Is History Funny?

We have all heard the expression “history repeats itself.” And so we also know that human beings have a tendency to forget harmful and even wicked events. We bury them. And once we bury the history, do we forget it?

It struck me today that when Jerry Lewis died, people start talking about the film e made. Being a natural comedian, and being Jewish, he couldn’t reconcile the events of the Holocaust, so he tried to create film that made fun of it. So did Charlie Chaplin, not of the Holocaust, but of the rise of Hitler, and was and he also Jewish. Maybe Jerry was just smart enough to never show the film, because it would have offended so many of his fellow Jews. His being able to deal with it in a comic fashion, would’ve been anathema to others.

This also coincides with the Charlottesville racist protest of the removal of General Lee’s statue. And the horrific act of a young man from Ohio, plus all the other violence that occurred. So here we have the contrast of a symbol that has grown to represent racism, which is the Civil War, in the southern combatants.

With the fresh violence in our minds, we are struck with the horrors of war, the glorification of the provocateurs, the hate and the anger that was generated more than 100 years apart. Then should we remember this as history, or forget it as a violent, evil past.

Isn’t history always told by the Victor and not the vanquished?

So now we must consider what we’re going to forget. Should we tear down all the monuments in countries related to any war? Why should we glorify the dead fallen in the horrors of war? Should we remove all the stones from the cemeteries? Many of the wars in the world glorify the atrocities of one culture over another. Racism, sexism, colonialism and a whole lot of other isms, should we forget them by destroying the monuments to those times in history?

This really makes me consider any monuments that are designed to capture history. What else are they capturing? Are they also glorifying some wickedness?

So you comedians out there, don’t start making fun of the Charlottesville incident. It may only do your so good, but the rest of humanity is still deeply troubled by what they saw in Charlottesville.  Too some this is the precursor to another civil war in America, and that really is not comical.

It seems to me, that you really can’t make fun of historic events, while the people who suffered from them are still alive. That’s just wrong. You can go back and make fun of Caesar being slashed to death with knives, Napoleon being exiled, and other historic events just as long as everybody who was involved with them are dead. So take a tip from me comedians, start crack in the jokes, but focus on content that occurred before your grandparents were alive.

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

 

The Rat Race

Living in the Rat Race

I’ve found that my mind was caught up in the rat race, living in a stressful  world, surrounded by indifferent, impersonal people who don’t even talk to me, though I see them every day.  It’s like being invisible.   When I reach out to talk to others, I usually find they pull away as if I were from out of space.  Do you ever think like this?  Then you may be living in the rat race.

A doctor John Calhoun is famous for his studies of the rat race – using Norway Rats as examples of what would happen to the human population when they were crowded.  The year was 1958, and he built them a restricted living quarters, where they had plenty of food and water, but because of the cramped quarters, they would not breed past certain figures, much lower than what was physically possible.

Here are two quotes from articles related to his four years of experiments:

“In John B. Calhoun’s early crowding experiments, rats were supplied with everything they needed – except space. The result was a population boom, followed by such severe psychological disruption that the animals died off to extinction. The take-home message was that crowding resulted in pathological behaviour – in rats and by extension in humans.”

“Initially the population grew rapidly, doubling every 55 days. The population reached 620 by day 315, after which the population growth dropped markedly. The last surviving birth was on day 600. This period between day 315 and day 600 saw a breakdown in social structure and in normal social behavior. Among the aberrations in behavior were the following: expulsion of young before weaning was complete, wounding of young, inability of dominant males to maintain the defense of their territory and females, aggressive behavior of females, passivity of non-dominant males with increased attacks on each other which were not defended against. After day 600 the social breakdown continued and the population declined toward extinction. During this period females ceased to reproduce. Their male counterparts withdrew completely, never engaging in courtship or fighting. They ate, drank, slept, and groomed themselves – all solitary pursuits. Sleek, healthy coats and an absence of scars characterized these males. They were dubbed “the beautiful ones”.

The conclusions drawn from this experiment were that when all available space is taken and all social roles filled, competition and the stresses experienced by the individuals will result in a total breakdown in complex social behaviors, ultimately resulting in the demise of the population.”

These ideas have spawned a whole lot of ideas, which probably are not true.  First is that tight living quarter cause social problems like crime, homosexuality and passivity in men.  These ideas sound right and good to many, but are they true, hardly.  People always looks for easy answers to complex questions.  Men are also not trapped into cages – they can go outside their boundaries to find more space and more resources.  As another one of the articles I read stated, the cultural popularity of Dr. Calhoun’s ideas actual silenced his more significant findings related to adaptability.  The rats actually changed the way they lived.

