As my son and I wrapped up our course on history for the year, we found ourselves talking about the traits common to successful civilizations. Unity was a big one, of course, but flexibility/adaptability was right up there, plus a certain willingness to look at the world beyond their borders.
Do those sounds like words that describe our current civilizations to you?
Today in class my son learned an important lesson about how bias (and arrogance) can influence how one interprets data. Put another way, one person’s religious megalith is another person’s olive press.
My son and I continue to study the history of the Roman Empire, and after class I triggered a fit of laughter from him when I said, “I’m going to the bathroom now. Don’t stab me.”
Recently my son and I started studying the history of the Roman Empire, and it’s already become a running joke between us how often the phrase, “and then they promptly fell ill and died” has shown up, and we’re only to the Flavians.
One thing my son is starting to learn from history is how often it has been said, “How dare somebody do to us what we did to other people!”.
The world needs more cranky historians saying things like, “No, they didn’t kill the king, they killed his brother, and this did not end the monarchy; it actually made things worse. Furthermore they didn’t kill the king’s brother in the name of democracy, they killed him because he made a pass at someone and they objected to that. Get your facts straight!”
If there can be only one thing my son learns from studying history, I hope that he learns how strongly the past can resonate into the present and future.
While it turns out that I already knew that the mummy of Ramesses II was taken to Paris at one point for some restoration work, today I learned that to kill a variety of fungi that had taken up residence, they actually bombarded the ancient preserved corpse with gamma radiation to sterilize it.
Why has nobody made a comic book out of this yet?
One person’s “I invaded this country annually for eighteen years until they learned to give me the respect (i.e., tribute) I feel is my due,” is another person’s “For eighteen years this idiot told us he had ‘conquered’ us and that we ‘owed’ him something, and for eighteen years we disagreed.”
