Collarspace Discussion Forums


Home  Login  Search 

RE: Is history progress?


View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest
 
All Forums >> [Community Discussions] >> Dungeon of Political and Religious Discussion >> RE: Is history progress? Page: <<   < prev  1 [2] 3 4   next >   >>
Login
Message << Older Topic   Newer Topic >>
RE: Is history progress? - 4/30/2011 5:50:10 PM   
Jawero


Posts: 2
Joined: 8/10/2008
Status: offline 		History is just that.....His story.   "Until lions can talk, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."

Look up the real story of Thanksgiving and compare it to what we were taught in school........

(in reply to NorthernGent)
Profile   Post #: 21
RE: Is history progress? - 4/30/2011 5:57:04 PM   
thompsonx


Posts: 23322
Joined: 10/1/2006
Status: offline
quote:

"Until lions can talk, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."


I tend to agree with this in most cases. The exception would be "a boy and his dog"...the only thing don johnson ever did that was worth a shit.

(in reply to Jawero)
Profile   Post #: 22
RE: Is history progress? - 4/30/2011 6:15:57 PM   
thompsonx


Posts: 23322
Joined: 10/1/2006
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt

Of course, when you are talking history, you are talking the interpretation of past events.

I have seen circumstances where "water will flow up hill" but most of the time it goes downhill =follows the path of least resistance=most logical. The interpretation of facts typically should follow a logical course. If a paticular source says that at a particular battle there were x many combatants all one need do is validate the logistics for x many people (food, clothing , shelter, armament etc. if there is not the necessary infrastructure to support such a claim then the claim is not valid....but beyond the battles and who was king at any particular time people still got laid,cheated on their spouses, cheated on their taxes,got drunk,kicked the dog and none of that has changed since we became sentient.
That we have quisinarts and neuclear weapons are just acoutrements...los cabrones hay in todos los colores pero la pinoche siempre in la color rosa.

Again, of course there are trends that flow through history, but that is such a broad conception, it  extends beyond the scope of human existence. You need to narrow your focus and define what you mean by progress.



(in reply to ChatteParfaitt)
Profile   Post #: 23
RE: Is history progress? - 4/30/2011 6:32:44 PM   
Real0ne


Posts: 21189
Joined: 10/25/2004
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: ChatteParfaitt

Of course, when you are talking history, you are talking the interpretation of past events.

Again, of course there are trends that flow through history, but that is such a broad conception, it  extends beyond the scope of human existence. You need to narrow your focus and define what you mean by progress.




I think even more importantly the data used.

how many people even dreamed that eisenhauer single handedly was responsible for the deaths of well over 1million germans AFTER the war while they were in HIS Prison camp!  His own holocaust!

that story never makes the mainstream history books.

< Message edited by Real0ne -- 4/30/2011 6:33:29 PM >

_____________________________

"We the Borg" of the us imperialists....resistance is futile

Democracy; The 'People' voted on 'which' amendment?

Yesterdays tinfoil is today's reality!

"No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session

(in reply to ChatteParfaitt)
Profile   Post #: 24
RE: Is history progress? - 4/30/2011 7:00:28 PM   
ChatteParfaitt


Posts: 6562
Joined: 3/22/2011
From: The t'aint of the Midwest -- Indiana
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Jawero

History is just that.....His story.   "Until lions can talk, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."

Look up the real story of Thanksgiving and compare it to what we were taught in school........



You are so not getting what this poster is saying. History is literally a particular person's story. Unless and until that story can be backed up by credible witnesses, it's just that, a story.

The historians job is to research, evaluate and interpret available data and form conclusions based on what can be verified, and what can be merely extrapolated.


< Message edited by ChatteParfaitt -- 4/30/2011 7:04:55 PM >

_____________________________



(in reply to Jawero)
Profile   Post #: 25
RE: Is history progress? - 4/30/2011 7:34:10 PM   
thompsonx


Posts: 23322
Joined: 10/1/2006
Status: offline
quote:

how many people even dreamed that eisenhauer single handedly was responsible for the deaths of well over 1million germans AFTER the war while they were in HIS Prison camp! His own holocaust!

perhaps you would like to elucidate.


that story never makes the mainstream history books.

