tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790504464923626915.post818212179129026953..comments2023-10-30T08:24:50.134-07:00Comments on Mental Produce: Arnold ToynbeeMental Producehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00357587230628425226noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790504464923626915.post-58836622814565627342009-01-08T19:07:00.000-08:002009-01-08T19:07:00.000-08:00Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult ...Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past, for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.<BR/>-Machiavelli<BR/><BR/>What else can history teach us? Only the vanity of believing we can impose our theories on history. Any philosophy which asserts that human experience repeats itself is ineffectual.<BR/>-Jacques Ellul<BR/><BR/>Historians don't always agree on history's application, but history keeps happening. The past consistently retreats, and as players in reality we have to make of it what we will. Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes - I would disagree with Machiavelli only in that I think we are unpredictable creatures, that a science cannot be made of history, because our theories are consistently proven untenable and unreliable and beg for further consideration. History is an art, not a science. It is a painting of certain facts which yields an image connected to the one creating it - bearing his or her particular bent. <BR/><BR/>We can't get away from the humanization of history, because we are the ones analyzing it. But we can, as we gain understanding, generalize it into geological, anthropological etc type categorizations, and argue with the social history which carries with it the added burden of exegesis.<BR/><BR/>We have presently only ourselves to make sense of our place and experience in this multi-billion year old solar system, and since we are intelligent creatures we choose to make some sense of it, in whichever way we can find; that is our nature, I think.Mental Producehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00357587230628425226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790504464923626915.post-64352518073699952822009-01-03T19:15:00.000-08:002009-01-03T19:15:00.000-08:00“we are now moving into a chapter in human history...“we are now moving into a chapter in human history in which our choice is going to be, not between a whole world and a shredded-up world, but between one world and no world. I believe that the human race is going to choose life and good, not death and evil.”<BR/><BR/>HOw i love the post-johnny-melting-mill-ion's, what if there was no longer good or evil, only the semblance of such, that includes history.<BR/>"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""<BR/>When the real is no longer what it used to be, nostalgia assumes its full meaning. There is a proliferation of myths of origin and signs of reality; of second-hand truth, objectivity and authenticity. There is an escalation of the true, of the lived experience; a resurrection of the figurative where the object and substance have disappeared. And there is a panic-stricken production of the real and the referential, above and parallel to the panic of material production. This is how simulation appears in the phase that concerns us: a strategy of the real, neo-real and hyperreal, whose universal double is a strategy of deterrence.<BR/>"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""<BR/>"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""<BR/>baudrillard<BR/><BR/>_-_mitchellholmgrenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17544820245005583689noreply@blogger.com