What is Past is Prologue

[John Reece]

The past continues to be repeated:


“Nothing from the 20th Century has come to an end, nothing at all, except the numerals at the top of the calendar and the script in which the revolutionary manifestos are published,” wrote social critic Paul Berman. “This script, which used to be the Gothic letters of German, and later was Cyrillic, and lately has been Farsi and Arabic, and which, in any alphabet, spells out the same apocalyptic explanation for why, in this hour of Armageddon, masses of people should be killed.”

Read the entire article here (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/cliffordmay/cm20050512.shtml).

[bandecoot]

The past continues to be repeated:


“Nothing from the 20th Century has come to an end, nothing at all, except the numerals at the top of the calendar and the script in which the revolutionary manifestos are published,” wrote social critic Paul Berman. “This script, which used to be the Gothic letters of German, and later was Cyrillic, and lately has been Farsi and Arabic, and which, in any alphabet, spells out the same apocalyptic explanation for why, in this hour of Armageddon, masses of people should be killed.”

Read the entire article here (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/cliffordmay/cm20050512.shtml).


Interesting that you used a second hand quote, I would suggest that nothing has changed in Totalitarian politics since The 20th century BCE. If I were to simply read Paul Bermans quote and I would be just as correct, mass killings, strict formalised religions, intolerence of those not like Us were the norm and unfortunately still are.

Where I would disagree with Bermin and by extension CD May is that the latter half of the 20th century AD/CE has shown humans can learn from mistakes. Perhaps it is the fact that the second world War was the first war in history to be extensively filmed may have had something to do with it, then of course the Vietnam Conflict. Each time a generation saw what previously only combat soldiers saw, the true nature of War. Seeing is very different from a measured news report written long after the fact by someone who may not have been there to wittness the carnage. The graphic film ofGuadalcanal. omaha beach and IwoJima may have been the impetus for the fact that Pattons plan to take the war to the USSR was shelved. It is one thing to lose a son in battle, but quite another to see how he was killed and how many were killed with him.

There are many other factors involved, General education and literacy, increased leisure time, mobility, and probably many others, but seeing a war is probably the straw that is too much of a load.

Time is a whole piece of cloth, if you simply start chopping chunks out its worthless. I admit the 20-21st century has been a heck of a ride, but then so was the 19th, the 18th had its share of excitement and innovation as well as war and pestilence and so forth back to the 15th c in the west.

Just looking at the 20th century is a waste of time without looking at how we got to there. Or here for that matter. My 35 years that I can recall have been a whale of a time, I have lived through at least 7 major conflicts and served in 2 of them, thats the down side. On the Up side there has been a lot of Social chance for Good and Ill, but the good bits seem to have stuck.

Ill take my chances with history proving me right, that people can learn hard lessons if what is really happening can get through to them. Or if they can be exposed to opinions different from theirs without outright aggression.

Andrew