I'm a historian, so to me part of what makes the past become 'history' is the work of humans to contextualize and interpret the pieces of the past left to us. This need not be academic history, although I do think attending to the most complete body of evidence available to us is part of the work, otherwise we just end up telling stories that cherry-pick what's pleasing to us. But I can think of rich oral traditions that communicate alternate ways of understanding time and place, that communicate the essence of a culture, and which talk to other oral traditions (and sometimes material evidence and written documents) to produce history just as much as my work in an archive does. I think of 'the past' as everything that's happened, only part of which gets preserved in evidence that will survive to the next generation (and the one after that, and the one after that . . . ) and history is the work of looking at the evidence and trying to figure out what is plausible given the totality of that evidence. History is also fluid - so I could have written a good history of the Iran-Contra scandal in 2000, for example, attending to all the available evidence and making sound interpretations based upon that . . . but I could equally write a better history now, with more documents available to me, that might contradict that 2000 work. I guess I'm circling in on: history is a human creation. It doesn't exist without our efforts to construct it.
Aug 13, 2023·edited Aug 13, 2023Liked by John Warner
well, I am so sorry to hear that United Airlines lost your Luggage John. Yes when I started my PhD in 2003, I boarded KLM from UK to Amsterdam and my luggage was misplaced that had all my cool clothes. I submitted a written application where I told KLM that my luggage contained all my clothes and I am not visiting the Netherlands but going to stay there for few years. KLM informed me that they would pay me 1000 Euros to buy necessary clothing and in the meanwhile they would track my luggage. Well, I was very happy to take 1000 Euros and bought one of the best Levi jeans 501 from Den Haag and few shirts. I got the luggage in a week's time and over the years I did buy quite a few pairs of Levi Jeans but the faded dark blue color and the amazing fit that is minutely different of that Levi 501 that I bought from 1000 Dollars given by KLM made it my best pair of jeans for a decade until it didn't fit me anymore.
So, you never know what you get when you are going to replace your favorite clothing. Life always throws you great surprises. Imagine the bag I lost as excess luggage that became history as soon I landed in Schiphol Amsterdam and I fretted about it for few days without knowing the best surprise Levi shop would have for me making up for the misplaced luggage. Not only I got the luggage back that can be considered as consolidating with history but got the best deal out of it for future as Levi outlet had a best pair of 501 for me and not many people go and buy a pair of 501 on the very day they land in a foreign land.
I know humanity represents far more complexity in understanding what is history and what is past. For most it is how you make the future for yourself. And here you are so right that if Al Gore was the President in 2000, maybe talk about Climate Change would have already resulted in the revolution in green technologies and a country like Pakistan would be spared from being the proximate state to Afghanistan where War on Terror was initiated.
But every moment gives us opportunity and today is 13nth of August 2023. The only thing that matters is how much influence writers like you receive from people across the world and they make right choices after reading you and your recommendations.
The flying sorties that dropped food packages to Jews from the skies and that they mention in religious scriptures thousands of years ago and many accounts like this suggest we have changed our future already and quite a few times. We still have the power to change our future. Biden's concern over Climate Change and IRA may again change the future only if US and China would keep peace as their first priority and some one bring some sanity to President Putin. Because stakes are ever higher and Climate Change is going to push humanity to its limits.
This grand Earth project that took centuries of hard work by some really smart men should give way to more feminine voices of reason to further change the direction of the future.
Aug 13, 2023·edited Aug 13, 2023Liked by John Warner
I remember one of my favorite dialogues from Christian Nolan epic movie intersteller when it was said.
Save the world.
Who Built it?
They built it.
They are us.
We will build it in future.
Then no one has asked me why I am in love with hollywood. aint it justified? United States of America must be an amazing country of really amazing people. I should ve done my PhD from the US. Though I had my share of American friends in the Netherlands.
At one time I traveled every week from Indianapolis to Connecticut changing planes in Pittsburg. At least 4 times my luggage didn't arrive until a few days later. And twice it was returned to Indy. Since I was working I became accustomed to wearing work clothes on the flight. My luggage was also lost on a trip to Paris but arrived before I left there. Now I make sure to carry a bag with me large enough for a couple of books.
I've also had success with corporate america after complaining about a problem on social media.
I'm Team Faulkner on the question of history. In fact, I'd rename the entire discipline "preludes." As an academic discipline, people could specialize in Recent Preludes, 19th Century Preludes, Ancient Preludes, etc. Things are as they are now because of what happened in the past. We love to believe that we've cut ties with the past, that from now on, we're making the future from scratch. But there is no "scratch," only previous mistakes that we've rationalized, condemned, sentimentalized, or just plain suppressed or forgotten. The poet Wordsworth wrote, "the child is father of the man." And quoting that great 20th Century philosopher Bugs Bunny, I can only add, "In spades!"
Ever watch Man in the High Castle or For All Mankind? Those are great alternative history TV shows, if you haven't seen them yet.
It does feel as though we are living through history vis a vis AI. 2022 and 2023 are unlike everything that came before, and there is no turning back... but I feel this sense of needing some time to pass before really placing an event in its proper historical place. I think we'll look back at AI liftoff as among the most significant events in human history when it's all said and done, and it's hard to imagine that it won't be all those things, but time will be the ultimate arbiter.
Gosh, John, philospher much? It's all good, though, points well made and taken, AND BONUS, you mentioned one of my favorite, although frustrating books, The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Moving on, in the Request, I play a little mental game in which I count how many of the books mentioned, either by the applicant or by you, I have read. 😕 Only one this time, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, which I think is an unsung gem. I haven't read Barney's Version, but I have seen the very respectable movie it was made into. And all best wishes that you and your suitcase are soon reunited.
