Short Elaboration Regarding What Drives History

[Lonely]

Further to my essay on the causes and effects of the Karma War, I have found it necessary to elaborate on the intellectual basis of my thesis that ideas drive the progression of history. If you are not interested in intellectual or philosophical thought, I request that you refrain from cluttering the thread with comments to that effect. Your objections are noted.

There is a flow to history, and culture. This flow is rooted and has its wellspring in the minds of people. People are unique in the inner life of the mind- what they are in the thought world determines how they act. This is true of their values systems and of their creativity. It is true of their corporate actions, such as political decisions, and it is true of their personal lives. The results of their thought world flow through their fingers or from their tongues into the external world. This is true of the writer’s pen and a conquering Pacifican sword.

People have presuppositions, and they will live more consistently on the basis of these presuppositions than even they themselves may realise. By presuppositions, we mean the basic way an individual looks at life, their basic worldview, the grid through which they see the world. Presuppositions rest upon that which a person considers the truth of what exists. People’s presuppositions lay a grid for all they bring forth into the external world. Their presuppositions also provide the basis for their values and therefore the basis for their decisions.

Most people catch their presuppositions from their alliance and people they associate with the same way children catch measles. People with more understanding realise that their presuppositions should be a conscious choice, chosen after a careful consideration of what worldview they believe is true, that is, true in the objective sense, not ‘what is true for me.’ However, these people are few and far between. They tend to dominate the presuppositions of the masses and cause change and progression in ideas because they are in a unique position to do so. The progression of history is thus caused by the pursuit of truth by a minority and the ideas that come of that, and what these people do with their ideas. However, due to the fact that presuppositions are often overlooked by the masses, ideas are often underrated, as are alliances such as Vox Populi which are solely dedicated to spreading an idea or cause.

Edited November 8, 2009 by The Lonely Man

[theArrowheadian]

So what is your thesis?

[Tigerdonia Redux]

Blood alone moves the wheels of history!

[Asriel Belacqua]

Have you ever noticed that when someone has the word "short" in their title, referring to the length of their post, it is never shorter than 3 full paragraphs?

[New Frontier]

Blood alone moves the wheels of history!

Some people will tell you "salesman" is a bad word, they'll conjure up images of used car dealers and door-to-door charlatans. This is our duty to change their perception. I say, salesmen, and women, of the world, unite! We must never acquiesce, for it is together, together that we prevail! We must never cede control of the motherland for it is together that we prevail!

[Lord Rune]

Have you ever noticed that when someone has the word "short" in their title, referring to the length of their post, it is never shorter than 3 full paragraphs?

Even Vladimir. But then short for him is the size of "War and Peace"!

[Aurion]

Have you ever noticed that when someone has the word "short" in their title, referring to the length of their post, it is never shorter than 3 full paragraphs?

It's preferable to someone using "long" in their title. Those seem to be no less than six.

[Iosif]

What drives history is ogopogo and solely ogopogo.

[Adrian LaCroix]

History is driven by time.

[Ferrous]

History is driven by time.

I was told once that the most insightful comments are sometimes the ones that are the most obvious.

[KainIIIC]

As discussed in some excellent Vladmir essays and by many other famous authors, inherent in the field of history is both the differing approaches found as well as the narrowness in scope. Intrinsically found in history is the constantly evolving nature of History as well as our own perception of collective memory. These recent events shine light in a couple different areas in such regards.

Within the confines of the pre-karma and intra-karma log dumpings, there is a wide discussion about the nature of the evolving media, and with changing mediums alongside changing external circumstances, the collective memory of an alliance, or the ‘alliance historical narrative’ evolves as well. Thus, with the advent of technologies such as the skype, the widespread usage of mIRC, or even at minimum the ability of CN populations to record history in accordance with increasing literacy, both the collective memory of historical events are altered. An interesting focal point for a new scholarly composition, for instance, would be how these changing institutions inside the CN media have affected perceptions of the Pacifica presence in GATO and the history of the GATO-1v War.

Another point important in discourse includes the reality that a purely objective historical account is a bit of a self-contradiction, yet there is also a need to strive ever closer to such a goal. Often, written history is reflective of the times in which it was written in, and by who's point-of-view is the piece it was written by. One could compare both the level of objectivity and ‘truthfulness’ during the immediate post-war up until present day of historical accounts, and how perceptions of historical events change over time through an evolving collective memory.

Collective memory often coincides with ‘history as identification’, wherein a collective account of a historical event is interpreted in different ways – such as different warcrimes, incidents of reps or other atrocities, often to paint a modern narrative of a desired theme. One such theme would be the ‘Friends>Infra as victims’, using the incident of harsh reps in C&G by the Pacifica military as evidence that the GATO were once again victimized by an uncontrollable power (similar to the military-state of the war years). As collective memories evolve, and as different themes are used by political leaders to describe historical events, it would be useful to record these changes through time.

Edited November 10, 2009 by KainIIIC

[anenu]

History is driven by time.

This

I don't exactly get what the main point of this topic is as it seems to have multiple not connected ideas in it.

[theArrowheadian]

This

I don't exactly get what the main point of this topic is as it seems to have multiple not connected ideas in it.

I think what the OP is trying to say is the importance that history plays, but at the same time events that got many older players hooked in the first year or two of the game are pretty much irrelevant to the current situation the game finds itself. As back in the days of the Great Wars we found defined sides where each side knew what it was up against, now we find the state of uneasy peace. Sides are even loosely defined than they were before the Karma War. The whole game is living in the shadow of Pacifica, they're not on top and the world still isn't unite, though it never truly will be. I think what we've learned from the Karma War that alliances really can't count on their allies. Which brings to the real problem and that is again which has been beaten to the death, the MDP web which we don't even have visual representation because we don't' have a person willing to be driven to madness over the overlapping and confusing state of treaties and their conditions.

