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

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Alas, that's not what Noam Chomsky thinks. He claims that the average life span of a species is 100,000 or so years; after that, any environment will have changed too much for that species to adapt to it. For him, we're nearing the end of our run, and hastening it unnecessarily with environmental destruction, too.

Mmm, cheery words on a dank October morning. Sorry!

[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...

[geodesus-christ.livejournal.com]

A fun game I have: while people watching, just try to peer into their primate-ness a bit. It's hilarious/mind-blowing. Actually one of the easiest forums in which to perceive this is Reality TV. It makes me paranoid about my own behavior as well.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

Cities have only existed for the last 5,200 years, settlement for the last 12,000, but we shouldn't confuse the two. Let's not forget that until as recently as the 7th century most of Europe consisted essentially of tribes that were constantly at war, it was only in the 17th century that we got a serious sense of greater community beyond our farming villages, and only in the last 50 have we even considered the idea of a "human family" bereft of talk of "little brown brothers" and the like. It's very very true, humanity has been slowly adapting to its own power.

[scathedobsidian.livejournal.com]

Damned straight.

[kaysho.livejournal.com]

It's tempting to view human history as being very long ... why, it stretches back thousands and thousands of years! How impossibly long ago were the Romans and the Egyptians ...

But look at it in terms of people's lifetimes and it's so very short. Airplanes and automobiles have been around a mere four generations. The United States has existed for nine. Jesus of Nazareth walked the Holy Land just eighty generations ago. First Dynasty Egypt was founded only two hundred generations ago. Most species in two hundred generations change nary at all. And look at us.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

You bring up an excellent point. No matter how much, as a history lover, I am tempted to look as our time on earth as a long one, I have to remind myself that it is not long at all, in context with the other things of this planet. You bring a breath of fresh air and hope on this rather rainy October afternoon.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

thanks for writing this. i'm the middle of watching dogville, and getting very depressed about humans as a whole.