Must read - "History Tells Us What Will Happen Next With Brexit And Trump"

[NRaleighLiberal]

Orleans already posted this in GD - not nearly enough recs, in my view, for something that is very important to read, consider, and understand. Link to this in GD is here - http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028379106

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tobias-stone/history-tells-us-what-will-brexit-trump_b_11179774.html

by Toblas Stone

Note: this essay contains a lot of links out, which are underlined. Consider them further reading or me backing up my opinions.

It seems we’re entering another of those stupid seasons humans impose on themselves at fairly regular intervals.

My background is archaeology, so also history and anthropology. It leads me to look at big historical patterns. My theory is that most peoples’ perspective of history is limited to the experience communicated by their parents and grandparents, so 50-100 years. To go beyond that you have to read, study and learn to untangle the propaganda that is inevitable in all telling of history. In a nutshell, at university I would fail a paper if I didn’t compare at least two, if not three opposing views on a topic. Taking one telling of events as gospel doesn’t wash in the comparative analytical method of research that forms the core of British academia. (I can’t speak for other systems, but they’re definitely not all alike in this way.)

So zooming out, we humans have a habit of going into phases of mass destruction, generally self-imposed to some extent or another. This handy list shows all the wars over time. Wars are actually the norm for humans, but every now and then something big comes along. I am interested in the Black Death, which devastated Europe. The opening of Boccaccio’s Decameron describes Florence in the grips of the Plague. It is as beyond imagination as the Somme, Hiroshima or the Holocaust. I mean, you quite literally can’t put yourself there and imagine what it was like. For those in the midst of the Plague, it must have felt like the end of the world.

[Trump is] a charismatic narcissist who feeds on the crowd to become ever stronger, creating a cult around himself.
But a defining feature of humans is their resilience. To us now, it seems obvious that we survived the Plague, but to people at the time it must have seemed incredible that their society continued afterwards. Indeed, many takes on the effects of the Black Death are that it had a positive impact in the long term. Well summed up here:

snip

many links within, long, and really relevant.

[tblue37]

1. We are more like the dinosaurs after the meteor wiped them out--and over 93% of mammals

went extinct at the same time!

Over 90 per cent of mammal species were wiped out by the same asteroid that killed the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, significantly more than previously thought.

A study by researchers at the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath and published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, reviewed all mammal species known from the end of the Cretaceous period in North America. Their results showed that over 93 per cent became extinct across the Cretaceous- Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary. . . .

We are driving innumerable species to extinction, thus wrecking the food chain we depend on, and driving climate change that civilization won't survive, even if a few miserable pockets of humans manage to eke out a precarious existence for awhile after the collapse.

Nope, we won't bounce back from this one.

[J_William_Ryan]

2. Yes, in time many of the disasters

Trump and his Republican cohorts will accomplish can in time be undone.

But some things can’t be undone, such as workers injured or killed in the workplace, consumers injured or killed the consequence of purchasing unsafe good and services, and damage to the environment – all the result of necessary, proper regulatory policy being repealed by a Republican Congress or struck down by conservative courts.

There will millions who suffer because of a lack of access to affordable healthcare, middle and low income Americans who will suffer absent income when they’re too old to work, and the elderly, disabled, and children who will suffer without the needed social programs designed to protect the most vulnerable members of our society.

The Black Death was unavoidable, little could be done about it at the time – that’s not the case with the malfeasance and reckless, irresponsible governance Trump and Republicans will inflict on the American people.

[world wide wally]

5. The worst part is that we have all theses safety nets right now, but we are willingly handing

them over for no fucking reason.
The only other species I ever heard of that became extinct because of its own stupidity was the dodo bird. They had no fear of man so they couldn't figure out to run and hide when they were hunted.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Scary stuff.

[flamingdem]

4. Points for mentioning

Boccaccio’s Decameron

Are we heading into Trump's Decameron, eww

[malthaussen]

6. Anything that happened before one was born is history.

And therefore, irrelevant.

My own theory of the perspective of history is "living memory of living memory." Most people's knowledge extends only as far back as grandpa rambling about the good old days. Same idea. The flaw here, or even with living memory itself, is that it is patchy, biased, and often more a matter of perception than "reality," whatever that is.

-- Mal