Thinking About History

[Larry124]

Please indulge a long post. This is about thinking about history.

From a 4/15/2009 New York Times op-ed column by Nicholas D. Kristof entitled “How to Raise Our I.Q.”
He writes about the book “Intelligence and How to Get It,” by Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan.

Off topic to the intent of the piece, I was struck by this paragraph:

Another indication of malleability is that I.Q. has risen sharply over time. Indeed, the average I.Q. of a person in 1917 would amount to only 73 on today’s I.Q. test. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements, Professor Nisbett says.

My emphasis added. That’s 1917. I wonder about 1817 or 1717 or 1617. Go back to Roman or Greek times and it becomes mind boggling.

This might explain a lot about some of the seeming irrationalities (by today’s standards) of history. WWI comes to mind.

Granted that people then may have understood as much about their daily life as we know about our own. And that sense and common sense might be best understood in the context of their time.
Is it too relativistic to include vice and virtue? Good and evil?

One of the things that I remember from William Manchester’s book “A World Lit Only by Fire” (on the Middle Ages) is the youth and (to my modern eyes) immature temperament or excessive emotionality of rulers in that time and place.

One more: “Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil” by Ron Rosenbaum. His idea is that a book of history reflects as much or more about the life and times of its author than it informs on the subject. That is all it can do. Absolute disclaimer: The author is not and I am not defending Hitler - my point is separate from that book's subject.
Other than to say that Hitler is the example to me that no matter how much time passes evil is still evil.

I conclude that I can have only a dimly reflected understanding of the people of history. They were different from us – very different – perhaps incomprehensibly different.
I can attempt to imagine their lives and the world in which they lived only in a very incomplete way.

Might our own age someday be viewed as largely (or thoroughly) primitive and brutal? Probably.

A connection to some of the historical topics on this forum?
I think that the personages and occurrences and disputes in the history of the British Isles are no exception to all of that above.

[thanmuwa]

From a 4/15/2009 New York Times op-ed column by Nicholas D. Kristof entitled “How to Raise Our I.Q.”
He writes about the book “Intelligence and How to Get It,” by Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan.

Off topic to the intent of the piece, I was struck by this paragraph:

Another indication of malleability is that I.Q. has risen sharply over time. Indeed, the average I.Q. of a person in 1917 would amount to only 73 on today’s I.Q. test. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements, Professor Nisbett says.

My emphasis added. That’s 1917. I wonder about 1817 or 1717 or 1617. Go back to Roman or Greek times and it becomes mind boggling.

This might explain a lot about some of the seeming irrationalities (by today’s standards) of history. WWI comes to mind.

Genetically, there would be practically no difference between someone from 1917 and today. Phenetically, the difference in nutrition must have an effect, but the quoted difference seems very high. Education, IMHO, must make a difference. And I don't mean useful education, but the fact that people seem to be far more exposed to measuring methods like IQ tests these days. After all, as the saying goes, an IQ test only proves your ability to do IQ tests. It is easy to improve your score on IQ tests by doing lots of them, but does that really mean you've become more intelligent?

I suppose what I am trying to say is that whatever a set of IQ number differences (and I am not convinced that such a dramatic difference would be the case anyway), in actual terms, I doubt the general public is that much more intelligent these days. Idiotic, unwinnable wars are part of the human condition. WW1 wasn't the last one, look at the Vietnam war, the USSR in Afghanistan in the 80's or a number of the world's current conflicts.

[KFCarter]

...in actual terms, I doubt the general public is that much more intelligent these days. Idiotic, unwinnable wars are part of the human condition. WW1 wasn't the last one, look at the Vietnam war, the USSR in Afghanistan in the 80's or a number of the world's current conflicts.

Good point. I'm not sure I trust IQ as a predictor of anything except success on standarized tests.

[Pleater]

It is very true that IQ is only a measure of how well a person does IQ tests.

There are many assumptions about the experience and environment in which a person grew up at work within IQ tests, and of course the subject does have to take the test willingly to get a proper result.

I am somewhat skeptical about the statement that people in 1917 would have an average IQ of 73 in a modern test - as only by getting them to take such a test could that be proven - that is what the tests are for, as you can't guess IQ.

I have read that the IQ of immigrants when given IQ tests designed for local people, is often significantly lower than the local average - but it should be - if intelligence is the ability to deal with the environment in which one lives.

I am not sure that Hitler was evil.

