This is a big reason why I hated learning history. It is very depressing. I’m always amazed how people can’t seem to understand things they didn’t personally live through. It is a constant cycle of exploration then revenge on the exploiters and then a new way to exploit.
I’m trying to be hopeful, but it feels like we are in the phase where most need to suffer in order to get to a better place. Climate change is scary, but I try to remember progress can be explosive in ways you don’t expect.
BurgerBaron@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Well this is just delving my own personal musings: I think we’ve evolved to do our best to not understand and bury our collective heads in the sand. Being born with natural critical thinking ability (being driven to seek out maddening truth, rejecting comforting lies) and empathy ability is a rare combination. I think you need both to, as you say, understand things you didn’t personally live through. I mean real understanding, not a cold rote memorisation of facts and trivia to pass a government / post secondary tests.