The historian, like everyone else, is forever trapped in the egocentric predicament, and ‘presentism’ is his original sin. (Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.)
Thinking about the musings from DAY 14: Rest…Relax…Reflect…
I would submit to that we can all agree that humans have walked, and continue to walk, on planet Earth. The issue is, how did humans get here?
I would suggest that it is important that when we question these types of issues, the following must be strongly considered before searching for an answer(s). These are in no particular order:
1) History does matter;
2) History Repeats Itself, Just Not In The Same Frequency Nor Intensity;
3) Knowledge Is Power;
4) Reading Is Fundamental;
5) Detecting bias does matter;
6) Detecting reliability does matter;
7) Using Aristotle’s syllogism and;
8) Presentism.
As I mentioned in my Day 1: What Is A Mid-Life Crisis?, Dr. Gary North has had a great impact in motivating me to create this blog, (and website), in the first place. In addition, Dr. Gary North brings up an interesting point that I think has been an invaluable tool to give my students.
Stop for a moment to reflect upon your life up to this moment. Consider the life events that you would consider to be…the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Now, with those good, bad and ugly moments still in your head, consider the following question:
“Which of the following 2 lifestyles would you prefer based on your life experiences to date?”
Lifestyle 1):
Living around the year 1900, as a king or queen, with the following at your disposal and your beckon call:
A) Large estates invisible to the public;
B) Large staffs to care for you and these estates;
C) Untold amounts of jewelry and;
D) Yachts, for lavish entertaining…or;
Lifestyle 2):
Living today as yourself.
(Make sure that before you make this choice you put your cell-phone down…and your television remote as well…and no typing away on your computer either…no Google, no Wikipedia, no Siri, and no Alexa to help you answer the question….)
The answer appears to be rhetorical. Living now, despite all of our bad and ugly experiences we may already have accumulated in our lifetime, would surely outweigh the benefits of being a monarch around the year 1900.
I mean, how much jewelry can your wear on your body at the end of the day anyways?
The point in bringing up this hypothetical set of questions is to introduce the concept of presentism. Presentism is basically an attitude. The attitude of using your current experiences in your lifetime and imposing these experiences on those that have lived before you, including the first humans, no matter how long ago you may think they first appeared on Earth.
I would suggest to you that presentism is perhaps the most important of the 8 considerations when looking for the truth.
Without applying presentism when gathering data to help you answer life’s most impossible questions, I would submit to you that the truth you are seeking…
Will never be found.
How about this for another example of how the concept of presentism works:
Slavery.
Around 3,500 B.C., historians have concluded that the world’s first civilization began, in Southwest Asia. Southwest Asia contains Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is known as the land between two rivers, containing both the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers. It is here where the world’s first civilization began…the Sumerian city-states.
What makes the Sumerians the world’s first civilization?
Among other things, the beginnings of written history can ultimately be traced back to them.
One of the city-states of the Sumerians was named Akkad. From the city-state of Akkad rose a leader, Sargon…of Akkad. It is Sargon of Akkad who united the Sumerian city-states of both northern and southern Mesopotamia about a thousand years after they were created.
In other words, Sargon of Akkad created the world’s first empire…the Akkadian Empire.
I now go back to my classroom and ask the students a couple of questions:
“What time did you go to sleep last night?”
The answers vary, ranging from right after school, to the early morning hours.
I ask a follow up question to one of the students:
“If there are 25 students in the classroom right now, how many potential bed times did all the students get to bed last night?”
The answer is always the same…25.
I then ask them how they are feeling right now in class. The answers always are the same, although over the years, they may come out in a different order:
“Tired…sleepy…hungry…and finally the answer that usually comes last…wide awake.”
I tell them that no matter how they feel that day, we are all going on a trip. This is not just any run of the mill school endorsed field trip…
Our trip requires that we are go into a time machine.
I can tell by some of their faces that they are disappointed in the fact that I am not actually taking them on a school-sponsored trip.
Moral of that story…you can’t always get what you want.
Back to Sargon of Akkad and the world’s first empire….
After entering our time machine, we are transported back 5,000 years, and fly half-way around the world…Where we are dropped off in the land of Mesopotamia, walking around now in the Sumerian city-state of Akkad, during the reign of Sargon of Akkad.
I have their attention again.
There are two items of note that dominate the landscape of Akkadian Empire, land suitable for farming due to irrigation ditches and ziggurats. Here is what a ziggurat looks like. This one in fact can be found in present-day Iraq:
I explain to the students that for sake of argument the people seen in the picture are 6 feet tall, to help give the students a sense of the size of this Sumerian ziggurat.
The ziggurat, based off of its sheer size alone, is a testament to its overall importance to the society, politics, economy and culture, of the Sumerian city-states. Consider for example, the reasons for the creation of the ziggurat:
1) Although not showing due in large part to the erosion of time, a shrine used to be on the top for the priests to have access to their gods;
2) It was necessary for the priests to have this access so that they could receive instructions and conduct initiation rituals and sacrifices to their gods throughout the year;
3) Finally, there were multiple rooms located inside and out, all of which became the epicenter from which that particular city-state grew around….
It sounds like a very important structure indeed.
So, the next question I ask the students is:
“How did the ziggurat get there?”
It is usually about this time that the bell rings and class ends for the day….
Do not feel discouraged if you have never heard of the term presentism. Do not feel discouraged if you use presentism to justify why you are or are not getting what you want out of life. Instead, embrace the definition of presentism and how it applies to your life. Embrace the idea that you can use presentism to your advantage, to change the current trajectory your life-path is currently on.
10 Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. 11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after. (Ecclesiastes 1:10-11 KJV)
Was today’s blog a little confusing at times? Was the content perhaps a little overwhelming? Did you feel lost not understanding some or most of the subject matter?
Those feelings are totally understandable and it is ok to have one or more of those feelings. Remember that you are reading Day 15: Are You Guilty Of Presentism?
If you haven’t been in class since the first day of school…or when the project began…or when the contract was first signed, etc., these feelings make perfect and logistical sense.
Please feel free to go back to where all of this began: