3 ms·

What makes you think you live in an exceptional time of historical ignorance?

• keiferski 6y ago
  Too many things to list in a single comment, but I'll just sum them up in one sentence: The widespread idea that somehow Modernity is a new, tabula rasa (blank slate) epoch in which the old rules and realities don't apply anymore.
  • refurb 6y ago
    That’s actually a really good summary. “This time it’s different” comes up again and again (tech bubble, housing bubble) and it turns out, no, it’s not different. The latest is MMT, in which people say “you can print as much money as you want without fears of inflation because this time it’s different”. And maybe it is? But there is a good chance that, no, it’s not different this time.
    • kazagistar 6y ago
      Or thinking that this time, a constantly growing wealth gap between the rich and the poor won't lead to a revolution if major reformation doesn't happen first. Also, pretty sure MMT knows that printing money leads to inflation. Thats why the theory has taxes to remove money as well, if you want to tax someone other then those who hold capital evenly (which is inflation).
  • Nasrudith 6y ago
    Sorry but I don't see that as new. Just off of the top of my head the Age of Aquarius new age nonsense, the belief that war would end with World War 1, and fascists believing that democracy was obsoleted with industrialization, heck even the French Revolution and the Enlightenment had similiar lines of thought. There have long been beliefs along those lines about how this time is different. You could argue that it means that we aren't sufficently historically literate but I don't see how it stands out as worse given ample precedent.