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Got asked this morning "What is the point of reading so much history?" Which, bless the dude, is kind of dumb. Obviously, we do what we enjoy, or at least feel driven to do.
As suspected, though, he was reaching for more of a "What have you *gotten* out of it?" First and foremost, a total distrust of narratives. Humans tell stories, not data points or facts or even events.
Once you're a decade deep into reading up on some of the same subjects, you also come to appreciate that even the authors you trust; you shouldn't. Nobody is immune, there is no exit from the human condition.
What I couldn't articulate until this AM, though, was that I've learned our modern world is presented to us as a planet-spanning edifice; a fact of nature, an inevitability. In fact, it's all brand-new and extremely fluid & delicate.
This is why so much money, effort and occasional murder gets invested into controlling history, creating think tanks and institutions, targeting rogue authors, hiring so many useless pundits: this whole operation is still extremely vulnerable and barely understood
We live in the midst of a discontinuity that is completely unthinkable outside of utopian x apocalyptic frameworks - the City of God, the noosphere, Hell on Earth - even to people who were still alive when your parents were being born
So while there will be no great awakening, no global revolution, and no popular demand for the hard truth - you yourself are still in a position of unprecedented power, potential and opportunity. Think slow & move fast!
