Title Lessons of History
Author Will and Ariel Durant
Year Published 1968
Kind of Book History
How strongly I recommend it 8/10
My Impressions The Durants try to tackle some pretty large questions in this little book.
"What is the use in studying History?" "Does History teach us about human nature?"
"Does studying history help us to predict the future?" "Do we really know what happened in History or is it all just hearsay?" This little book is impressive in the amount of territory it cover. I feel I only scraped the surface on my first read through and plan to return to this book at some point in time.
Date Read Aug 2018
Practical Takeaways
Don't be disturbed by the probability that our civilization will die like any other
Gather up as much as you can of your civilized heritage and transmit it to your children
Big Ideas
Our knowledge of any past event is always incomplete
Our knowledge of any past event is always distorted by biased historians
Our knowledge of any past event is always partially inaccurate
Our modern civilization will likely die like all other civilizations before it
People who think their prospects indicate they will make less money than average desire equality (not freedom)
People who think their prospects indicate they will make more money than average desire freedom (not equality)
Greed is a result of insecurity
When religion declines socialism rises
When socialism declines religion rises
The idea of Heaven is very similar to a socialist utopia
As long as there is poverty people will have Gods to pray too
When you leave people free to compete amongst themselves (ie. Free market) the Pareto Distribution causes many people to get left at the bottom.
Liberty (ie. The free market) must be sacrificed in order to prevent people getting left at the bottom
3 ways Nature controls human population
Famine
Pestilence
War
1 theory for civilization
The South creates the civilizations
The North conquers the Southern civilizations, ruins them, borrows from them, and spreads them
The environment is what mainly dictates what the race of people living there will be like
Northern people take on the characteristics of southern people after living for generations in the tropics
Southern people take on the quicker tempo of movement and mind after living in the North for some time
Northern climates cause people to move at a quicker tempo
Northern climates cause people to think at a quicker tempo
Southern (tropical) climates cause people to move at a slower tempo
Southern (tropical) climates cause people to think at a slower tempo
99 out of every 100 new ideas will be inferior to the traditions/customs which they propose to replace
No one person (even if they are brilliant) can accurately judge and dismiss all of the customs /traditions/institutions of civilization
Because
Cultural customs and institutions are created over centuries by a slow process whereby the "useful" ideas are kept and the nonuseful ideas are filtered out
And
One person in one lifetime could never do the kind of "experimentation" to test all of their ideas against the current customs/institutions/traditions of the culture
Liberals and conservatives are both needed to make up a sustainable society
A sustainable society needs both people who propose change and people who resist change
Without people who propose change a society will become stagnant and die
Without people who resist change a society will throw out some of the accumulated wisdom which has been gained over several generations (ie. Throw the baby out with the bathwater)
Conservatives may be more important than liberals
Because
Preserving the accumulated wisdom of our ancestors is more valuable than changing it
New ideas should be heard
But
New ideas should go through the mill of objection, opposition, and contumely (ie. Be vetted)
It is good that the old should resist the young and that the young should prod the old
A sustainable society needs old people to resist the new ideas of the younger generation
A sustainable society needs young people to challenge the ideas of the older generations
What we consider virtuous is what leads to the survival/thriving of the tribe
What we consider vice is what leads to the death/failing of the tribe
What leads to the survival/thriving of the tribe changes as our environment and way of life changes
Therefore
It is likely that every vice today was once a virtue (and vice versa)
The advent of agricultures and cities required societies to adopt new virtues (and changed some old virtues to vices)
Once we moved to an agricultural way of life (from a nomadic way of life) industriousness became more useful than bravery
Therefore
Industriousness became a virtue
Once we moved to an agricultural way of life (from a nomadic way of life) peace became more useful than violence
Therefore
Peace became a virtue and violence a vice
Birth control and non procreative sex (ie. Abortion, contraception, homosexuality) was made immoral
Because
Once we moved to an agricultural way of life (from a nomadic way of life) Children became economic assets
Because
Children could work in the field
Therefore
Having a lot of children became a virtue and abortion/contraception became a vice
Religion has will a tendency to go away in a culture and then come back
People love freedom
It is required that the government regulate what people are and arne't allowed to do for individual freedom to exist
Because
Is there are no rules enforced one person's freedom may violate another person's freedom
Therefore
The first task of government is to establish order (ie. Limit what people are and aren't allowed to do)
Surprising Facts
Atheism ran wild in the India of Buddha's youth
Memorable Quotes
"Insecurity is the mother of greed."
"Heaven and utopia are buckets in a well: when one goes down the other goes up; when religion declines Communism grows."
"As long as there is poverty there will be Gods"
Unknown Terms
Morals: 1.The rules by which a society exhorts-Will Durant
Laws: 1. the rules by which society seeks to compel-Will Durant
Paganism: a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism or ethnic religions other than Judaism. In the time of the Roman empire, individuals fell into the pagan class either because they were increasingly rural and provincial relative to the Christian population, or because they were not Christianity 2) Others define it as religions outside of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, while some simply define it as being without a religion. 3)he ancestral religion of the whole of humanity.