Winston churchill mentioned it in his six volumn tome on ww2

(in reply to Real0ne)
Profile   Post #: 26
RE: Is history progress? - 4/30/2011 8:09:08 PM   
Brain


Posts: 3792
Joined: 2/14/2007
Status: offline
quote:

Those who think so: what is the end goal, and who or what decides it?


For me the end goal is to know what happened before the big bang and after we figure that out we can create a new end goal. This is what I think is the most important activity mankind is doing in addition to many other important things.

As to who decides the end goal that is more difficult to answer. I think it depends on who has the money, intelligence, determination or persistence and motivation to get there. And even if someone or something has all that the end goal is in the eye of the beholder just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that's my opinion. I think the beholder in this case is mankind if this makes any sense.

I think it's even more complicated than what I said above because other people will think the end goal is something else and their opinion is equally valid so it's quite likely your question is impossible to answer.



quote:

Those who disagree: does this mean there is no such thing as 'better'? only different.


It can and should be progress or better because we should learn from the past but that doesn't always happen.

(in reply to NorthernGent)
Profile   Post #: 27
RE: Is history progress? - 4/30/2011 8:26:41 PM   
eihwaz


Posts: 367
Joined: 10/6/2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain
[...]
It can and should be progress or better because we should learn from the past but that doesn't always happen.

Those who learn from the past are less likely to repeat it.

(in reply to Brain)
Profile   Post #: 28
RE: Is history progress? - 5/1/2011 10:42:32 AM   
Real0ne


Posts: 21189
Joined: 10/25/2004
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain

quote:

Those who think so: what is the end goal, and who or what decides it?


For me the end goal is to know what happened before the big bang


you first need to prove there was a big bang ya thank?


_____________________________

"We the Borg" of the us imperialists....resistance is futile

Democracy; The 'People' voted on 'which' amendment?

Yesterdays tinfoil is today's reality!

"No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session

(in reply to Brain)
Profile   Post #: 29
RE: Is history progress? - 5/1/2011 3:44:27 PM   
imperatrixx


Posts: 903
Joined: 3/29/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

For clarity's sake.

The question is this: is human history one of progress, past and future?

I didn't include 'inevitable' in my OP as progress could quite easily be a result of a random string of events (depending on point of view).

Hope this helps.


Human history is progress and regression. Look at the dark ages for an example - in Europe, roads crumble, literacy drops, previously known science and math is lost to a continent...yet the Arab world flourishes in architecture, trade, math, science, etc.

Reversed in the latter half of the 20th century - Europe and North America push forth in progress, science, technology, social order, while the Arab world regresses to dark provincialism.

As a whole, though, I'd say yes. Progress.

(in reply to NorthernGent)
Profile   Post #: 30
RE: Is history progress? - 5/1/2011 3:47:27 PM   
juliaoceania


Posts: 21383
Joined: 4/19/2006
From: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Status: offline 		There is a phrase for people who think history is a giant progression forward towards better and better outcomes, the phrase is teleological thinking

_____________________________

Once you label me, you negate me ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Reality has a well known Liberal Bias ~ Stephen Colbert

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

(in reply to NorthernGent)
Profile   Post #: 31
RE: Is history progress? - 5/1/2011 4:38:04 PM   
Aneirin


Posts: 6121
Joined: 3/18/2006
From: Tamaris
Status: offline 		The dark ages are only called that because not much is known about the period, which could mean it either progressed or regressed or even just carried on as normal. Perhaps the writers of the time found nothing eventful to write about or even if they did, those histories were lost through anything that could have happened at the time. But as we depend so much on the written word, could it be we are missing much that is spoken. For many cultures the spoken word holds true.

_____________________________

Everything we are is the result of what we have thought, the mind is everything, what we think, we become - Guatama Buddha

Conservatism is distrust of people tempered by fear - William Gladstone

(in reply to imperatrixx)
Profile   Post #: 32
RE: Is history progress? - 5/1/2011 5:30:07 PM   
Fellow


Posts: 1486
Joined: 9/21/2009
Status: offline 		History is usually treated to be a cyclical process. The progress happens usually during short period of time (Renaissance last time). My feeling tells me we are nearing the end of dark ages. Hopefully progress will follow.

