THREAD: 15 things from “The Lessons of History”

Religion, Govt, Education, Wars, and many more

Preface:

Only a fool would try to compress a hundred centuries into a hundred pages of hazardous conclusions - Authors

Only a fool would compress a hundred pages of history into a 15 tweets thread - me

Let's Proceed.

1/ "The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding"

Read that again

2/ "The defeat of the Muslims at Tours (732) kept France and Spain from replacing the Bible with the Koran."

3/ "History does not tell us just when men passed from hunting to agriculture

— For 1500 yrs children were economic assets.

Then Industrial Revolution came.
Factories were built for machines, not men.

Machines multiplied & children were no longer the economic assets "

3a/ "Men and women have gambled in every age.

In every age, men have been dishonest and governments have been corrupt."

4/ "Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Normans fused to produce Englishmen."

British have invaded 9 out of 10 countries

5/ "Religion has helped parents and teachers to discipline the young

“It was fear that first made the gods” — fear of hidden forces in the earth, rivers, oceans, trees, winds, and sky.

- Petronius, who echoed Lucretius."

5a/ "Atheism ran wild in the India of Buddha’s youth, and Buddha himself founded a religion without a god;

after his death, Buddhism developed a complex theology including gods, saints, and hell

One lesson of history is that religion has many lives and a habit of resurrection"

5b/ "Moral disorder may generate a religious revival; Atheists may again send their children to Catholic schools to teach them the discipline

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich" ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

“As long as there is poverty there will be gods.”

6/ “The men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all."

Money is the last thing a wise man will hoard (Stock)

7/ In the last 3,421 years of recorded history, only 268 have seen no war.

"War, or competition, is the father of all things" ~ Heracleitus

Even a philosopher, if he knows history, will admit that a long peace may fatally weaken the martial muscles of a nation.

8/ "There is no certainty that the future will repeat the past. Every year is an adventure."

Yup! that is true we are going through one

9/ Since we have admitted no significant change in man’s nature throughout history

All technological advances are merely new means of achieving old ends:-

- the acquisition of goods ,
- the pursuit of sex,
- the overcoming of competition ,
- the fighting of wars

10/ “The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows”

11/ "He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow, and in much wisdom is much grief."

More you learn, more sadness you see around you

12/ Has there been any progress at all in philosophy since Confucius? Or in literature since Aeschylus?

But perhaps we should first define what progress means to us

If it means an increase in happiness its case is lost almost at first sight

12a/ It seems silly to define progress in terms that would make the average child a higher, more advanced product of life than the adult or the sage

—for certainly the child is the happiest of the three.

13/ If education is the transmission of civilization, we are unquestionably progressing

if the transmission should be interrupted for one
century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again

Next few tweets are most important

14/ We have raised the level and average of knowledge beyond any age in history.

But if every child gets schooled till at least his twentieth year, and should find free access to the universities, libraries, museums and many more?

14a/ "Consider education not as the painful accumulation of facts and dates and reigns,

nor merely the necessary preparation of the individual to earn his keep in the world,

but as the transmission of our mental, moral,
technical, and aesthetic heritage as fully as possible to as many as possible,

for the enlargement of man’s understanding, control, embellishment, and enjoyment of life."

What Education should be in a nutshell

15/ If a man is fortunate he will before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children.

And to his final breath, he will be grateful for this inexhaustible legacy, knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life

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