A long historical view not only helps us to keep calm to a "time of trouble" but reminds us that there is an end to the longest tunnel. Even if we can see no good hope ahead, an historical interest as to what will happen is a help in carrying on. For a thinking man, it can be the strongest check on a suicidal feeling.
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What can the individual learn from history as a guide to living? Not what to do but what to strive for. And what to avoid in striving. The importance and intrinsic value of behaving decently. The importance of seeing clearly; not least seeing himself clearly.
[---]
He may realize that the world is a jungle. But if he has seen that it could be better for anyone if the simple principles of decency and kindliness were generally applied, then he must in honesty try to practice these consistently and to live, personally, as if they were general. In other words, he must follow the right he has seen.
Why Don't We Learn from History? by B.H Liddell Hart (1944).
Time for a small rant: How stupid of me for not having read this book for over 3 decades, end rant. And I don't think, I have to say anything more.
Cost of quantifying history (and not understanding history is both science & art):
It was the school of German historians, headed by Ranke, who in the last century started the fashion of trying to be purely scientific. Any conclusions and generalizations were shunned, and any well-written books become suspect. What was the result? History became too dull to read and devoid of meaning. It became merely a subject for study by specialists.
So the void was filled by new myths, of exciting power but appalling consequences. The world has suffered, and Germany worst of all, for the sterilization of history that started in Germany.
The hardest lesson to learn (caused by societal delusion):
The most dangerous of all delusions are those that arise from the adulteration of history in the imagined interests of national and military morale. Although this lesson of experience has been the hardest earned, it remains the hardest to learn. Those who have suffered most show their eagerness to suffer more.
This camouflaged history not only conceals faults and deficiencies that could otherwise be remedied, but engenders false confidence, and false confidence underlies most of the failures that military history records.
On human nature:
It was saddening to discover how many apparently honorable men would stoop to almost anything to help their own advancement.
Loyalty is a noble quality, so long as it is not blind and does not exclude the higher loyalty to truth and decency.
Faith vs. Truth:
A realization of the cycle of familiar errors, endlessly recurring, which largely makes up the course of military history may lead one to think that the only hope of escape lies in more candid scrutiny of past experience and new honest in facing the facts.
But one should still be able to appreciate the point of view of those who fear the consequences. Faith matters so much in times of crisis. One must have gone deep into history before reaching the conviction that truth matters more.
We are blind to our own blindness:
All of us do foolish things, but the wiser realize what they do. The most dangerous error is the failure to recognize our own tendency to error. That failure is a common affliction of authority.
Understanding the restraints of democracy:
We learn from history that democracy has commonly put a premium on conventionality. By its nature, it prefers those who keep step with the slowest march of thought and frowns on those who may disturb the "conspiracy for mutual inefficiency". Thereby, this system of government tends to result in the triumph of mediocrity and entails the exclusion of first-rate ability if it is combined with honesty. But the alternative to it, despotism, almost inevitably means the triumph of stupidity. And of the two evils, the former is less.
Anyone who urges a different system, for efficiency's sake, is betraying the vital tradition.
(Note: A lot of "intelligent" people voted for a narcissist Trump deluding themselves with imagined efficiency and unfortunately, it is still happening in India with no end in sight. Now, please go back and read the title of this book.)
On Napolean & Hitler:
To the unromantic historian, Napolean is more of a knave than a hero. But to the philosopher, he is even more of a fool than a knave. His folly was shown in the ambition he conceived and the goal he pursued, while this frustration was ensured by his capacity to fool himself. Yet the reflection remains that such a fool and his devasting folly was largely the creation of smaller, if better, fools. So great is the fascination of romantic folly!
Almost exactly 129 years after Napolean launched his invasion is Russia, Hitler began his attack on Russia, on June 22, 1941. Despite the revolutionary changes which had taken place in the interval he was to provide a tragic demonstration of the truth that mankind, and least of all its "great men," do not learn from history.
The secret of lasting reforms:
Reforms that last are those that come naturally, and with less friction, when men's minds have become ripe of them. A life spent in sowing a few grains of fruitful thought is a life spent more effectively than in hasty action that produces a crop of weeds. That leads us to see the difference, truly a vital difference, between influence and power.
On the myth of "great man" (god delusion):
History shows that the main hindrance to real progress is the ever-popular myth of the 'great man'. While 'greatness' may perhaps be used in a comparative sense, if even then referring more to particular qualities than to the embodied sum, the 'great man' is a clay idol whose pedestal has been built up by the natural human desire to look up to someone, but whose form has been carved by men who have not yet outgrown the desire to be regarded or to picture themselves, as great men. Many of those who gain power under power present systems have much that is good in them. Few are without some good in them. But to keep the lowest common denominator of the people, to instinct rather than to reason, to interest rather than to right, to expediency rather than to principle. It sounds practical and may thus command respect where to speak of ideals might only arouse distrust. But in practice, there is nothing more difficult than to discover where expediency lies, it is apt to lead from one expedient to another, in a vicious circle through endless knots.
The ultimate dream (and mine too):
How differently the affairs of the world would go, with a little more decency, a little more honesty, a little more thought! Thought-attempting, above all, to see a few moves ahead and realize the dangers of condoning evil. We try to play the old diplomatic game, yet cannot hope to play it successfully, because we have acquired scruples from which the old-style exponent of realpolitik is free, not yet having grown up as far.
