history

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Kevin Nebula Art and Culture, history, Nietzsche, Opinion, Writing , , , , , ,

We’ve all seen the scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, when John Cleese asks, ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’ Well, they were the first to, after conquest, subsume the defeated culture into their own culture and to claim the achievements of said culture as their own. So, the question should be: What have the Greeks ever done for us? A hell of a lot!

Incidentally, the Greeks were the opposite of the Romans when it came to conquest. The Greeks had no need of other cultures, their own culture was too strong to be influenced by another culture. Alexander the Great, the Macedonian Greek colonist, proves this point! When the Greeks settled somewhere, they built shrines to their gods. In the same way, American troops in the First World War arrived in Europe with all of their home comforts, baseball, cigarettes, chewing gum and, of course, jazz music. That was last century, the American century, and, like all dynasties, it too will end.

This is the ‘strength’ (the power to resist other influences) Nietzsche always lauds in his many paeans to the Greeks, something he also appreciated in the French Enlightenment – Voltaire not Rousseau! The French, according to Nietzsche, were perfectly content in their own plumage, they weren’t even interested in learning other languages. Sounds priggish, and, of course, done without style, it is chauvinistic. It’s a difficult balancing act: a dance, as Nietzsche would say.

Sacred Cows

Kevin Nebula Interpretation, Opinion, Philosophy, Writing , , , , ,

The sword that benefits from the pen is mightier. And vice versa. For the most part, history is a result of the pen benefiting from the sword. So that’s another myth (sacred cow) demolished.

A proper understanding (feeling) of chronology, it’s literal position in comprehension, is necessary in understanding all history, including your own. Especially your own. For modern day idols, see sacred cows. Every culture has them, especially post-god-is-dead cultures. In the west our pampered post-culture has the sacred cow of ‘guilt-free democracy’. Basically freedom-without-responsibility. We vote for them but we’re not responsible for them.

The search for Being, history foretells this, has lead to colonialism, slavery and the own goal of climate change. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Unfortunately we are stuck with the complete misreading of the runes of history. The so-called ‘last man’, bloated with the facts of history (all practical understanding) though without interpretation, walks around as though blind. Thus, climate change is a clear example of this blindness through misunderstanding: a correct reading of history would enable the understanding of how our use of resources changes the chemistry of our environment. Denile of this is still very active. Follow the money, follow the psychology of ‘progress and technology’, even science.

It’s very Heraclitian: science and technology, both take and give, but not necessarily in equal volume. Imbalance is our natural condition, just scratch the surface.

What next? Has this question even been conceived yet?