why<\/em> things happened, & how what happened at a particular time affected what happened later. And a lot of it wasn’t because of some person doing something on purpose; sometimes things just coalesce.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nReading after I was out of high school: Finding out about how these events affected people who weren’t mentioned in school very often, people who were treated as background canvas for the big painting described in my school history classes… & realizing I cared more about them than I ever did about the leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, eventually, realizing how much of the story I was told in school was propaganda, wishful thinking, & covering up embarrassing details (embarrassing mainly to the men who want to be seen as wise leaders but who are, all too often, venal cowards).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the biggest things I learned about the stories of history is how much it means now. History is not dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People make decisions now, every day, based on the history they’ve been taught. People died this weekend* because of those stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don’t have any brilliant insights to share, I’m just thinking out loud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If there’s an insight, it might be something like: Be skeptical about what your leaders tell you.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Care more for the people breathing with you now . . .\u00a0 than about the distorted, fun-house mirror images of your ancestors as told to you by people with agendas that are (very likely) not wholesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m a sucker for a sales pitch. But I’ve been burned so many times I’ve finally started being aware of the pitch, at least sometimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When someone starts getting you riled up, slow down for one second; turn aside & ask what THEY hope to gain from your anger & fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you’re in an “us against them” situation, are you with the right ‘us?’\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Learn to see the con, then think about whether the confidence scheme you caught might not be the only one being played on you.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, I’m being really grim here, on a weekend when Weekend Twitter never had a chance against the tide of sewage in the news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I still think that trust is possible, at least between individuals, and that it’s valuable, something worth working for.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Building trust between individuals in a world full of very subtle manipulation must be one of the biggest questions we can explore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s really risky, but the alternative is isolation & paranoia, which doesn’t build strong people or strong societies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*I wrote the original version of this post on Aug. 13, 2017, as a series of tweets during the weekend of the Charlottesville, Virginia far-right marches and counter-protests.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’ve been thinking about how I’ve seen history at various stages of my life. Grammar school: History is a long series of headlines & dates & names to be memorized. What happened where, & who the leaders were.\u00a0 High school: Started getting a glimpse of why things happened, & how what happened at a particular … Continue reading “Seeing history”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[59,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophizing","category-social-commentary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgY3e-iS","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":807,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=807","url_meta":{"origin":1170,"position":0},"title":"Cold air, false history, and privilege","author":"Jorah","date":"December 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019m not sure I have the skills or knowledge to turn this into a decent blog post, but I keep finding myself mulling over these ideas so I figured I\u2019d write them down, trying to clarify my thinking. 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