{"id":41207,"date":"2021-06-28T23:36:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-29T03:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=41207"},"modified":"2021-07-12T11:11:38","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T15:11:38","slug":"what-we-can-learn-from-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-we-can-learn-from-history\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Can Learn From History: 8 Quick Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Do you wonder what we can learn from history? What can it tell us about the world and ourselves today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In <em>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/race-in-society\/\">Lessons of History<\/a><\/em>, Will and Ariel Durant present the most compelling patterns they found in their extensive research of human history. These patterns teach us important lessons about human nature, society, economics, government, religion, war, and civilization itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more to see what we can learn from history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What We Can Learn From History<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>What lessons do 5,000 years of history hold? Are we in truly novel times, or do we face the same problems that the Romans and Egyptians faced 2,000 years ago?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Will and Ariel Durant, Pulitzer Prize-winning historians, are famed for writing The Story of Civilization, a massive 9766-page, 11-volume treatise of the entirety of Western history. They compiled the most important patterns in this book, The Lessons of History. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/who-is-ray-dalio\/\">Ray Dalio<\/a>, the founder of the world\u2019s largest hedge fund Bridgewater, considers this one of his three must-read books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Durants are known for writing many volumes of history. With this book, they aimed to point out <em>what we can learn<\/em> <em>from<\/em> <em>history<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What History Teaches Us About Equality<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of history\u2014humans are subject to the trials of selection and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/struggle-to-survive\/\">struggle for existence<\/a>, like all other animals. The group and nation merely inherits the will of the individual\u2014after all, societies are made up of individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Human nature has largely been unchanged throughout history\u2014the means change, but the motives stay the same. <em>The Lessons of History<\/em> includes what we can learn from history about equality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Humans are born with different abilities, and so inequality among humans is a natural consequence. <\/strong>This is magnified by the complexity of civilization, as each invention is seized by the strong to make themselves stronger, and the weak weaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Freedom and equality are fundamentally opposed. If people are given freedom, their natural differences in ability will materialize in different outcomes. If people were forced to show equal outcomes and equal abilities, this reduces freedom.<\/li><li>The best that egalitarians can hope for in a free society is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity.<\/li><li>Society is made up of the imitative majority and the innovating minority. History in general is the \u201cconflict of minorities\u201d and the majority \u201capplauds the victor and supplies the human material of social experiment.\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What History Teaches Us About Social Stability<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Culture, customs, and morals provide a useful social stabilizing force<\/strong>, and a dampening force on innovation. What practices survive to present day have survived over time because they worked. New changes need to be put through the crucible of criticism before overthrowing the result of centuries of experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What History Teaches Us About Morals<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Morals change with the times as a reflection of what is necessary to grow and survive.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Hunting\/gathering promoted survival at all costs, including fighting and killing, and gluttony during the rare feast.<\/li><li>Agriculture spurred the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/importance-of-hard-work-in-life\/\">importance of hard work<\/a> and regularity more than violence and bravery.<\/li><li>Industry promoted individualism separated from the family; materialism and mass consumption; and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/delaying-marriage\/\">delaying marriage<\/a> along with premarital sex.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What History Teaches Us About Religion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>What we can learn from history about religion is essentially that <strong>religion has been constantly present.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>On the positive, religion has given \u201csupernatural comforts\u201d to many, even the most unfortunate, and provided social stability through divine surveillance and moral prescriptions handed down by gods.<\/li><li>On the negative, religion has been used as a tool of the state to legitimize power, has seen corrupt abuses of power (eg the Crusades).<\/li><li>\u201cAs long as there is poverty there will be gods.\u201d<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What History Teaches Us About Economics<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Every economic system must eventually rely on some form of profit motive to stir people to productivity. <\/strong>Alternatives like slavery, brute force management, or ideology have historically proved too unproductive or unsuccessful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What History Teaches Us About Government<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The constant friction in societal structure is between the rulers and the ruled.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The natural progression of government is from monarchy to aristocracy to democracy and back again. Democracy passes to monarchy\/tyranny when civil strife weakens the state, revolution is threatened, and a figure arrives promising security and opportunity for all.<\/li><li>Like a heartbeat, societies alternate in cycles of wealth concentration and redistribution (violent or peaceful).<\/li><li>Communism has taken on capitalist flair to stimulate productivity, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/capitalism-theory\/\">capitalism<\/a> has taken on socialist programs to curb discontent with inequality, and so the two converge.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What History Teaches Us About War<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>What we can learn from history about war is that<strong> war is a constant. <\/strong>In the past 3421 years, there have been only 268 years of no documented war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>War occurs for the same reason individuals fight &#8211; to secure more resources and power, for pride, to survive under threat.&nbsp;<\/li><li>The state inherits the will of the individual, without the individuals\u2019 normal boundaries. The state that is strong enough defies interference with its will and has no superstructure it is beholden to.<\/li><li>Philosophers will muse about the futility of war, but generals understand that war is the final arbiter of history.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What History Teaches Us About Civilizations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Civilizations have grown and decayed with great regularity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The decay comes as a failure of leadership to meet new challenges (be it natural or manmade) and often finalized with a defeat in war.<\/li><li>While likely inevitable, the fall of our civilization is not to be bemoaned &#8211; what is created in the civilization can be immortal. More people read Homer today than in his time.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a quick look at what we can learn from history by examining its patterns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you wonder what we can learn from history? What can it tell us about the world and ourselves today? In The Lessons of History, Will and Ariel Durant present the most compelling patterns they found in their extensive research of human history. These patterns teach us important lessons about human nature, society, economics, government, religion, war, and civilization itself. Read more to see what we can learn from history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":41218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,39],"tags":[410],"class_list":["post-41207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-history","tag-the-lessons-of-history","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What We Can Learn From History: 8 Quick Lessons - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You might be surprised what we can learn from history. 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