History

The question is "do you want to learn things the easy way or the hard way?" This can be asked of people, groups, organizations, countries, and so on. Because a lot of things people think are super-new ideas that are going to create positive change and/or a utopia (such as Communism, lowering taxes for the rich, etc.) have actually been tried before, and welp. A lot of the time it went very, very badly. This is one of the most important disciplines to learn, or at least try to learn. It explains why things are the way they are, and teaches wisdom, but only if you learn history that's real and not revisionist, and that is hard to find. Most of the time you can only guess at what happened back then, with clues you find. It is not possible to be certain about anything in history unless you have a time machine.

It must be said that many cultures which historically did not pass down their heritage in text or symbols but in an oral, bardic, linguic, or griot tradition have almost been wiped out as a result. It gets weirder: legend has it that throughout history bardic and griot tradition would teach people important lessons (such as historic events and cultural ideas which would otherwise be forgotten) while entertaining them, so learning epics, folk songs, folklore, fairy tales, and legends might actually be worth your time. It is exactly as Mary Poppins said, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." The people telling these stories knew that by surrounding the important information in something entertaining, the listeners would remember. However, people stopped paying attention. Mostly because what is now called 'poetry' is nothing more than a pretentious self-aggrandizing circle-jerk, rap being a notable exception. No, back in the day storytellers used to make their stories worth listening to. Now, thousands, even tens of thousands of years of wisdom, of better ways of living and of thinking learned from eons of hard work, trial and error, and genius, all lost in a single generation. Therefore, if you have the opportunity to learn a second language and traditions that are not familiar to you, especially if that is part of your heritage, then it is very important for you to learn it. And don't just stop there. Be patient with your elders when they're trying to tell you some old-fashioned story or do some old-fashioned traditional thing that you think is worthless because it probably isn't. Talk to your parents and your grandparents; to the elders of your community, and patiently absorb the lessons. You might be one of the only ones to do so!

There is a major issue with history. It is not like the sciences or math, where each claim is reproducible in experiments or proofs and you can repeatedly prove what you're claiming. The problem is that anyone can claim something happened, and without actually seeing it for yourself, you have no idea how it actually went down. History is at best a bunch of educated guesses based on archeological evidence, in most cases the longest game of telephone or he-said/she-said that has ever existed, and at worst just a bunch of people making stuff up (i.e. conspiracy theories, tall tales, revisionist history made for propaganda and power, and Paul Bunyan). A primary source, aka a person who lived it, saw it, went through it - that is the best place to get information. If you can't speak directly to the person, find a book written by that person. This is why diaries are historic goldmines. And no, they're not any less subjective than history books.

There's a big problem with how history is taught and it might be unintentional. Boiling down atrocities, war crimes, injustices, soap opera drama and so on into names, dates, and worthless pontificating about the "glory of our country" blah blah blah not only makes kids zone out but at any age before 18 it's not likely the kids would understand the true meaning and emotional impact of these things. So it can normalize this kind of crap. It might actually be a better idea to teach only the nice and safe stuff before 18 and have state-sponsored college from 18 on up teach people the truth. In fact, civics, politics, history, and all that other social studies type stuff might be only able to be properly taught as an associate's degree in college.

Unfortunately much of history has been buried so much and so effectively that the only things you hear about it are directly from family lore passed down from person to person. One good example is the horrors of the Native American boarding schools and the westward expansion of white settlers into this country. From what little I've heard of it, it was akin to the Holocaust, and our Thanksgiving actually stems from people's unholy delight in killing off the original inhabitants of the land so they could claim it for themselves. More like this includes the Tulsa Race Massacre, Mileva Marich's contributions to Einstein's work, the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, Ellis Island's human rights violations, and on and on. You have to dig to find any of it and most importantly, ask people you trust what family history they've got which should be widely known. One reason why history isn't better known is because a lot of it is not just NSFW, it's NSFL. Also, if kids are taught what really happened before they're like 21, there's a good chance they're not going to understand the emotional impact or the importance of anything that happened. Or worse, get traumatized, which is why a lot of history lessons in school are so boring; they're very very censored to avoid emotional damage. So if you hit 21 and are like "I don't think I really learned history, like, at all," now's a good time. 9/13/24 Yeah history tends to be bloody, horrific and full of depresso. However there are also books and resources out there which are different, things that take only the good stuff from the past and bring it to a new audience. If you're burned out on history because of the depresso, seek out the other stuff, at least for now.

Online Resources

The most important video ever made

7/1/22 took a look at some rap lyrics by KRS-One and had a major realization. Guess where all the history that racist white people tried to hide and cover up went? That's right. Rap lyrics. Fuck history books, read rap lyrics.

Books

Musings, section created 9/22/24

Online Resources

Music

Big Brain Time

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