[ChairmanHal]

There is history, what actually happened, and then there is History, what actually gets written about it.

Relativism is generally the enemy of history, since it insists on creating a story out of past events in a way that makes it relevant to the current age/some political philosophy. The temptation to "bend" the truth to fit an agenda or place current day thoughts into the head of someone in the past or pass judgments for/against people by current day standards is simply too great.

To the extent that historians can get History to correspond to history, they do future generations a great service. Those future generations will be able pick and choose the lessons that they need to learn from the past and have a much better sense of who they are, and how they came to be, rather than some fanciful version of it.

In Planet Bob terms, we saw NPO engage in all variety of relativism in order to make history fit its political philosophy. It led to much many hard feelings, distrust of NPO by those who knew the truth, and a general sense that NPO felt that it was not only above other alliances, it was above history itself.

Being truthful about the past can run you up against not only those that manipulate history for political purposes, it can run you up against the mythology of any variety of peoples, and shatter stereotypes. George Washington didn't chop down a cherry tree and make the statement when questioned about it, "I cannot tell a lie"--that is part of the American mythology and was designed in its day to glorify a man that really was actually rather extraordinary already. On Planet Bob we have Ivan Moldavi. To hear the mythology of Moldavi is to believe that he single-handedly won two Great Wars and led the world down a path of oppression. In reality much of what Moldavi and NPO accomplished was achieved through the efforts of a great many people, most of which were not even in NPO.

That last point--that height of Pacifican "glory" was achieved through the cooperation of others and not by NPO alone or even in concert with NpO seemed lost on the world until the planning for the Karma War started. Many commentators, from those in back rooms on IRC, to Walford, to Vox Populi made efforts to point this out over an extended period of time, but they were ignored or ridiculed for their trouble.

To live in the post-Karma War world is to live in a multifaceted world that seems not only to lack an "evil empire", it seems to lack, for now, the ability to move forward in a way that causes major conflict. Will history judge this as an era of peace and prosperity or as an era of stagnation? Time and hopefully not some carefully crafted propaganda piece masquerading as history will tell.

[Drostan]

Drostan's Very Short Elaboration of The Lonely Man's Elaboration on What Drives History:

I'm glad you cleared that up for me because I've been staring at Paul Klee's "Angelus Novus" for hours trying understand what the hell Walter Benjamin was on about.

But seriously, you used a lot of words to say very little. If there's one thing philosophers are sceptical of, it is dressy language, and you employ no shortage of it. Watch me summarize:

History is driven by the actions of individuals. Each individual acts based on their network of social values derived from a community. But some people are superior to others, and somehow escape their network of social values and see the truth. This truth imbues them with some sort of world-changing power that drives history through the power of their ideas.

Wow, that sounds an awful lot like a very glib interpretation of Hegel's theory of the World Historical Individual. I wonder where that came from, perhaps some empty-headed rambling about ideas being bullet proof etc ad nauseam. The only truth here is that you have purchased ideas wholesale from Vox Populi propaganda that you have no grasp of.

I appreciate that you are likely a young buck trying to flex his newfound intellectual muscles, but pummelling us with cliches dressed up in awkward language is an insult to the community. To call this philosophy would be a bad joke. There is nothing here but assertion and then some idealist cop out. Propaganda isn't meant to enlighten, it is meant to persuade. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you understand this. Operating on that assumption, I must assume that this OP itself is propaganda and poor stuff at that. If this is your message I suggest you take it to a more subliminal level because you've utterly failed to penetrate the public's mental defences.

Parting advice: throw away the thesaurus until you're comfortable using it, and avail yourself of the various online grammar resources accessible on the web.

Edited November 9, 2009 by Drostan

[Prime minister Johns]

The driving force behind the history of planet Bob is the same as any empire building game.

People want to win. pure and simple.

And since there is no set win condition people make up their own conditions for "winning" the game.

Some want to rule the world, while others want to have the best stats, or a wide variety of other goals could be seen as a win.

And it is the interaction of all these people each trying to accomplish their own goals and the conflict that arises from their actions that produces the history of the game.

[KainIIIC]

What then, is the universal definition of "win"? Does such a definition exist?

[Senekis]

What then, is the universal definition of "win"? Does such a definition exist?

I'd say you win when you accomplish your goal/s, whatever it/they might be.

[Ch33kY]

OP: You talk a lot of 'the masses' and their presuppositions, while 'the few' are in pursuit of some kind of objective 'truth'. I'm guessing that you reckon you're part of 'the few' in the pursuit, and the rest of us are just popping out pulp fiction. It's always easy to put things down to 'the masses', but when it comes to definitions with substance, I'm afraid you're lacking. Define using examples of exaclty who said what.

P.S. obligatory 'The history of all hitherto existing alliances is the history of class struggle.'

Edited November 11, 2009 by Ch33kY

[KainIIIC]

I'd argue that Vox was simply a protest movement, and they are given credit simply because NPO fell down. What would have happened if the karma war never happened, or that the Hegemony side (better managed and everything, without CoC) had won? It may be giving too much credit to just one small component of history, while failing to address the other sub-textual context.

A dissertation could be given on this subject.

Do you think 'class' is more prevalent with TOP on top?

[Byron Orpheus]

A dissertation could be given on this subject.

Given the length of dissertations, I would certainly hope not.