So finally we approach the end of the history of 17,000,000,000 years compressed into 10 weeks - surely many details had to glossed over to accomplish this!  History holds interest for me if the stories are compelling.  Well, there are plenty of compelling stories, some inspiring, others horrifying.  Knowing that mere cataloging of facts is not feasible due to storage and time constraints, the choice of which items to catalog is limited given the need to narrow the focus. We are then left with a subject matter more resembling philosophy than a "hard" science.  And once we stipulate this and sign on for it we can enjoy the ride.

Strayer assembled his collection of stories for his own reasons, but the impact of the collection on the reader is bound to be as varied as the reader's own life, or endlessly varied.  It is easy to read histories and find a dreary litany of sins and crimes.  These are there for the finding, in plenitude!  But why can one reader get depressed by this while another is energized?  The depressed reader is more likely to echo the sadness documented in history.  There is another factor at work which is quite appropriate for NDNU - faith.  Faith is what enables one to read about the indignities of the world, even the scourging and execution of Jesus, and still see a more positive outcome ahead.

The in-class discussion about what lies ahead after the modern era touched on many things but not much on evolution.  Society is evolving, quite rapidly in fact, and this involves some serious growing pains and dramatic fits and starts. We often focus on the one step back without recognizing the two steps forward which preceded it. The second coming, the end times, the apocalypse, these things are not, cannot be known to us.  The person of faith believes in a promise from God, that things are getting better.  We can't always see it, that's why it's called faith!  If we choose to believe the words, those things will come "like a thief in the night." 

The chapters on the religions of the world managed to capture some facts about the people involved in large movements without giving much thought to what impels men in this direction to begin with.  While people do have imaginations, does this account for the nearly universal quest for greater understanding of the universe and one's roll in it? Or for love itself?  We observe the animal kingdom exhibiting some aspects of caring for offspring, even affection among members of the animal community but does this explain love?  Love is these things but is also far more than them.  The existence of God has great explanatory power as well as great predictive power.  The only thing keeping it from meeting the hallmark of a science is the lack of an empirical body.

Strayer and other historians bear a responsibility to present their collections of historical facts in such a way as to inspire the readers, not discourage them. To be purely lurid in recounting history makes one the equivalent of popular movies which alternately titillate and overwhelm the senses while rarely offering a message of hope.

Hope is all well and good on its own but we also have the responsibility to act.  Our actions can be the actualization of our hopes.  In class the question came up "What will the future historians make of our acts?" While this is highly speculative, if they can say we acted sincerely, wisely, intentionally, lovingly, then we have nothing to worry about. Being judgmental is a part of human nature but who's judgment is most important to the person of faith, God's or some unspecified future historian?

As our path through history leads us closer to the present we finally have the opportunity to comment on things that may have even happened in your own lifetime!  The past and the present are getting closer although like asymptotic lines approaching the horizon they will never actually meet.  It's worth remembering that our actions in the present are fashioning our combined futures in the same way that our progenitors built the arena in which we act.

While man has always had a dark side to his history a major distinction must be drawn between the actions of the lone criminal and the state-sanctioned and coordinated mass depredations which dwarf the power of the individual.  The organization of society has made possible the organization of killing.  All the wars of conquest, all the violent suppressions of dissent, all the reigns of terror, all the search for enemies have been optimized and scaled up to monstrous levels.  The only hope for mitigating this sad history is in the realization by all men of the brotherhood of all men.  When men see themselves as men and not as citizens, members, or subjects of nations, kings, religious movements, or ideologies the power of these groups to mobilize people for killing will be broken.

