilization.
The video series above consists of 52 half-hour episodes. That seems like a lot, but consider that the series covers many thousands of years.
As such, the series must go through all this very fast. But, as Dr. Weber points out, here in America, we do everything fast. For example, here's the history of man in four minutes or so.
Regardless, I invite you to check this out and share it with others, especially children, as it provides a good look at how we got to where we are now (and, if cogitated upon, can provide us with some clues as to where we might be going).
Do any of you have suggestions to supplement the above? Including the works of Gibbon, Spengler and Spheeris.
Also, what (if anything) has history meant to you? Has it impacted your thoughts and actions in the present and/or your ruminations about the future?
Let's discuss.
*Updated playlist that's actually in order/complete. Thanks to Hendrikboom for calling me out on my laziness with the initial link.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 22 2019, @04:46PM (2 children)
Trying to get us to think, huh? Well, we ain't havin' any of that here in 'Murica!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday March 22 2019, @05:33PM (1 child)
Don't worry. I'd never ask you to do anything like that, Runaway.
Have you had your daily medication [convio.net] yet?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 22 2019, @05:49PM
I'm not going to look at that site until November, 2017, when they update it. I don't want any out of date information.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 22 2019, @06:22PM (3 children)
Thanks for the link.
I've been looking for some shows that are actually about history and not a 2 hour special on the construction and installation of Hitler's golden codpiece.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 22 2019, @07:07PM
We all know about Aristarchus and his alt-right fetish, no need to resort to petty insults.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @01:33AM (1 child)
That actually sounds interesting. I have so many questions... why gold? Was it pure gold, or did they alloy it with another metal for strength? Did they make it from the gold fillings from the teeth of the murdered Jews from the camps? It would be quite a thing if they did... sort of his way of mouth raping them all over again. Ghastly.
Was it constructed to cover the quiescent or the tumescent state? If tumescent, is that where the 'Hiel Hitler' salute came from? Who did the measuring for the size? Was it his niece, and is that why she killed herself?
Was it installed with straps, around his thighs? Or perhaps attached to the inside of his clothing? Did he have multiple versions?
Was it added to the regulations as part of the uniform? Did his evil lieutenants also have to have their own codpieces as part of the new uniform regulations? Did they go down in value/metal with rank, the inner circle getting silver, the outer circle getting bronze, the generals iron (of course), and the common infantryman getting tinfoil?
See, I really would watch a documentary like this. So much knowledge to gain...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:38AM
I suppose. If you're into phallus worship.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday March 22 2019, @08:36PM (4 children)
there seem to be a lot more than 52 episodes there, and the ones with numbers are incomplete and out of order.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday March 22 2019, @08:56PM (2 children)
Yes. Yes they are. My apologies. I have a local copy and I don't generally watch stuff on YouTube.
All the episodes used to be available for viewing from here [learner.org] but, sadly, that's no longer the case.
Anyway, This playlist [youtube.com] seems to be better organized.
I'll update my journal entry accordingly. Thanks for keeping me honest.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday March 23 2019, @06:36PM (1 child)
Never thought you were dishonest. I thought the world had changed.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 23 2019, @10:07PM
"Keeping me honest" is an idiomatic phrase in English.
You were "keeping me honest" by pointing out the poor quality of the playlist I linked.
The idiom is discussed in some detail here:
https://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idforum=2&idThread=225019&lp=ende&lang=en [leo.org]
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/to-keep-me-honest.3308909/ [wordreference.com]
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:29AM
History itself is incomplete and out of order. For instance, we have little idea how many times the Annanuki visited mankind, nor can we say when and where the visits were.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 23 2019, @03:18AM (11 children)
History's good to know but after a certain point it's not worth pursuing further unless you're a history scholar. It tells you how we got where we are, which is useful if you don't go overboard, but can't tell you anything about the future. Honestly, most of what it tells you is human nature and the changelog thereof. The former you can pick up just by paying attention to the world around you right now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:33AM (1 child)
I'm not sure I agree with you. History is full of lessons, that people refuse to learn. Our current political climate, for example. A significant portion of the population of the western world insists that communism works, if we'll just try it again. I suppose that at some point in time, we'll go back to kings, emperors, and self-proclaimed gods, because we've forgotten how shitty all of those were.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 23 2019, @01:43PM
You're assuming the "point" I'm talking about is much higher than it is. By all means, learn the important lessons. The law of diminishing returns most definitely applies to history though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 23 2019, @01:40PM (3 children)
I disagree. Things do have a way of repeating themselves. Meanwhile some of the loonier belief systems out there deliberately throw away the past.
