A Brief History....

[poliphilo]

We are very new.

I find this a comforting thought.

When I consider the seediness, depravity, cruelty and greed of humankind, I reflect that we are only beginners. We are still practicing; we haven't worked it out yet; we have time to improve. We have been around in our present form for a few million years- nothing in evolutionary terms- and civilization- the attempt to live in a civil society- is a very recent development.

We have only had writing for about three thousand years.

The written history of my own country goes back (and then only patchily) for two thousand years. If we want to know what happened before that we have to get out our spades and trowels and dig.

Two thousand, three thousand, four thousand years- these are ridiculously brief stretches of time. We have emerged from the forests, blinked and looked around a bit. That's all we have had time for. We are still little more than beasts.

Comments

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Time is relative; some time ago an acquaintance recommended a Bulgakov novel to me, and me being somewhat ignorant of Bulgakov (but having heard the name somewhere) I said something about it being quite new, to which my acquaintance counteredthat it was, in fact, very old; from the Stalin period!

By "new" I meant after 1850...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I agree. Anything 20th century is "new". I'm still struggling to cope with the impact of the Waste land.