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What's the point of history, anyway?

Thought-provoking wormholes for curious undergrads

Nathan Stone, Author
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What's the point of history, anyway?

             This mix of irreverent rants and pictures that follow will likely be thought-provoking. Thinking is cool, and if the reader has never tried it, there is a first time for everything. Stirred into to my  politically incorrect depictions--I stand by every word--the reader will find reviews of very scholarly academic work of recent years. There are also bits and pieces of popular culture; connections which, like wormholes, point to the complex globally interdependent nature of reality. As comrades on planet earth, we are all responsible for that reality. 

               My generation could imagine as far back as The Beatles. Before John, Paul, Ringo and George, we thought there were just dinosaurs. Where is the cut-off date for Millennials and Gen Z? The date before which everything is just cave men in a dense irrational fog? You tell me, but pick through this mess, and you might find a few cave men that with very serious side hustles. Those can be important, comrade. 

Climb on board and see where this journey takes you. Four ideas come to mind in preparing this journey. First, watch for public secrets. During the 1950's, as the newborn CIA got comfortable with covert operations, agents developed the principle of plausible deniability: that uncomfortable truths should hide behind believable lies. Sometimes, available evidence can lead to more reasonable explanations. This requires a beginner's mind, the willingness to question the apparently obvious. 

The second thing to notice is how often unlikely figures assume pivotal roles, as if by accident. Empires provide places for misfits. Displacement creates opportunity, and second sons of princes find their kingdoms in the colonies. As the reader wanders through the byways of past remembrances, watch for the dark horse. That might just be the one. 

The third theme that seems to recur, with all due respect, is whorehouses. The social analysis about how capitalism controls sexuality by making it a commodity through prostitution has been done. What the reader will discover here is the inverse argument, that prostitution serves as the perfect metaphor for how the capital system works. When we were in high school and we had to go out and sell raffle tickets, the football coach told us that we had to go out and "sell ourselves." No, thank you, sir. Just the raffle tickets. But he might have been onto something. Under the capital system, we were all for sale, whether we liked it or not. 

Finally, toxic masculinity emerges as not only an element for determining policy in global relations but also as a factor in cultural evolution. I would object to the term, however. No gender should be considered fundamentally flawed or intrinsically evil. Let's call it misguided masculinity, or impulse denial. Passions repressed can fester. Like people who live colonized, subdued and exploited, they sometimes make revolutions with unpredictable outcomes.

The pathways on this website provide a tentative itinerary, but they are not intended to suggest a necessary progression. Readers are invited to browse and wander at will. Readings will point to each other through inline links, and media connections point to sources on other platforms. Scalar calls this a "book" but it is more of a labyrinth. Like the library in Humberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, your path can lead you most anywhere. Be guided by reason, rather than rumor. History is not about just believing what everybody else believes, but about seeing for yourself and figuring it out. 

My thanks to Professor Jeremi Suri, at University of Texas at Austin, for making me do this, to my fellow scholars in his seminar (who have already made fun of most of this) and to Pete Davidson at SNL for making fun of undergrad naivete trying to make sense of the past. 

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