It's also a great way to spot propaganda. Things like the Great Depression or various wars often become warped narratives based on someone's present day needs or aims rather than on what actually happened. But you often have to know a great detail about those events of the past in order to see what's being changed.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 23 2019, @01:44PM (2 children)
That's telling you about humanity not the future. If you understand humanity you can make a good guess but that's all it is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Saturday March 23 2019, @02:12PM (1 child)
Which let us note is a valuable role for relatively detailed history knowledge.
A good guess is all you need for the future.
And some things about the future are readily apparent from observation of particular parts of the past. For example, history of natural disasters. While one can aggravate natural disasters (for a current example, by building levee systems that tightly constrain where flood water goes), the past is usually a reliable indicator of what sort of natural disasters to expect at a locale and how severe they can get.
It also repeatedly provides the lesson that things don't last forever, particularly human societies, and how these societies fail.
Third, it provides a common framework help us describe and think about the present and future. For example, without the story of the collapse of the Wiemar Republic or the Roman Republic, we might be far more tolerant of creeping tyranny, understanding of how rapidly genocide can be carried out, or fail to understand the perils of overreach.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 24 2019, @04:04AM
I didn't say it wasn't valuable, I said there are limits beyond which any value you gain is trivial compared to the effort put in.
And, yeah, being able to guess better is nice but it's not prescience. You will still be surprised fairly often.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday March 23 2019, @02:15PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 24 2019, @04:08AM (1 child)
I don't speak for society. I'm not a progressive, so I don't feel I have the authority to speak on behalf of anyone I feel like, whether they like it or not. Myself, I know enough that any effort put in would be time wasted compared to nearly anything else I do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 24 2019, @09:23PM
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 23 2019, @10:16PM (1 child)
The phrase "times change, people don't" Is rather trite. However, things that are trite are so because they're intuitively obvious and well accepted.
My point being that if one takes note of history, especially as it applies to *people*, that's a pretty good indicator of how people will respond to similar stimuli/circumstances in the future.
So no. I disagree completely.
What's more, understanding the ideas, events and human experience of history, especially that of those whose world view created the underpinnings of our culture and society, gives us good perspective on how our current culture and society may react/be impacted by current and potential events.
This makes history an important tool for an "educated electorate," which is essential to our liberty and stability.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 24 2019, @04:15AM
If you don't think people change, you have no grasp of history whatsoever. The ideals people value today aren't even close to what they valued when I was young, much less several thousand years ago. History learned with assumptions of modern humanity closely resembling historic humanity isn't knowledge, it's fiction and nothing gleaned via it can ever be called wisdom.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday March 25 2019, @01:29AM (1 child)
BBC's Connections is nice: basically the history of inventions, "We got this because of something that happened 300 years ago".
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday March 25 2019, @03:25AM
Yes, that's pretty good. The history of science and technology is particularly fascinating to me.
How We Got To Now [wikipedia.org] is pretty good as well.
Of course, the now venerable Guns, Germs And Steel [wikipedia.org] was pretty interesting from history of technology standpoint.
And I just ran across this list [washington.edu] of good places to start reading the history of science. I guess I have a bunch of new books to read. Hooray!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Friday June 14 2019, @11:59PM (1 child)
Check out The Ascent of Man https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Man [wikipedia.org]
Also BBC, thirteen one hour episodes.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday June 22 2019, @12:02AM
Thanks! I'll check it out.
I do strongly recommend The Western Tradition [youtube.com].
Watch the first couple of episodes, as they will give you a pretty good sense of how things will proceed. I think it's pretty darn good for an overview.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 22 2019, @04:52AM
Long before there was online video, I asked a good friend (who minored in history) how I might get a good overview. He suggested this and I was able to find a used copy (2 volume set) at a reasonable price,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outline_of_History [wikipedia.org]
Wells isn't just an early SF writer (War of the Worlds), he's a pretty good historian too, and keeps it interesting.