With supreme indifference to human narratives of morality or evolution, events wither and flourish, bathed in the male blood we call "history".
-- Earl Warren
That men do not learn very much from history is the most important of all
the lessons that history has to teach.
-- Aldous Huxley
We learn from history that we do not learn from history.
-- Georg Hegel
Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
--George Santayana
The entire 5000 years of recorded human behavior can be summed up in one phrase:
Men wielding power to gain advantage.
It's about MEN! It always has been about MEN.
After finishing Adam Goodheart's thrilling history of the first year of the Civil War which he entitled 1861 The Year of the Civil War Awakening, I am struck by the absolute indifference of historical events to the wishes of human beings.
A bullet, a tiny piece of metal the size of half my pinky finger, removes Abraham Lincoln from the planet in 1865 and ends the hopes of Reconstruction.
A similar piece of metal removes James Garfield from the planet in 1881 and ends for a second time, hopes of civil rights for black citizens, a cause he had championed in his inaugural address the year before. (Goodheart, 376+)
A now familiar piece of metal removes John F. Kennedy from the planet in 1963 and gives his sucessor Lyndon B. Johnson, the ability to pass The Civil Rights Act of 1964 in his memory.
Again, this tiny piece of metal hurled through the air in 1968, removes Martin Luther King, Jr. from the planet and his death sparks passage of The Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Almost a familiar event , this tiny piece of metal now in the same year, 1968, removes Robert F. Kennedy from the planet, ending hopes of a swift de-escalation of, and end to, the Viet Nam War.
With supreme indifference to human narratives of morality or evolution, events wither and flourish, bathed in the male blood we call "history"
No one is going to rename "history," "herstory".
.The entire 5000 years of recorded human behavior can be summed up in one phrase:
Men wielding power to gain advantage.
It's about MEN! It always has been about MEN.
After finishing Adam Goodheart's thrilling history of the first year of the Civil War which he entitled 1861 The Year of the Civil War Awakening, I am struck by the absolute indifference of historical events to the wishes of human beings.
A bullet, a tiny piece of metal the size of half my pinky finger, removes Abraham Lincoln from the planet in 1865 and ends the hopes of Reconstruction.
A similar piece of metal removes James Garfield from the planet in 1881 and ends for a second time, hopes of civil rights for black citizens, a cause he had championed in his inaugural address the year before. (Goodheart, 376+)
A now familiar piece of metal removes John F. Kennedy from the planet in 1963 and gives his sucessor Lyndon B. Johnson, the ability to pass The Civil Rights Act of 1964 in his memory.
Again, this tiny piece of metal hurled through the air in 1968, removes Martin Luther King, Jr. from the planet and his death sparks passage of The Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Almost a familiar event , this tiny piece of metal now in the same year, 1968, removes Robert F. Kennedy from the planet, ending hopes of a swift de-escalation of, and end to, the Viet Nam War.
With supreme indifference to human narratives of morality or evolution, events wither and flourish, bathed in the male blood we call "history"
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