(in reply to ChatteParfaitt)
Profile   Post #: 33
RE: Is history progress? - 5/1/2011 5:48:31 PM   
imperatrixx


Posts: 903
Joined: 3/29/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Aneirin

The dark ages are only called that because not much is known about the period, which could mean it either progressed or regressed or even just carried on as normal. Perhaps the writers of the time found nothing eventful to write about or even if they did, those histories were lost through anything that could have happened at the time. But as we depend so much on the written word, could it be we are missing much that is spoken. For many cultures the spoken word holds true.


or it could mean they did not know how to write.

afaik at that time literacy was more or less found in high ranks of clergy. Kings and princes couldn't sign their name, much less write a history of events.

Aside from that - roads crumbled. Buildings financed by Rome fell into ruin along with the empire. Trade routes were threatened by bandits. Latin split off into provincial tongues.

That was not a time of progress. But it laid the foundations for the Renaissance, later the Enlightenment. In the seasons of progress consider it the winter - and what came after the spring.

I see things in cycles like that...growth, apex, decay, rot that fertilizes new growth. Progress is measured comparing the seasons of growth, on the grand scheme.

I don't think we're currently in a springtime season.

(in reply to Aneirin)
Profile   Post #: 34
RE: Is history progress? - 5/2/2011 2:27:50 AM   
NorthernGent


Posts: 8730
Joined: 7/10/2006
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: imperatrixx


quote:

ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

For clarity's sake.

The question is this: is human history one of progress, past and future?

I didn't include 'inevitable' in my OP as progress could quite easily be a result of a random string of events (depending on point of view).

Hope this helps.


Human history is progress and regression. Look at the dark ages for an example - in Europe, roads crumble, literacy drops, previously known science and math is lost to a continent...yet the Arab world flourishes in architecture, trade, math, science, etc.

Reversed in the latter half of the 20th century - Europe and North America push forth in progress, science, technology, social order, while the Arab world regresses to dark provincialism.

As a whole, though, I'd say yes. Progress.



Historians talk of a 12th century renaissance, including advances in art, literature, science etc. It is simply inaccurate to suggest Europe stood still during the dark ages, although the improvement wasn't as marked as the later renaissance.

The problem was one of trade - a reference here to Marx's theory that the economy influences progress/history - the muslim world had trade nailed down and Europe had no way out with oceans all around, until, that is, Portuguese explorers resolved the problem.

So, we did continue to progress during the dark ages, albeit at a slow rate of knots and lacking political freedom.

In terms of political freedom, there is a trend towards individual liberty: Plato's time when people turned inwards for the answers, to the reformation involving breaking the catholic church's hold over learning, to applying reason to rule and the state etc.

I would agree with you, on the whole history is progress.

Does this mean there must be an end goal? Who or what decided it?



< Message edited by NorthernGent -- 5/2/2011 2:46:25 AM >

_____________________________

I have the courage to be a coward - but not beyond my limits.

Sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.

(in reply to imperatrixx)
Profile   Post #: 35
RE: Is history progress? - 5/2/2011 2:45:26 AM   
NorthernGent


Posts: 8730
Joined: 7/10/2006
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Wheldrake

Sure, we're more free and rational, although the bar was set pretty low back in the Stone Age. People would have believed all kinds of crazy things and been subject to the will of tribal leaders, and technological limitations would have constrained the options available to the average person in any case. If you can take a jet from Nairobi to Naples, or Newcastle, you have more freedom (in one important sense) than someone who can only walk across several miles of savannah in the same amount of time. And I would say that freedom and rationality have probably increased, at least in the West, even in the past 50 years. But freedom and rationality aren't everything.



I wouldn't necessarily agree that increased choice and opportunities is akin to increased freedom, although 'freedom' is subjective, granted.

And people continue to act in ways that are viewed as 'crazy' by many people - such as dropping atom bombs.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wheldrake

That's kind of my point - that sooner or later you hit the damn cul-de-sac, because there's a limit to what's knowable in principle. Philosophy may already have discovered all of the major logical possibilities in both ethics and metaphysics, in which case there's not much left for philosophers to do apart from filling in some details.



I'd imagine that philosophers will tell you they really don't know, when being honest.

