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In Greece and Rome, it was a series of natural cycles of growth and decline. In India, it was a collective dream, endlessly repeated. The idea that history must make sense is just a Christian prejudice.

(John Gray)

Matias 8 July 23
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It never does.

Marine Level 8 July 28, 2018
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J. B. Bury, The Ancient Greek Historians (London, MacMillan, 1909), pp. 140–143.

"If, instead of a history, Thucydides had written an analytical treatise on politics, with particular reference to the Athenian empire, it is probable that ... he could have forestalled Machiavelli ... [since] the whole innuendo of the Thucydidean treatment of history agrees with the fundamental postulate of Machiavelli, the supremacy of reason of state. To maintain a state, said the Florentine thinker, "a statesman is often compelled to act against faith, humanity and religion". ... But ... the true Machiavelli, not the Machiavelli of fable ... entertained an ideal: Italy for the Italians, Italy freed from the stranger: and in the service of this ideal he desired to see his speculative science of politics applied. Thucydides has no political aim in view: he was purely a historian. But it was part of the method of both alike to eliminate conventional sentiment and morality."

History as the interpretation of human values is bias but that is not to say that it does not provide coherent narratives.

cava Level 7 July 23, 2018
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I see it as a human prejudice. Seeing natural cycles in history is imposing someone's concept of order upon it. Seeing it as a dream is another way of rendering it explicable. I don't see Christianity's imposing a redemption narrative on history as particularly invasive compared to those other examples.

Some of us do, though, see history as just things happening, and people just doing stuff. So there's that.

@Matias Well we have goals (e.g., "progress" ) and we stagger drunkenly in that general direction, with setbacks at times. I think the difference is that there's nothing about history or life that guarantees we'll reach the goal or that any particular contribution toward it is conserved. There's no bias toward our goals. However, that doesn't mean we're condemned to go nowhere, either. Just that we're not entitled to go anywhere.

This is very similar to how theists will say that without god, life is meaningless. Well they are right in a way, but the implications aren't what they're suggesting. There is no extrinsically bestowed meaning, sure, but we are free to make all the intrinsic meaning and purpose that we wish to, to set whatever goals we want, and work toward them.

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