[celddiskend]

What would you consider the most usual mistake laymen make about the study and science of history?

[Freedjome]

Could Stresemann have saved Weimar if he had lived? Could he have avoided a great power war?

Alternatively, if Walter Rathenau had not been assasinated, would that have mattered?


Could any German state OTHER THAN Prussia have accomplished German unification?

[LesLattis]

What does it mean to be a historian in Germany today? What is the responsibility of the historian to the larger culture, and to the political future? Is there one (a responsibility, that is, not a future)

[pKgGpUlF]

Could Austria unify the german states?

[Reafnartefs]

What's the more important "drive" of history: hard, material conditions or political thought, theory, ideas etc?

Simple answers like "both" or "they're interdependent" are not allowed


*runs*

[Narus63]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Is progress ineluctable? Can it be defined in a culturally neutral way? Is there a cunning of reason in history? Is history directional? Human history considers human societies over the time, and human societies change. With the possiblity of technical improvement, and the constant competition between groups and sub-groups of human society, technical advance, and economic expansion, are almost inevitable. What is judged as "progress" is however defined by humans, culturally mostly, but also in different ways. Do you consider an ideologically motivated definition of progress as cultural or as scientific? Our western way of thinking (call it culturally or ideologically directed) embraces economic and technical advance, so we tend to say there's always progress in history. This doesn't exclude the possibility of isolated societies in hierarchical order that do deny certain developments; think hunter-gatherers in New Guinea that repulse certain developments, or Imperial China when it banned certain ideas or technical concepts.

Directional? History as you see it depends on the prism through which you watch it. Since, as I explained in an earlier post, humans tend to see history in a biased manner, they also focus on certain processes more than on others. Therefore, history appears as "directional" to many, because A) they focus on certain phenomena more than on others, for reasons cultural, ideological, class-wise etc. and B) because they pretend their own temporal POV to be the end of history. Whig history is a good example for this. If you live in late 19th century Britain and look at the past of your country, it might appear that history always leads to the increase of freedom and representative government. If however you look at 20th century Europe from 1920 until 1980, isolatedly because you live in 1980 and are talking to your grandpa, you might find the opposite to be true.

Beyond that, there are certain features of the human being that make certain developments inevitable. The social drive of humans make them relate to others and interconect, and as, due to the mutually-enforced (game theory: prisoner's dilemma, perpetuated) necessity of technical development, social interaction will expand in space as well as in the numerical dimension (probably coupled with abstraction), the internet and places such as this being a good example. So the connection of human individuals might be a phenomenon where history is indeed directional, also individual mobility and accessability of information. Freedom and representation in government, I'm not so sure about, nor about socio-economic well-being.

[Opening-auto]

Originally posted by Ecthy


Not sure what you mean by "cunning of reason", but I think it comes sort of close to what BeBro is asking. Its a translation, I believe of a term from Hegel, that you may know in German. The notion that competition among states forces reason to the fore, via dialectic, IIUC

[khjhkfggt]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Ecthy
Human history considers human societies over the time, and human societies change. With the possiblity of technical improvement, and the constant competition between groups and sub-groups of human society, technical advance, and economic expansion, are almost inevitable. What is judged as "progress" is however defined by humans, culturally mostly, but also in different ways. Do you consider an ideologically motivated definition of progress as cultural or as scientific? Our western way of thinking (call it culturally or ideologically directed) embraces economic and technical advance, so we tend to say there's always progress in history. This doesn't exclude the possibility of isolated societies in hierarchical order that do deny certain developments; think hunter-gatherers in New Guinea that repulse certain developments, or Imperial China when it banned certain ideas or technical concepts.

It sounds like you dont see an "objective" notion of progress. Thats why I jumped to 'directional', which could imply that things always move in the same direction (once youve got iron, you never go back to bronze, once you have literacy you dont go back, etc, etc) without placing a value judgement on the direction.

China, of course, was in a position from the Tang to about 1800 or so, where it was not really in direct competition with other states. The farther it fell "behind" the more precarious that position became.

New Guinea? Are you sure youre not thinking of Australia? New Guinea tribes adapted the sweet potato very quickly, per Diamond, and were driven precisely by intertribe competition to adopt any innovations that they were socially capable of maintaining.


directional? History as you see it depends on the prism through which you watch it. Since, as I explained in an earlier post, humans tend to see history in a biased manner, they also focus on certain processes more than on others. Therefore, history appears as "directional" to many, because A) they focus on certain phenomena more than on others, for reasons cultural, ideological, class-wise etc. and B) because they pretend their own temporal POV to be the end of history. Whig history is a good example for this. If you live in late 19th century Britain and look at the past of your country, it might appear that history always leads to the increase of freedom and representative government. If however you look at 20th century Europe from 1920 until 1980, isolatedly because you live in 1980 and are talking to your grandpa, you might find the opposite to be true.

Yes, and thats presumably one reason why these kinds of Hegelian notions went out of fashion 1920 to 1980, except for keepers of the flame like Kojeve, who insisted that "reason" would win out. OTOH even the totalitarian developments were not simply reversions to the past, but incorporated mass mobilization, which was clearly a "modern" concept, and so indicated a direction, though not necessarily a liberal one.

But we are looking from a different vantage point, now in 2007. From 1989 to 2001 it looked pretty clearly like Kojeve was right, and that 1920-1989 was the anomaly, the antithesis to be overcome, not 1789-1914. In 2007, amidst demoralization on this side of the pond with events in La Proche Orient, Latin America, Russia and elsewhere, its starting to feel like 1989 to 2001 was the anomaly. I think that too is shortsighted, but I was looking for your thoughts.


