World History

[Bob]

HOw'd the little smiley thing get in  my Fanon post?

[thanatopsy]

HOw'd the little smiley thing get in  my Fanon post?

Usually, it's because two question marks were used.

As for Fanon, he subscribed to left wing ideology as its proponents expressed much sympathy towards Third World peoples who were oppressed by Western imperialists. It is good to see The Wretched of the Earth is still in print as it remains timeless.

What great lessons we can learn from history if only we could all keep an open mind.

[madupont]

thanatopsy,

I was reminded today of Amardeep Singh, following your remarks on Wretched of the Earth by Fanon.  I will look for my notes from his classes.To send to you because he has been dealing with this subject for a long time, specializing in Post-Colonial Literature, and usually his examples for readings that he supplies are just truly amazing, pieces that blow me away like the conversations that took place among Sikhs(he is himself a Sikh; yes, like the character in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient) following the assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi.

That event stood out in my mind, because of my friend who had gone to India to live, in the early 1970s, married, and had children there. The text as Amardeep Singh recommended, within the dialogue of the main characters shows the truly frightening experience of being a member of a cultural group who will  be blamed for the death of the country's chief  official in a country which has a history of violent interactions between religious groups who once lived side by side and intermarried but are repetitively opposing religious groups easily instigated to violence following the partitioning that drove them in different segregated directions as the British Empire pulled out of the region.

Amardeep Singh taught for many years in the region where I am now living but I gather has moved on from here, it was quite surprising that he taught here at all; but, considering that the classes almost always were connected by internet, with people reading on line and returning their class-work on line via commentary or blog as the case may be, it's Indian you see? Which means that people anywhere could enjoy this class.

[desdemona222b]

I'm pushing for a constitutional amendment that forces all Presidents and Vice-Presidents to pass a history test prior to being sworn in.

[weezo]

Dessie,

Good idea! How about including a test on the constitution along with it, and a test on basic governing skills.

[desdemona222b]

Plus the lessons of history:

Lesson One:  You can't cram democracy down the throat of a country that doesn't want it.  Historical Results:  Nazi Germany 

Application:  If you were President and decided to go to war with a country partly to establish a democracy, would that be a good idea?

a)  Yes - democracy is good for all freedom-loving people, and all people are freedom-loving
b)  Maybe - depends on if there's any historical or cultural support for democracy in that particular culture
c)  No - forget it and mind your own damn business.

[Bob]

Desdemona

Lest you forget: The great one has a degree in history from Yale---doesn't that scare the crap out of you?

[Donotremove]

Not only didn't the history lessons do Bush the Younger any good, but the math, the English, the science, and a host of other subjects he muddled through during his education days didn't stick either.  They say he's smart.  Well, like a fox, he's cunning.

[desdemona222b]

Desdemona

Lest you forget: The great one has a degree in history from Yale---doesn't that scare the crap out of you?

So very bizarre and puzzling!  I went to LSU and had to work my backside off writing papers and doing research to get my degree in history.  Incredible amount of reading, especially in my senior year, none of it easy, along with writing, writing, and more writing.  You know Yale must be more difficult, even though LSU did and does have a very good history department.  So how on earth did Bush GRADUATE from YALE?!

I just don't buy it - they must have paid someone off or something, in a manner similar to the Kennedy's.

I have noticed recently that Bush's writers have him using the word "ideology" a lot.  I never noticed him using the word until about a year ago - I'm just waiting for him to slip up and say "idiotology". 

[Lhoffman]

Desdemona

Lest you forget: The great one has a degree in history from Yale---doesn't that scare the crap out of you?

So very bizarre and puzzling!  I went to LSU and had to work my backside off writing papers and doing research to get my degree in history.  Incredible amount of reading, especially in my senior year, none of it easy, along with writing, writing, and more writing.  You know Yale must be more difficult, even though LSU did and does have a very good history department.  So how on earth did Bush GRADUATE from YALE?!

I just don't buy it - they must have paid someone off or something, in a manner similar to the Kennedy's.

I have noticed recently that Bush's writers have him using the word "ideology" a lot.  I never noticed him using the word until about a year ago - I'm just waiting for him to slip up and say "idiotology". 

Legacy.

[thanatopsy]

``legacy``

Yup.

BobW + I struggled through law school. And believe you me, it was utter hell.

Republican Danny Quayle graduated from law school thanks to his wealthy dad's influence and finished dead last in his class ranking.

It's the old story: money can buy anything.

[weezo]

A question of curiosity -

I am, as many know already, reading "The Discoverers" which Bob quoted from extensively during the discussion of 1421. The book clearly belong in Western History rather than American History. I am up to the time of Newton in scientific discoveries (left the discoveries of land and sea behind many chapters ago). I notice that in the time of Newton, science was still called Philosophy, but as far back as I can remember in my own life, Philosophy has been classed among the Arts not the Sciences. I will probably get to the time when the two parted ways, but, ask the question now anyway in case it isn't.

When did philosophy separate from science in the ordering of academic subjects?

[Bob]

Wiliam James?

[desdemona222b]

A question of curiosity -

I am, as many know already, reading "The Discoverers" which Bob quoted from extensively during the discussion of 1421. The book clearly belong in Western History rather than American History. I am up to the time of Newton in scientific discoveries (left the discoveries of land and sea behind many chapters ago). I notice that in the time of Newton, science was still called Philosophy, but as far back as I can remember in my own life, Philosophy has been classed among the Arts not the Sciences. I will probably get to the time when the two parted ways, but, ask the question now anyway in case it isn't.

When did philosophy separate from science in the ordering of academic subjects?

I don't know the answer to your question, but philosophy also involves complex logic - reference Descartes and others.  It is grouped in Arts and Sciences in the humanities if I remember correctly. 

[madupont]

Wiliam James?

Good answer but, in the American scheme of things, psychology as science divided from philosophy?

But the subject: World History, suggests my age old question of why the Greeks in the Golden Age  of their investigations and discoveries in science then reverted  to mythologies?  It was Alice Munro,a Scots-Canadian who dropped me a clue in one of her short stories, discussed with Colburn in the old haunt, when I pointed out she drops clues, and she named a textbook that she was reading on a train, (in character) as having taught Greek Classics so, I went back to check it out and it was used at Berkeley by a quite insistent philosopher during our McCarthy Era who wanted to indicate the parallels that the Golden Age of Science soon involved a repression ideologically and they resorted to mythos as code (which is an art-form in itself).

So, it does have early  roots, included in the Humanities curriculum, and I think helped push Berkeley toward the Free Speech movement. For those interested, check out the stories in Runaway which JONATHAN FRANZEN
reviewed on Nov.14,2004, an event which brought immediate letters of protest from the moral values Right in the column that was then devoted to Books and Reviews at The New York Times, Sunday Books