I'm a historian, so to me part of what makes the past become 'history' is the work of humans to contextualize and interpret the pieces of the past left to us. This need not be academic history, although I do think attending to the most complete body of evidence available to us is part of the work, otherwise we just end up telling stories that cherry-pick what's pleasing to us. But I can think of rich oral traditions that communicate alternate ways of understanding time and place, that communicate the essence of a culture, and which talk to other oral traditions (and sometimes material evidence and written documents) to produce history just as much as my work in an archive does. I think of 'the past' as everything that's happened, only part of which gets preserved in evidence that will survive to the next generation (and the one after that, and the one after that . . . ) and history is the work of looking at the evidence and trying to figure out what is plausible given the totality of that evidence. History is also fluid - so I could have written a good history of the Iran-Contra scandal in 2000, for example, attending to all the available evidence and making sound interpretations based upon that . . . but I could equally write a better history now, with more documents available to me, that might contradict that 2000 work. I guess I'm circling in on: history is a human creation. It doesn't exist without our efforts to construct it.
well, I am so sorry to hear that United Airlines lost your Luggage John. Yes when I started my PhD in 2003, I boarded KLM from UK to Amsterdam and my luggage was misplaced that had all my cool clothes. I submitted a written application where I told KLM that my luggage contained all my clothes and I am not visiting the Netherlands but going to stay there for few years. KLM informed me that they would pay me 1000 Euros to buy necessary clothing and in the meanwhile they would track my luggage. Well, I was very happy to take 1000 Euros and bought one of the best Levi jeans 501 from Den Haag and few shirts. I got the luggage in a week's time and over the years I did buy quite a few pairs of Levi Jeans but the faded dark blue color and the amazing fit that is minutely different of that Levi 501 that I bought from 1000 Dollars given by KLM made it my best pair of jeans for a decade until it didn't fit me anymore.
So, you never know what you get when you are going to replace your favorite clothing. Life always throws you great surprises. Imagine the bag I lost as excess luggage that became history as soon I landed in Schiphol Amsterdam and I fretted about it for few days without knowing the best surprise Levi shop would have for me making up for the misplaced luggage. Not only I got the luggage back that can be considered as consolidating with history but got the best deal out of it for future as Levi outlet had a best pair of 501 for me and not many people go and buy a pair of 501 on the very day they land in a foreign land.
I know humanity represents far more complexity in understanding what is history and what is past. For most it is how you make the future for yourself. And here you are so right that if Al Gore was the President in 2000, maybe talk about Climate Change would have already resulted in the revolution in green technologies and a country like Pakistan would be spared from being the proximate state to Afghanistan where War on Terror was initiated.
But every moment gives us opportunity and today is 13nth of August 2023. The only thing that matters is how much influence writers like you receive from people across the world and they make right choices after reading you and your recommendations.
The flying sorties that dropped food packages to Jews from the skies and that they mention in religious scriptures thousands of years ago and many accounts like this suggest we have changed our future already and quite a few times. We still have the power to change our future. Biden's concern over Climate Change and IRA may again change the future only if US and China would keep peace as their first priority and some one bring some sanity to President Putin. Because stakes are ever higher and Climate Change is going to push humanity to its limits.
This grand Earth project that took centuries of hard work by some really smart men should give way to more feminine voices of reason to further change the direction of the future.
I remember one of my favorite dialogues from Christian Nolan epic movie intersteller when it was said.
Save the world.
Who Built it?
They built it.
They are us.
We will build it in future.
Then no one has asked me why I am in love with hollywood. aint it justified? United States of America must be an amazing country of really amazing people. I should ve done my PhD from the US. Though I had my share of American friends in the Netherlands.
At one time I traveled every week from Indianapolis to Connecticut changing planes in Pittsburg. At least 4 times my luggage didn't arrive until a few days later. And twice it was returned to Indy. Since I was working I became accustomed to wearing work clothes on the flight. My luggage was also lost on a trip to Paris but arrived before I left there. Now I make sure to carry a bag with me large enough for a couple of books.
I've also had success with corporate america after complaining about a problem on social media.
I'm Team Faulkner on the question of history. In fact, I'd rename the entire discipline "preludes." As an academic discipline, people could specialize in Recent Preludes, 19th Century Preludes, Ancient Preludes, etc. Things are as they are now because of what happened in the past. We love to believe that we've cut ties with the past, that from now on, we're making the future from scratch. But there is no "scratch," only previous mistakes that we've rationalized, condemned, sentimentalized, or just plain suppressed or forgotten. The poet Wordsworth wrote, "the child is father of the man." And quoting that great 20th Century philosopher Bugs Bunny, I can only add, "In spades!"
Ever watch Man in the High Castle or For All Mankind? Those are great alternative history TV shows, if you haven't seen them yet.
It does feel as though we are living through history vis a vis AI. 2022 and 2023 are unlike everything that came before, and there is no turning back... but I feel this sense of needing some time to pass before really placing an event in its proper historical place. I think we'll look back at AI liftoff as among the most significant events in human history when it's all said and done, and it's hard to imagine that it won't be all those things, but time will be the ultimate arbiter.
Resolution within 8 weeks' time?! Geez, either they have it or they don't. Gotta love corporate America. Good luck!
Gosh, John, philospher much? It's all good, though, points well made and taken, AND BONUS, you mentioned one of my favorite, although frustrating books, The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Moving on, in the Request, I play a little mental game in which I count how many of the books mentioned, either by the applicant or by you, I have read. 😕 Only one this time, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, which I think is an unsung gem. I haven't read Barney's Version, but I have seen the very respectable movie it was made into. And all best wishes that you and your suitcase are soon reunited.