Thursday, October 13, 2011

Historian-Based News


You know what I'd watch? A news program run by historians. They'd tell me what's happening currently, then provide examples of similar events from history and detail the downstream effects of those examples.


I hear people talk so much about how things are "worse than they've ever been" in this way or that way on this topic or that topic. With a few exceptions, no, they're not. Politics have always been ugly and brutal. Humans have always been selfish and tribalistic yet capable of greatness.


Give me a news program whose mandate is to tell me all the ways in which the news isn't new. Give me a detailed historical context, and maybe I can learn a little something in the hopes of avoiding the mistakes of my grandparents, and their grandparents, etc.


(In a better world, I would've absorbed more history in school. In a better world, I'd have more time and focus to read history books as an adult.)

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