But thanks for your responses so far.

[raskrutkaseo]

one language note

My impression is that any English speaker who is familiar with 19th c middle european history is likely to know the terms "kleindeutsch" and "grossdeutsch". Anyone who doesnt will likely be scratching their heads at a phrase like "grand German". In general English language historians dont translate those terms (though my limited reading may be misleading me)

[Wrencytet]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
but what about the notion, not so much that material conditions generate ideas, but that certain ideas are required for certain types of material conditions to obtain, and that those societies that fail to adopt new cultural-political-ideological-organizational ideas, cannot succesfully move ahead materially, and so will disappear? Two associations I have here: "chicken-or-egg" and "social darwinism".

I think it's futile to argue if a material condition generates ideas or vice versa, obviously the ideas have to be generated parallely so that humans act according to the material process. Does this sound Stalinist? It's just a simple way of putting it. There's a process where two phenomena develop dependently. The really interesting question is, what are the exterior factors making this two-sided development speed into one or the other direction?

As far as survival goes, societies/states do only die out because they lack the relevant ideas. The other option is they adopt ideas they see are successful in other places and adopt them. The same for inidiviuals. A person might be a loser and therefore not reproduce or die, but they might also open their eyes and learn from others and so on, though this opens the next category, who learns faster than others etc. In the end, I see both possibilities, and among countries, those who are open to change of course are more likely to survive than dogmatic ones. So it's not just the social darwnisim, it's also a darwinism of ideas, because the system is of a material nature in its foundations

[enentique]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Ecthy
Do you believe in the drive of freedom and reason?

I think there is much evidence that there is a basic human drive for dignity and recognition, above and beyond our material and our other cultural needs. Im willing to entertain evidence that this is NOT a universal aspect of human nature, however.

[q] Do you think these are ultimate values of mankind? [q/]
Im undecided. On the one hand the Maslovian notion of a hierarchy of needs is appealing, but on the other many individuals aspire to dignity and recognition even at the cost of more basic needs, but obviously many do not. Let me say that they are among the ultimate values, and that they fully come into their own when people move beyond subsistence. And that even when people accept submission, they need to maintain a facade of dignity (see the anecdote about the shop window sign in Prague in Fukuyamas book, for an example) I think purely material analyses, whether Marxist or Anglo-saxon liberal, tend to miss this.

Do you believe that societies which deem themselves further advanced in these values have the right to bring them to other societies?

If what I posit is right, they wouldnt be bringing those values there, they would be changing social and political conditions that prevent the full expression of that aspect of human nature. Is THAT a good idea? Depends. In many instances, its not. Especially when its done by force. Especially when that force is exerted without adequate diplomatic support from fellow "advanced" societies, and even more so when done with inadequate material preparations.

[muytreda]

Ecthy (or LoTM, or anyone else),

What books / articles would you recommend to one who is interested in learning about historiography and the philosophy of history?

[Bletlemof]

Thanks, Ecthy.

[sanddrareyk]

Originally posted by Ecthy


Oh, and the overrating of inidividual beings in history, but then there's Great Man Theory, so it's more of a philosophical or even methodological issue than a layman's mistake. It's difficult to see how one can overrate individuals such as Ashoka, Buddha or Alexander the Great.

The impact of Ashoka's conversion and then zeal to promote Buddhism meant the spread of Buddhist missionaries as far away as Egypt, Iraq/Iran and Central Asia.

It's also unlikely that Macedonia (or any of the Greek city states or Sparta) would have gone on to create the great Hellenistic oikoumene without the impetus provided by either Alexander or his father.

And considering the massive impact that the area covered by the successor states had on history and culture and knowledge, Alexander's achievement is hard to overestimate.

This isn't to say that I consider history as a series of lulls punctuated by overachievers- I don't.

[Aminkaoo]

Ecthythreadi

Originally posted by Ecthy
Do you believe in the drive of freedom and reason? Do you think these are ultimate values of mankind? Do you believe that societies which deem themselves further advanced in these values have the right to bring them to other societies?

More to come later, it's me to answer after all To support LOTM a bit and to annoy you your question "why freedom?" is a good one. But esp. when you think there's no objective key we can use for a view on history, then the question arises "why not freedom?" (or reason etc).

Also while I don't see freedom as a de facto universal value, I'd agree with LOTM that the opposite idea of freedom (democracy/whatever) being only a (culture-specific) western thing loses much when we look around the globe....

Third, ups and downs in history don't rule out per se a certain a "directional" drive (even 1648 could fit nicely into the freedom thing). But yeah, this is mainly a matter of interpretation.

Re the materialism thing: I basically agree, though in praxis (at least that's my personal experience) people often tend to ignore non-materialist factors too easily.

[HedoShoodovex]

and id say there are about a billion situations in western history that can only be explained that way - rebellions over the right to tax, when the actually taxes are nominal, and far less in present value than the costs of the rebellion. People voting, when there odds of an election being close enough for it to matter are slim to none. The greater concern people express over political violence, than over death from natural causes. Lots of things hard to reconcile with "rational choice", unless dignity is part of the "utility function"

[moohassinny]

Who buried the treasure on Oak Island in Canada that's so difficult to get to, no one made it yet after decades of trying.

[SallythePearl]

If You were teh Allies, how would You shape Poland's and Germany's boarders after ww1 and ww2? (if it was 100% up to You?)

[bestgenpower]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Who buried the treasure on Oak Island in Canada that's so difficult to get to, no one made it yet after decades of trying. I just googled this and it is an incredible story! Wow!