4 ms·
Something that was beaten into us as history majors was to be highly skeptical of anyone suggesting that an historical event was "inevitable". It's easy to loo
by ptmcc 6y ago
Something that was beaten into us as history majors was to be highly skeptical of anyone suggesting that an historical event was "inevitable".
It's easy to look back on the past and think that you see "obvious" trends and patterns but so much of that is influenced by your modern perspective and how selectively history is preserved and told.
Like any humanities or social science, history is not objective. Part of studying and analyzing history necessarily involves studying and analyzing the context and biases of sources, stories, and narratives.
- ForHackernews 6y agoI guess it depends on your perspective: If you believe in hard determinism then you could argue that literally everything that has ever happened and will happen is "inevitable".
- thaumasiotes 6y agohttps://dilbert.com/strip/2008-11-04 https://dilbert.com/strip/2008-11-04 I particularly like the phrasing "I'd have to say" :D
- mercer 6y agoI keep forgetting how awful most Dilbert strips are.
- kelnos 6y agoWhen we talk about "inevitable" in this sense, we more mean "obviously had to happen given the events leading up to it" than "was predetermined to happen". I get what you're saying, though, but please ask yourself: how does this idea contribute to discussion?
- UncleMeat 6y agoSure, but that is largely useless information. At the layer of abstraction we care about (human and societal behavior), those systems are so chaotic that even if they are deterministic it is completely non-actionable to say "well it all derives from physics".
- ForHackernews 6y agoNone of this stuff is "actionable" anyway, unless you're part of a tiny cadre of policymakers. It's useless information anyway, it just depends what level of abstraction you find more interesting to ponder about.
- em-bee 6y agothe only thing preventing unification was the soviet union. its beginning collapse made the unification inevitable. the next question to ask is, if the soviet collapse was inevitable. to that i'd say no.