Some of the people carrying out his plans, they could easily be described as evil, but others working under the same regime acted in ways which resulted in far less brutality, and at the same time achieved the required result faster and more effectively - I was watching a program on how Poland was ruled under the Nazis earlier today, under different regional goveners.

Also on TV at the moment is a series about the seting up of the Bow Street Runners, and the state of London before that time. The lack of any way to impose the rule of law democratically before that first police force was set up is quite astonishing now.

Older sets of laws have very different penalties - poor people who commited murder would hang, not for their crime but for their inability to pay the fee for the dead person - if you know the song 'The prickalie bush' aka 'Hangman stay thy hand', the about to be hanged person is hoping for someone to turn up and pay the fee before it is too late.

The fee was not a fine for committing murder, but the price of the dead person's life, and it varied according to the quality and age, and the sex of the victim.

In the Cadvael mysteries by Ellis Peters there are plots which revolve around the differences between Welsh and English law at the time.

Anne the Pleater

[Bugbear]

Pleater, please be careful with that Hitler statement.

[Larry124]

Thanks Ted.
I hesitated to include that reference for that reason. It could have been any subject. I recommend the book.

My point is that (for example) when reading a history about the relations and disputes between Clans and others (English, Irish, other Clans), and particularly who was at fault in a dispute, and how a dispute was resolved, I try to keep in mind the following.

• When was the book written? (Or how old is a reference in a contemporary book?)
• What was the nature of the society in which the author lived?
• Is anything known about the author’s religious, political, or cultural beliefs?

Sometimes bias is relatively clear:
Was it the (American) Civil War or The War Between the States?
Was it the American Revolution, The War of Independence, or the Rebellion of the American Colonies?
Even a scholarly author will (intentionally or unintentionally) exhibit a point of view.

“A World Lit Only by Fire” is to me one of the most thought-provoking titles ever.
Can we imagine such? Can we really imagine the unending toil, illiteracy, low life expectancy, infant mortality, medieval medical care, feudalism, religious compulsion, face to face warfare, pillage, and plunder -- and on and on and on? What in our experience is in any way like it?

I think that the decisions and actions that a man or groups of men felt necessary to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves, or to provide for and protect their families, or to support and protect their communities, are things that we should be very hesitant to judge, let alone begrudge.
We do not, and can not, fully understand.

[kilty]

It's interesting that in this politically correct world, when public discussions turn to controversial figures like Hitler, one has to be careful of what one says. Although we want to believe that freedom of speech is alive and well, it really isn't. But that discussion belongs in another thread.

To believe that a person is evil is to believe that there is a God and a Devil. I personally believe that there are but many others don't. So if Good (God) does not exist, then ipso facto Evil (Devil) must not exist either.

So what we end up saying is that Hitler was probably a megolomaniac. And we know that absolute power corrupts absolutely so after being corrupted by his absolute power over Germany, he believed his own lies which led to the death of millions and his own downfall. So instead of being evil, he is a pathological sociopath.

[Bugbear]

Thanks Ted.
I hesitated to include that reference for that reason. It could have been any subject. I recommend the book.

My point is that (for example) when reading a history about the relations and disputes between Clans and others (English, Irish, other Clans), and particularly who was at fault in a dispute, and how a dispute was resolved, I try to keep in mind the following.

• When was the book written? (Or how old is a reference in a contemporary book?)
• What was the nature of the society in which the author lived?
• Is anything known about the author’s religious, political, or cultural beliefs?

Sometimes bias is relatively clear:
Was it the (American) Civil War or The War Between the States?
Was it the American Revolution, The War of Independence, or the Rebellion of the American Colonies?
Even a scholarly author will (intentionally or unintentionally) exhibit a point of view.

“A World Lit Only by Fire” is to me one of the most thought-provoking titles ever.
Can we imagine such? Can we really imagine the unending toil, illiteracy, low life expectancy, infant mortality, medieval medical care, feudalism, religious compulsion, face to face warfare, pillage, and plunder -- and on and on and on? What in our experience is in any way like it?

I think that the decisions and actions that a man or groups of men felt necessary to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves, or to provide for and protect their families, or to support and protect their communities, are things that we should be very hesitant to judge, let alone begrudge.
We do not, and can not, fully understand.

I understand what you're saying.

What we know about any given historical period does change over time as historians find new information etc., and look at things from new directions.