Interesting, Jacek.  So while we had the "education must be fun" approach and never got past Columbus stepping out looking for India (for some reason) and stepping on the shores of America, you got tons of facts to memorize equally without rhyme or reason, and then the political ideology which was probably divorced from all that.  If I piece the whole thing together, then globally there is a bunch of us pontificating about things that we haven't a clue about.  I certainly feel that about my own background and have been busy rectifying it.

I've made some inroads.  I'm going via a textbook which begins in Mesopotamia before the Greeks, and ends somewhere close to now.  That puts you smack into the heart of modern conflicts (as per this thread) when you start.  The way I decided to study, however, was by looking up anything I didn't know about and I was soon immersed in documentaries, especially those brought out by the British with their dry wit. 

I've just left the period of the great schism of the popes, and the separate development of the Byzantine Empire and the rest of Western Europe, and then the eventual retrieval of whatever was preserved and developed in the former.  That brought me to the things that I have just related. 

It dawns on me that history is usually studied in terms of conflict: who conquered whom and what territory was won and lost.  But when you are studying it from a perspective of the transmission of culture, knowledge, and philosophies, it's a very interesting kind of study.  Essentially you are following the thread of ideas, knowledge and approaches - including the idea of Enlightenment, rational thought etc.

Trying to bring this back on topic - at that point you have the first Muslims, freshly idealistic, without any tradition of hatred since the Crusades had not happened yet, enter Constantinople, which had preserved and enhanced the Greek knowledge and meshed it with Christianity.  These Muslims get busy studying all of that and also transcribing the Greek writings into Arabic, and disseminating all that information throughout their territory.  Then the West, that has been in the backwaters and in fact were considered close to barbarians by those in Byzantium, catch up to all that.  And whom do they use to help them retrieve the old information?  The Arab scholars who have transcribed the Greek works, and studied them.  Among others, of course.

All that stuff about that part of the population having "missed" "Enlightenment does not wash at all.  Maybe there was a dark ages afterward.  In fact, if you go back far enough, it seems that this light-dark-light-dark thing is almost cyclical like the seasons.  It's not a steady stream of progress where we, nowadays, are the ultimate glorious result of something that started a few thousand years ago.

Maxi

Originally written by Maxi Schwarz-Bastami on November 1, 2009 9:14 AM you got tons of facts to memorize equally without rhyme or reason

Well, that depended on the teacher, how capable s/he was of synthesizing things. We were certainly not taught to disregard connections between events, their causes and effects. On the contrary.  What you say about the transmission of culture, knowledge, and philosophies was there, in addition to the undisputable fact that

history is usually studied in terms of conflict: who conquered whom and what territory was won and lost.

So I agree with Liliana's overall assessment above.

The role of ideology was to brainwash you to believe that now mankind has found a solution to all its troubles and it is the only solution acceptable simply because it is perfect and foolproof. QED. Hence "We have to lead, we must, we are responsible..." Ring a bell?

Originally written by John Bunch on October 31, 2009 10:05 PM Someone once said "The Germans will never forgive the Americans for liberating them". ... You might say that about all Europeans, too.

Yes, John, you are right as usual. In your own perspective only. All Eastern Europeans will, indeed, never forgive the Americans for liberating them in Yalta.

Originally written by Jacek K. on November 1, 2009 9:39 AM The role of ideology was to brainwash you to believe that now mankind has found a solution to all its troubles and it is the only solution acceptable ...

Seems to me that all political parties have the flavour of ideology. Many political parties, especially those in the "free" world, claim to be democratic or run along the notion of an almost absolute free will and ability to influence, via active participation in the political process, how best to live your life within the particular system. It isn't so!

Every morning while reading the news from various Danish sources I can only shake my head, for there is little (nothing?) one can do to influence the process of who gets what and why. 

You have hundreds of people and many organizations petitioning for AB, and with very good documentation showing why it is needed and the minister in charge rejects it out of hand. Later, when during yet another hearing, she is asked if she knows that XY official agency who receives tons of public money through taxes and heavy tariffs and who is supposed to actively promote AB, does not in fact do so. She doesn't know. Receiving the public money was conditional and the minister replies that she's surprised to discover that the reality is otherwise. DUH. No one bothered with the documentation.

The minister doesn't have a clue, she doesn't know and now a new law affecting millions of Danes is totally off-kilter for the next four years. No, she says, it cannot be changed now.

This is just one small instance of how it's almost useless to try to influence the political process.

Then there's brainwashing and mass hysteria. Last night the TV signals changed from analogue to digital. For the last six months, the hysteria has been almost total. The idea was that the future had arrived, etc. blah - blah - blah and to be part of the future you must purchase a new digital TV. Many people did just that - brainwashed into supporting the ailing economy - and all stores selling electronic gear have been sending out adverts that unless you buy or rent of subscribe or --- your TV signal would completely disappear last night. The state, the cable giants and the TV stores had the only viable solution to this terrible personal dilemma

I refused to join the unwashed and the brainwashed and guess what happened to my old TV?

Nanna, on a Sunday morning rant...

It was a joke in reply to your joke about the Germans, and all Europeans, being unable to forgive the Americans for having been liberated... 64 years ago. Frankly, fewer and fewer witnesses of those days are still alive so how about if we close that chapter and move on to Doris Lessing or other topics more likely to create a better, not worse, atmosphere for our work today?

Originally written by Jacek K. on November 1, 2009 4:33 AM Originally written by John Bunch on October 31, 2009 10:05 PM Someone once said "The Germans will never forgive the Americans for liberating them". ... You might say that about all Europeans, too.  Yes, John, you are right as usual. In your own perspective only. All Eastern Europeans will, indeed, never forgive the Americans for liberating them in Yalta.

Were you always this difficult? Ha-ha.

I suppose we could have nuked the Soviet Union when we had the chance. Seems like they had a few troops and tanks on the eastern front.

Originally written by Ron Finney on November 2, 2009 6:12 AM I suppose we could have nuked the Soviet Union when we had the chance.

Hi, Ron,

That's the beauty of nukes. After just one Hiroshima lesson, man learned what he was unable to learn over millennia about conventional weapons: how not to use them for aggressive purposes. Nukes are the best and only deterrent against the human animal. Well, until the animal learns how to think, but that may take all the remaining cosmic time allotted to his species.