We are superior to rats, I hope, and I’m sure we can adapt to anything that comes are way, except possible nuclear war’s devastation.

I do believe that when some enormous error in human thinking  occurs humans don’t adapt, they destroy each other.  Take for instance the way the communists destroyed each other in Russia before World War II.  The idea of throwing out of their country the white Russians, the intellectuals, the capitalists, and the wealthy.  They then killed off each other to solidify power, with Stalin rising to the top.

Look at the rise of Hitler, using the democratic process to become elected, and then his parties dismantling of German democracy until he ruled supreme.  But wasn’t that all predicated by the fact the reparation payments the German government had to pay after World War I left them cripple economically.

Look at the abuses that lead to the depression with the American stock market ever growing on debts for those stock options.  Then boom!

We sit at the same type of place these days.  The government fixed a whole in the side of the capitalistic system by stopping the bankruptcies of several large companies.  But the abuses that the rich have placed on Americans such as providing credit without collateral, we certainly have significant consequences to the American people.

Yes there will be adaptation, but when things don’t adapt well, and when the human race is driven along moral and social delusions, the world stands to take it in the face.  And every time humans live in a delusional idealistic state where they demand others to live according to their rules, that snuffs out the creativity and the ability to adjust.  That is why political and religious freedom is necessary.  One way of think, one party, one religion will never make life worth living.

More about the Rat Race:

Dr. Calhoun’s Book: Environment and Population: Problems of Adaptation: An Experimental Book Integrating Statements by 162 Contributors

Escaping the Laboratory:  http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/22514/

Calhoun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun

The London School of Economics and Political Science: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/researchHighlights/Environment/rats.aspx

The Rat Race Trap: http://www.ratracetrap.com/

Blog: DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, AND ADDICTION“Rag” Magazines vs. Science: Are the Rat Population Studies True?

Dictators, reading lists and reasoning skills

Summer Reading

A professor becomes an intellectual dictator when he/she presents a philosophy or idea and demand his/her students conform his/her oral and written ideals.  In the world of education even placing an argument into the place where there are only two sides to choose from is purely misguided.  The point is to prepare students to think, write, and present their own thinking, not to conform to an agenda.  It is unethical for a professional academic to demand allegiance to a cause, especially a political cause.

Recently reading lists for incoming college students were looked at by the National Association of Scholars.  Which indicated that (1) the reading lists were not sufficiently challenging, and (2) had for the most part liberal political themes.  Omitted from most of the recommended reading lists were classic literature.  Quoting from Inside Higher Ed News:

“A group that advocates for a more rigorous and traditional college curriculum — released what it says is the most comprehensive analysis of what freshmen are being asked to read. The findings suggest that certain kinds of books — on multiculturalism and the environment — dominate these reading selections. And the study, called “Beach Books,” questions whether the choices of colleges are too similar, too left-leaning and not sufficiently challenging.”

This article goes on to describe the type of books recommended for students to read will allow them to have some basis of mutual topics of discussion.  The books are to be interesting, and focused on current events.  The question is do these books teach or preach a perspective? Let’s look at some of the titles:   Approaching the Quran:  the Early Revelations, No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal, Children of Jihad, Brother I’m Dying, and the Black Dog of Fate.

I applaud the effort of school to promote scholarly reading and thinking.  Most of the college students I have worked with barely read anything but their textbooks, and most high school students probably won’t be looking at those recommended books.  Only those who actually are curious  and some of those rare folks who enter college thinking.  Most students have social lives, and important twits  and facebook or myspace to keep them busy.  Heck, “what is a book?” is more of the true question.

Professors are right in saying that most students are not well educated and capable of more than expressing opinions during class discussions, that these students are neither well read, have studied their texts, or done any research before speaking out in class.  There seems to be an attitude that all opinions are of equal weight from students.  Pamela Caughie writes in Academe Online the following:

Classrooms today seem to be more like talk shows, with the professor as host, than forums for intellectual inquiry. Students who don’t read the assignment and never set foot in a library feel every bit as entitled to express their opinions on an assigned reading as those who have read carefully and researched extensively. And because administrators pay more attention to ten point scales on student evaluation forms, and even chili peppers on RateYourProfessor.com, than to the kind of intellectual work that goes on in the classroom, too many teachers feel their job is to acknowledge any and all opinions offered on the topic being studied. Not to do so is to risk being exposed as someone intent on indoctrinating students rather than teaching them.

In this world of uneducated opinions, you find that students are really not well read and have little background with which to engage in debate or discussion.  They might be capable of talking about television, sports, and pop culture or worse video games, but academic reading is a prime means of developing analytical skills.  More books and less entertainment will prepare  students most.  More conformity and loss of reasoning prepares the world for totalitarianism.