The modern moment is interesting because it gets us to see how much our culture has been shaped by our perception of history since WWII, perhaps even since peak British Empire. Think back to that end of history idea in the 1990s or how sci-fi like Star Trek imagined a future where people worked together despite race, yet the internet appears to have never been invented. This is all built on a perception of history going back to the Enlightenment, but also the assumption that the future would be a continuation of an European-American led world. Moreover, a lot of mainstream sci-fi and political thought acts as if artificial intelligence would alter economics like the computer, not the steam engine. There's also still a lot of discussion needed around whether the world will go back to how population and economics worked preindustrial revolution or pre-baby boomers. Finally, we act as if the current country borders will remain in place 50-100 years from now when even our recent experience with Yugoslavia or Korea show us otherwise. History is always about change and we should be wary that we are not as blind to that as Edward the Unready.
The modern moment is interesting because it gets us to see how much our culture has been shaped by our perception of history since WWII, perhaps even since peak British Empire. Think back to that end of history idea in the 1990s or how sci-fi like Star Trek imagined a future where people worked together despite race, yet the internet appears to have never been invented. This is all built on a perception of history going back to the Enlightenment, but also the assumption that the future would be a continuation of an European-American led world. Moreover, a lot of mainstream sci-fi and political thought acts as if artificial intelligence would alter economics like the computer, not the steam engine. There's also still a lot of discussion needed around whether the world will go back to how population and economics worked preindustrial revolution or pre-baby boomers. Finally, we act as if the current country borders will remain in place 50-100 years from now when even our recent experience with Yugoslavia or Korea show us otherwise. History is always about change and we should be wary that we are not as blind to that as Edward the Unready.
Greetings friend, I’ve been on Substack for around 3 weeks now.
Your content is interesting Liu, and it appears on my feed often, so I thought you may like one of my articles.
This one is about Giants, and the evidence in early newspapers:
https://open.substack.com/pub/jordannuttall/p/giants-in-newspapers?r=4f55i2&utm_medium=ios
一些大众情绪的观察。
最近常常听到美国人谈历史，是在谈论川普的语境下。许多人会说“history will judge this president/admin as the most corrupt.” etc.
这种表达对于普通中国人是熟悉的。我们经常讲，历史如何看待习、看待胡温、看待江邓。但这种表达背后代表着是一种无奈和无力，即普通中国人无法改变和决定权力，只能依靠“历史”去聊以自慰，甚至带着某种阿Q精神去自我消解。
但如今，美国人用历史去评判trump的表述，是不是也是某种新的无力和无奈呢？过去美国社会会去积极自组织，例如pink parade、DACA protest、whistleblower、高官辞职，但在trump 2.0，似乎美国社会越来越“死气沉沉”，越多地被迫appeal到历史的讨论中，而并不是（或者并不能）寻求check and balance、社会分裂的弥合、真实进步的推动。
这种历史的讨论，是不是也代表着与中国相似的无奈无力的社会情绪，以及更多的cynicism. Some food for thoughts.