Lockdown And History

 

If You Don’t Learn From History YouAre Doomed To Repeat It

There’s a tenable historical thesis that the «barbarians» (not the rugby side) always win. Brute force and inferior understanding always defeat more knowledge and understanding. The «barbarians» are not necessarily malevolent, nor necessarily savage nor ill-intended, quite possible benevolent, often good nd useful citizens. But they constitute an underclass in any society, an underprivileged class, less able to reason but also the majority. Their only power is collective.

If people in general were asked about the origins of civilisation/democracy/modern society, many would opt with apparent justification for the Greeks, pre-dating the Romans, who were at the time more «barbaric» than the Greeks.And the Roman civilisation was followed by what are commonly called the Dark Ages; the «barbarians» won again. But the Greeks in turn achieved their dominance by overcoming the Phoenicians, whose knowledge and civilisation were superior at the time. So the Greeks in this case were the «barbarians», overcoming superior knowledge by brute force. We know that this has happened many times in the past because we know that great civilisations existed millennia ago but that they were somehow enfeebled and that much of their knowledge was subsequently lost. In every case the «barbarians» won.

How does this relate to current affairs? Must the periodic historical dominance of the «barbarians» continue? Or can it be countered so that society in general progresses continuously. Must society always at some time take a step back? Nowadays we are not (hopefully) talking about brute force. Brute force on a global scale now means nuclear weapons and liely the end of human civilisation as we know it. Nowadays we are talking about economic force and the «barbarian» majority. Two brute force world wars were backward steps, can economic force now gain the support of this majority in order to rule? Since reason will not do it the obvious inference surely is that this majority must be fed with emotional messages that it is receptive to, that won’t be examined by reason. The appeal has to be purely emotional. So by an appeal to emotion the «barbarians» can still apparently win and so history can repeat itself. The society concerned takes a step back. Progressive civilisation is reversed, as it apparently always has been in the past. Does this have to be the future?

Lockdown

Travel is supposed to broaden the mind and may indeed do so but that is not;necessarily the case; people can remain effectively confined in their own cultures. At the time of the EU referendum I assumed that because so many Brits took holidaysabroad, quite apart from those who worked abroad, the British would have a positive appreciation of foreign cultures. Yet xenophobia was clearly a factor in the referendum result and, anecdotally, appears to be evident in the UK today,encouraged by some popular media and even the government. So my assumptionwas wrong. Physical masks, perhaps worn reuctantly, may filter out viral droplets but virtual masks worn voluntarily can filter out anything foreign. It seems that many free people freely create their own prisons/confinement of a sort