tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3032766499940118267.post3341306785615288881..comments2024-01-07T07:37:34.852-08:00Comments on WORLD EVENTS, CULTURE & CIVILIZATION: HISTORY & INDOCTRINATIONWORLD EVENTS, CULTURE AND CIVILIZATIONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00484481252951314773noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3032766499940118267.post-11753477577245762202016-03-01T06:09:21.690-08:002016-03-01T06:09:21.690-08:00Some interesting points here. I agree with the pre...Some interesting points here. I agree with the previous comment that this deserves more feedback. History can help us learn from our past mistakes. It seems that the moral code (conventional moral rules from social pressures) in the face of war can sometimes be reversed, for good for example, protecting Jews in in Hitler's Germany. I think the notion of amorality and morality in the context of history is something that must be emphasised since its the only means to finding a utopian (if possible) end. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3032766499940118267.post-78169767227837039022014-07-04T03:05:49.501-07:002014-07-04T03:05:49.501-07:00I agree with much of what Professor Brown has to s...I agree with much of what Professor Brown has to say here. Just to limit myself to what I consider a very significant point regarding UNESCO and the great scholar Geoffrey Barralough, there is no doubt that indeed there is a naive or optimistic outlook that operated in the thinking regarding sectarian violence. Influenced by the magnificence of the Renaissance and its contrinutions to European civilization, Barraclough believed in cultural diffusion. I would argue that he was also sufficiently realistic to accept that the revolt against the West characterized the first half of the 20th century. Living in the early 21st century, we can all agree that Barraclough's statement about the fitst half of the 20th century would hold true for the second half of the 20th century as well as the early 21st century, with no end in sight. WORLD EVENTS, CULTURE AND CIVILIZATIONhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00484481252951314773noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3032766499940118267.post-74946129100580624362014-07-03T06:05:06.678-07:002014-07-03T06:05:06.678-07:00I regret seeing an interesting post left without r...I regret seeing an interesting post left without receiving any response. My comment here serves more to fill the lacuna than to offer any substantial criticism.<br /><br />The author lists five reasons to study history, but concludes that it broadens the mind by bringing everything under its aegis. I limit myself to these points. <br /><br />a) Self-identity. While undoubtedly we are influenced by the past, history is not simply a causal chain, but improbably emerges. To the extent we are products of a specific past, we are divided from others; to the extent we construct our unique natures from our present association with others, we are social beings. Self-identity strikes me as a peculiarly modern Western ideological perspective. <br /><br />b) Learning from past mistakes. History never repeats itself, for it is an emergent process that always yields novelties because people are creative and circumstances always change.<br />Historicism suggests that we can learn little from the past. Also, historiography is less about people in situations comparable to our own, but about the counterproductive decisions of powerful others whom we should not emulate. <br /><br />c) Learn how institutions evolved. The question is why this is either interesting or important. Does the word "evolved" suggest that institutions are increasingly adapted to circumstance? That is not even true in biological evolution. In human history, circumstances are too diverse to draw any conclusion about any particular institution. Rather than a strange Darwinian view of institutions, more plausibly their function is to control society in service to the interests of ruling classes. <br /><br />d) History provides a context for specifics. The point of "context" is not that one engages a wider array of determinants in the definition of an initial state of a process, for this leaves the process still unequivocally determinant. As others (Carr for example) have suggested, historiography describes an "open" process that provides room for innovative action, So the study of history persuades one of the centrality of imaginative and constructive action in relation to novel circumstances. This can't teach rules for behavior, but a courage to act.<br /><br />e) Historiography supports speculation abut the future. I don't understand what this has to do with historicism. Historicism suggests the constraint of circumstance. One can't responsibly speculate about the future, but only about real possibilities in the present. These real possibilities are constrained by historical circumstance, and so don't support speculation, but constrain it.<br /><br />f) Historiography offers a universal perspective, while other fields of knowledge use jargon and are narrow. Jargon, of course, is only shorthand that presumes cumulative knowledge, while historical knowledge is not cumulative because it engages continual innovation under new circumstances. Historiography in fact has been remarkably parochial. After WWII, UNESCO, guided by people like Geoffrey Barraclough, had the naive belief that knowledge of other cultures would curtail sectarian violence. I suspect the reason why this failed was because you don't engage others with a Cartesian head, but with the heart and body. <br /><br />Haines BrownAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com