has history been ethical? and is there a real ‘fate’.
in the words on monty python i think no, its been a very naughty boy!
i will cite a few examples just to highlight some points…
i was watching a program about the inquisition and napoleon, the more i learn about this man the more i like him. he was a great liberator, perhaps we could go as far as saying he was the father of modern liberty! it seams like madness that at school all we were taught about him was that he was the french baddie, one who the great Wellington defeated.
was that defeat a catastrophe for man? perhaps its only recently have we risen to such levels of liberty that he endorsed, without him and science there would still be the inquisition.
ok now lets go back to ancient history…
if the romans were far less successful and as a consequence Christianity never went beyond a cult, how far would Greek culture and philosophy come by now! instead of an all powerful state of Rome, there would have been colonies all over the western world and civilisation would have spread without the complete destruction of many cultures. perhaps the Ptolemy’s would have not been so dissimilar to Rome? not sure on that, however the philosophical darkness which covered the world with religion ~ and still does today, would perhaps have been removed. Socrates challenged the then religion which was not challenged again until the renaissance or later, philosophy suffered too during this period.
perhaps man needed to go through all these phases to arrive where we are or shall be.
was history a series of bad choices? even if this is so, did those bad choices end up in good. is the reverse true? or does the world just keep on spinning with benefits and deficits in each era, and with no particular good or bad ends?
whilst i suspect the latter, i also wonder if finally we will arrive at true liberty [if thats what it is all about], after this final and perhaps most dramatic phaze.
nothing wrong with hope i suppose.
now how about FATE!
another interesting point for me is that ‘fate’ in a real context that is, takes on its own way. it is the net result of what we all do, not just famous leaders but everyone. at no point has the world been under the control of a single person or group, hence ‘fate’ is always the greater aspect, the result of all parties actions.
can we see that this ‘real fate’, can also have an effect? does it act like a third party to any two parties in a conflict for example.
edit;
here i am thinking of fate as literal, perhaps like a mathematical equation where you have parties and groups who interact [often through war], but there is a bigger picture because there are so many players. if we take e.g. huns and romans, the net result was the dark ages which i doubt if either would have expected as the result of their actions.