How can you call this book or this class “World History” when it completely ignores the most important facet of the title, World?
The World’s inhabitant is not just us human beings but includes all other life on and within it.
The first night of class we had discussed that we, as humans, are the most important beings on the planet. How can we be the most important on this World when we do not contribute positively to the life of our planet? We, as the human race, do not do a whole lot to promote the health of our planet. As a matter of fact, a lot of the things that we have done have been quite destructive to the eco system of our planet. We have created automobiles that have polluted our air, added to the garbage once we are done away with them, and extracted valuable resources from the planet to operate them. We wage wars on each other and blow things up including ourselves and of course our planet. We created nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants to kill each other and sustain our lavish lifestyles but none of these benefits the Earth. I think the movie “The Matrix” describes us best; Humans are more like viruses, they move to one area and completely destroy that area.
I think we should remove the self-centeredness in ourselves and begin to see life as it really should be looked at, as a whole. We are merely 1 being out of many on our planet. We are not the most important if you look at it from the perspective of the planet. We would probably be the least important. From the Earth’s perspective, the trees and plants are probably more important than us in regards to its health. We are just merely leeches of it and consume everything that it has to offer us.
If you look at it from a different angle, imagine the planet as person. The water could be the blood that flows within it, the continents are its organs, and the land, trees, animals and insects are the ones that sustain those organs. Where would that place us in this concept? Now, change the mindset and picture a human being as a planet. What would you consider the most destructive presence in your body and what would you do to remove that destructive and noncontributing part in or on your body?
Plain and simple, the Earth has been here before us and given on the TRUE World History, will be here after us. We are just merely tiny specs on the timeline of our planet. Each and every leech that has roamed the Earth faced extinction. Who’s to say we won’t either.
What’s with the B.C.E and C.E change? Common Era, common to whom and which Era? Is there only 1 era worth considering? Here is an observation that I have made, terrible ideas spread like wildfire yet great ideas takes a very long time, if it ever does, to propagate to everyone.
The book assumes that Homo sapiens began in Africa and migrated from there some 250,000 years ago. I have read a recent article from Discovery.com, http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/oldest-human-israel-101228.html, dated Dec 28, 2010 that human remains were found in Israel dating from 400,000 years ago. Well, this just screw up the entire book doesn’t it? I think the book should be called the Homo Sapiens Timeline As We Know It On (published/written date). I also don’t like it being called history because to me history would be factual and not speculation of what may have happened. Even so called experts disagree on what really happened and we are expected to learn and know a subject that is ever changing and evolving. It seems like a waste of time and brain cells to study something that may not even be true tomorrow. If the findings of the Israeli archaeologists are found to be accurate then this book is not even accurate today.
You have very valid points, most intriguing and passionate. A very good quality to have.
ReplyDeleteJust for the sake of argument, I don't think the idea of focusing on just human history was to completely disregard the rest of the the world and nature as whole. We cannot exist as humans without the whole world around us, which is obvious.
We has humans need trees and water and air and soil and we would not exist without all of these things. If we were animals rather than humans, maybe we would focus on the history of the other animals and who came first and who mated with who first and what wolf and fox came from what region and such.
It actually makes it a little more intimate and in depth when there is a distinct focus, in this case, humans from the beginning as we know them to be today.
This is just my own opinion and I definitely agree with your point of view as well.