Hegel attempted to resolve this problem by saying that philosophers concentrate solely on the part and therefore lack an understanding of the wider system e.g. idealists who believe that our minds are sufficient to explain the world versus materialists who believe the world can only be understood through the outer world.

Hegel's solution? some spirit/force termed the absolute idea is driving the evolution of the world, and we are simply unaware of it; and we can understand people/ideas/objects only in relation to this absolute idea.

In other words, clutching at straws, but as good as anything anyone has been able to come up with.

And, Hume did a very good job of showing that our knowledge of the world is based on our experience, so it's safe to assume that subsequent generations will improve on our knowledge of the world.

_____________________________

I have the courage to be a coward - but not beyond my limits.

Sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.

(in reply to Wheldrake)
Profile   Post #: 36
RE: Is history progress? - 5/2/2011 5:54:17 AM   
DarkestDezirez


Posts: 24
Joined: 2/11/2011
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Brain

For me the end goal is to know what happened before the big bang and after we figure that out we can create a new end goal. This is what I think is the most important activity mankind is doing in addition to many other important things.


If you accept the "big bang" hypothesis, you have to accept there was no "before", as you and I understand it, before it -- which doesn't really matter since there was no "here" either. At this point it helps to start taking some really powerful hallucinogens .... ;)

(in reply to Brain)
Profile   Post #: 37
RE: Is history progress? - 5/2/2011 7:26:38 PM   
eihwaz


Posts: 367
Joined: 10/6/2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
There is a phrase for people who think history is a giant progression forward towards better and better outcomes, the phrase is teleological thinking

Human culture is evolving.  Evolution optimizes. On the other hand, evolution has no teleology (as far as anybody has been able to prove).  History and human cultural evolution are interrelated: history both reflects and affects the evolution of human culture.  So historical 'progress' could be evolutionary optimization.

(in reply to juliaoceania)
Profile   Post #: 38
RE: Is history progress? - 5/2/2011 11:27:16 PM   
juliaoceania


Posts: 21383
Joined: 4/19/2006
From: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: eihwaz

quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
There is a phrase for people who think history is a giant progression forward towards better and better outcomes, the phrase is teleological thinking

Human culture is evolving.  Evolution optimizes. On the other hand, evolution has no teleology (as far as anybody has been able to prove).  History and human cultural evolution are interrelated: history both reflects and affects the evolution of human culture.  So historical 'progress' could be evolutionary optimization.




Evolution is not progress, it is change over time. It does not insinuate that there is some grand design of progress marching forward.

There have been 5 major extinctions on planet earth, for various reasons. This means that evolution isn't unidirectional, it is instead multilinear. It has starts, and stops, and unproductive offshoots, etc etc etc.

Human culture is similar in that there are many extinct cultures, they have failed for different reasons, there will be false starts, and abrupt stops. History, both recorded and that told to us in the archaeological record, shows us that we have had bottlenecks, empires rise and fall, we have even had different species of human beings (organisms from the sapien family) come and go the way of the dinosaur. We could be wiped off the planet tomorrow, and the cockroaches would take our place.... most people wouldn't see this as progress

_____________________________

Once you label me, you negate me ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Reality has a well known Liberal Bias ~ Stephen Colbert

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

(in reply to eihwaz)
Profile   Post #: 39
RE: Is history progress? - 5/3/2011 2:46:53 AM   
NorthernGent


Posts: 8730
Joined: 7/10/2006
Status: offline 		For those who believe there is no such thing as human progress, then it seems there is no such thing as 'better', only 'different'. And, if this is the case, then what is the point in having political beliefs, because, after all, there's no progress to work towards?

_____________________________

I have the courage to be a coward - but not beyond my limits.

Sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.

(in reply to ChatteParfaitt)
Profile   Post #: 40
Page:   <<   < prev  1 [2] 3 4   next >   >>
All Forums >> [Community Discussions] >> Dungeon of Political and Religious Discussion >> RE: Is history progress? Page: <<   < prev  1 [2] 3 4   next >   >>
Jump to:





New Messages No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages Locked w/o New Messages
 Post New Thread
 Reply to Message
 Post New Poll
 Submit Vote
 Delete My Own Post
 Delete My Own Thread
 Rate Posts




Collarchat.com © 2025
Terms of Service Privacy Policy Spam Policy

0.142