13 Feb 2014, 10:59 pm
GoonSquad
Veteran
Joined: 11 May 2007
Age: 54
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,748
Location: International House of Paincakes...
14 Feb 2014, 4:08 am
If you go back and look at my first post, you'll see that I made two points. I'll restate them again, as simply as I can...
1) Humans do the same dumb stuff over and over, generation after generation because we all have similar psychology and we all tend to act and react the same in similar circumstances. It's human nature.
2) Historians from the time of Livy in ancient Rome have noticed this and tried to save us from ourselves by pointing out our historical mistakes...
Obviously, this hasn't worked. Historians keep trying to teach us, and we keep ignoring them.
In much the same way you have been ignoring me. 
Good night.
14 Feb 2014, 4:33 am
Goodnight GoonSquad and happy pancakes.
Next time you hear a history teacher or professor repeat that phrase you can wisely remind him of the FACTS. And then you can thank me to yourself for pointing them out. 
We will unravel the mystery inside these humans together and try to figure them out.
20 Feb 2014, 2:54 pm
20 Feb 2014, 3:24 pm
ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
GoonSquad wrote:
There's definitely more than a grain of truth to the saying. I think this is because in general terms all humans have the same 'firm ware' and thus tend to act and react in similar ways...
If you want to see this in action all you need to do is read a few ancient Roman manuscripts. Cicero's political speeches and defense monologues sound surprisingly modern as do Seneca's social commentaries...
Anybody who doubts how destructive economic inequality can be to a Republic needs to take a look at Roman history from, say, the end of the Second Punic War to the rise of Caesar...
We are beginning to make similar mistakes for, I think, similar reasons.
Also, check out the introduction to Livy's history of Rome and see if you think his criticisms are applicable to the US. It sure seems so to me. Of course, Livy was writing about the past to inform his readers about the present.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah../Livy/Livy01.html
As you can see, Livy's entire purpose is to use past events to instruct his readers about how they should and shouldn't behave in the present--this has been a common approach to history throughout most of history....
So, even if the actual past events don't provide lessons for the present time, the written history will by the time historians get done with it!
If you want to see this in action all you need to do is read a few ancient Roman manuscripts. Cicero's political speeches and defense monologues sound surprisingly modern as do Seneca's social commentaries...
Anybody who doubts how destructive economic inequality can be to a Republic needs to take a look at Roman history from, say, the end of the Second Punic War to the rise of Caesar...
We are beginning to make similar mistakes for, I think, similar reasons.
Also, check out the introduction to Livy's history of Rome and see if you think his criticisms are applicable to the US. It sure seems so to me. Of course, Livy was writing about the past to inform his readers about the present.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah../Livy/Livy01.html
Quote:
There is this exceptionally beneficial and fruitful advantage to be derived from the study of the past, that you see, set in the clear light of historical truth, examples of every possible type. From these you may select for yourself and your country what to imitate, and also what, as being mischievous in its inception and disastrous in its issues, you are to avoid. Unless, however, I am misled by affection for my undertaking, there has never existed any commonwealth greater in power, with a purer morality, or more fertile in good examples; or any state in which avarice and luxury have been so late in making their inroads, or poverty and frugality so highly and continuously honoured, showing so clearly that the less wealth men possessed the less they coveted. In these latter years wealth has brought avarice in its train, and the unlimited command of pleasure has created in men a passion for ruining themselves and everything else through self-indulgence and licentiousness. But criticisms which will be unwelcome, even when perhaps necessary, must not appear in the commencement at all events of this extensive work. We should much prefer to start with favourable omens, and if we could have adopted the poets' custom, it would have been much pleasanter to commence with prayers and supplications to gods and goddesses that they would grant a favourable and successful issue to the great task before us.
As you can see, Livy's entire purpose is to use past events to instruct his readers about how they should and shouldn't behave in the present--this has been a common approach to history throughout most of history....
So, even if the actual past events don't provide lessons for the present time, the written history will by the time historians get done with it!
You would think it's because of World War ii which was so awful and bloody, western countries would swear off wars forever but this hasn't been the case. Actually, it's because of the Vietnam War and heavy antiwar activism against it warfare significantly changed. It wasn't even because of World War ii. In fact, Vietnam was on it's way to becoming just as bloody despite everyone knowing their history.
But thats the rub.
During the descent into the Vietnam War they thought that they WERE "learning from history". Specifically- learning from the mistake of World War Two.
The second world war was blamed on Neville Chamberlain supposidly caving into Hitler with his policy of appeasement - giving Hitler Czechoslavakia at the Munich talks of 1938. That policy supposidly embolded Hitler to take more territory which lead to a world war. So the lesson was thought to be 'no more appeasement", or "no more Munichs". That we have to stop them at every turn, and never give in ( 'bare any burden, support any friend, and oppose any foe, for the survival and success of liberty" as Kennedy said). The result was the quagmire of Vietnam.
So now both phrases: "no more Munichs", and "no more Vietnams" haunt American foriegn policy.
The irony is that you yourself are making the very same mistake that the US made in Vietnam by lumping Vietnam and World War Two together as being comparable events when they were in fact very different situations that were not even analogous.
20 Feb 2014, 8:02 pm
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