(Note: "decent" men who never use foul language in public nor private, mindlessly voted for the dangerous man Trump who used the word "pussy" in public gatherings. Now, please go back and read the title of this book.)
The germs of war:
Sympathies and antipathies, interests and loyalties, cloud the vision. And this kind of short-sight is apt to produce short temper.
As a light on the processes by which wars are manufactured and detonated, there is nothing more illuminating than a study of the fifty years of history preceding 1914. The vital influences are to detected not in the formal documents compiled by rulers, ministers, and generals but in their marginal notes and verbal asides. Here are revealed their instinctive prejudices, lack of interest in truth for its own sake, and indifference to the exactness of the statement and reception which is a safeguard against dangerous misunderstanding.
I have come to think that accuracy, in the deepest sense is the basic virtue, the foundation of understanding, supporting the promise of progress.
Sweeping judgments, malicious gossip, inaccurate statements which spread a misleading impression; these are symptoms of the moral and mental recklessness that gives rise to war. Studying their effect, one is lead to see that the germs of war lie within ourselves, not in economics, politics, or religion as such. How can we hope to rid the world of war until we have cured ourselves of the originating causes?
(Note: once again, men of "character" without a hint of irony nor awareness of their dissonance voted for a narcissist Trump. Now, please go back and read the title of this book.)
How the germs work:
While economic factors formed a predisposing cause, the deeper and more decisive factors lay in human nature, its possessiveness, competitiveness vanity, and pugnacity, all of which were fomented by the dishonestly which breeds inaccuracy.
Both of those governments, and their foreign ministers, in particular, were all ready to bring misery upon millions rather than swallow their injured pride.
Plan for peace:
Any plan for peace is apt to be not only futile but dangerous. Like most planning, unless of a mainly material kind, it breaks down through disregard of human nature. Worse still, the higher the hopes that are built on such a plan, the more likely that their collapse may precipitate war.
There is no panacea for peace that can be written out in a formula like a doctor's prescription. But one can set down a series of practical points; elementary principles drawn from the sum of human experience in all times. Study war and learn from its history. Keep strong, if possible. In any case, keep cool. Have unlimited patience. Never corner an opponent and always assist him to save his face. Put yourself in his shoes so as to see things through his eyes. Avoid self-righteousness like the devil; nothing is so self-blinding. Cure yourself of two commonly fatal delusions: the idea of victory and the idea that war cannot be limited.
How did our civilization has survived so far?:
An important influence was the growth of more formal and courteous manners in social life. This code of manners spread into the field of international relations. These two factors, reason and manners, saved civilization when it was on the verge of collapse. Men came to feel that behavior mattered more than belief, and customs more than creeds, in making earthly life tolerable and human relations workable.
(Note: Belief in an imaginary economy mattered for 70 plus million US citizens than behavior and customs and ended up voting for a narcissist Trump).
War is a means to an end (Difference between Napolean and Wellington):
It was because he really understood war that he became so good at securing peace. He was the least militaristic of soldiers and free from the lust of glory. It was because he saw the value of peace that he became so unbeatable in war. For he kept the end in view, instead of falling in love with the means. Unlike Napolean, he was not infected by the romance of war, which generates illusions and self-deception. That was how Napolean had failed and Wellington prevailed.
If you wish for peace, understand war. If there is one lesson that should be clear from history it is that bad means deform the end, or deflect its course thither. I would suggest the corollary that, if we take care of the means, the end will take care of itself.
History and Christianity (how to limit and eliminate idealogy):
The oldest gospel manuscripts belong to the fourth century A.D. They are copies of copies so that there was an immensely long interval during which copyists might alter the original text to fit the religious ideas of their own generation. Biblical scholars have to base themselves on nothing more definite than a tradition in ascribing the origin of the earliest written gospels to the second half of the first century A.D. If they are correct in their deduction, which is really speculation, there is still no means of telling how much they were altered by editing in the course of three hundred years; a period that abounded in controversy and schisms in the Chruch.
We are given minds to use, and there can be no better use for them than religious thinking. But we should humbly recognize there may be different paths and feel in sympathy with all other travelers. The difficulties that arise in religious doctrine and history too often drive thoughtful people into a state of no belief. But for my own part, I have found that the difficulties tend to disappear if one remembers that such doctrine and history was complied by human interpreters, humanly liable to mistakes.
On Confucianism (and Buddism):
Confucianism was humanly wiser. It recognized, and applied, better than Christianity the truth of experience that was epitomized in Aristotle's observation that "Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way." At the same time, the Chinese themselves seem to have found that Confucianism "was not enough." Hence the appeal of Buddhism and Taoism there, often in combination with Confucianism. They provided a more spiritual element that mankind wanted.
Towards the middle of the book, Liddell Hart wrote these beautiful lines to given a simple heuristic on what might work. It felt as though he was talking about how Max and I lived for 13 years (I continue to do so with him inside me). It made me smile and think at least we were and are on the right path...
The race of power and personal positions seems to destroy all men's characters. I believe that the only creature who can keep his honour is a man living on his own estate; he has no need to intrigue and struggle, for it is no good intriguing for fine weather.
This is an amazing book and should be treasured for life. Please read and re-read it for the rest of your life.
Our deeper hope from experience is that it should make us, not shrewder (for next time), but wiser (forever). History teaches us personal philosophy.
- Jacob Burckhardt
Once we get a meta-level understanding of history, we should turn to the present and salute the people who make this civilization tick. One of them is Alexey Navalny. Let's cheer and support his audacity.
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