There is the bitter irony of looking at some of these horrifically evil governments and ascribing best of intentions to them.  In one sense the problem is not with the governments as they are simply doing what governments do very well - accumulating power, cementing control, growing inexorably larger and reaching ever farther into the live of people.  In this sense the problem begins with people of good intention who made a fatal error in expecting government to somehow do something other than what they are by nature inclined to do.  This is the fatal flaw behind all the totalitarian excesses frequently cited, the Nazis, the Fascists, the Soviets, the Red Chinese.  In all these cases there was a core of zealots all too happy to use the hammer of government to impose their personal vision upon the world by any means necessary but they were enabled by a passive populace who were enamored of the idea of letting a government take charge of protecting their liberty and well-being when this is really the peoples responsibility.  I go so far as to say this way of thinking is tragically mistaken and can never end well for people.

The horrors of the 20th century are the horrors of the total state writ large, unleashed upon a world which seems unwilling to face the truth about this abusive relationship. There are many who not only refuse to learn anything from the mistakes of the past but are determined to double down like crazed gambling addicts.  Along with the recognition of the brotherhood of man we can only be saved by an increased embrace of self-determination and a rejection of the hollow promises of the state.

Revolutions are less to be preferred to evolutions.  The frustrations that mount up and eventually spill over in revolution get out of control and risk unleashing even more unfortunate results than what they are revolting against.  I'm partial to the American Revolution but like all revolutions it has had some unfortunate consequences also. 

The American Revolution is striking for several reasons which distinguish it from other revolutions of note.  First, the extent of the violent fight itself was more confined to combatants and we don't hear the stories of mass brutal reprisals from the British - given the potential propaganda value of such incidents it is telling that they are not a part of our shared cultural legacy.  The civilian populace didn't face the "reign of terror" so much a part of the process or aftermath of many revolutions.  The pro-British Americans were under some pressure from the revolutionaries to be sure, and some fled to Canada or Britain for comfort.  We don't hear about mass roundups of either side to be exterminated.  The US and UK have strong relations since those times so it is understandable that unpleasant histories might be suppressed, but historical truths do have a way of being kept alive in small pockets and resurfacing from time to time.

The next great distinction is the vision of the founding fathers in crafting the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.  Every revolution has a manifesto but few are as thoughtful and constructive as the Declaration of Independence.  Being formulated in such an analytic, dispassionate way it served as a brake on the typical bloodlust evinced by revolutionaries on the recently toppled.  The argument has been made that the founding of the US was not benefit to the indigenous people or to the slaves - to this I can only counter "how much better would those parties have fared under colonial rule?"  The British didn't have a spectacular record of treating the Indians well, and while the British abolished slavery earlier than the US did, they were able to do so in such a way that the upheaval was mostly felt in the colonies, not in their homeland.

Whether by some quirk of their national character, or denied expedient circumstances, the British did not exact a heavy tribute from the newly formed US in the manner of the French treatment of Haiti.  The Haitians have never recovered.  This can be attributed to many things- neocolonialism, racism, or the failure to establish a system of private property rights which would enable wealth creation in a fashion similar to the US.  The Haitians shook off nominal French rule but replaced it with servitude every bit as onerous. The first time I heard of Toussaint Louverture, his name was the title of a track on a Miles Davis album.  This aspect of history is not taught in public school.

The French Revolution was the first great example of the forces of the mob, once unleashed, turning on themselves with a vengeance, at a vast human cost.  The scale of the bloodletting was not to be seen again until the Russian and Chinese Revolutions much later.  The French thirst for bloody vengeance made any early, peaceful end to the tumult impossible. The message writ large in this history is a warning of about mob rule, the lack of a check on ambition, and the ability of the best intentions to bring ruin to a nation.

Compared to national revolutions it seems inappropriate to use the same word applied to the Industrial Revolution.    While this societal transformation displaced a large number of people from their traditional ways of life and overturned an established order, it was not a violent overthrow.  The Industrial Revolution was the start of man's liberation from a life of toil.  Man should always know work and the character-building benefits of it, but he also needs free time for rest, play, worship and self-improvement.  The one caveat to all this, and applicable to political revolution too, is that man's wisdom and benevolence has not kept pace with his technology.  When this finally happens through evolution, not revolution, men can know lasting peace and prosperity.