This is a paragraph in a technical sense, but there is no logic to it. It might have been better as a tweet
- ideas could destroy the world
- (this is why?) ideas should be debated
- (this is why?) writers of yore wrote in long form
- this is why they had influence
- but social media could destroy the world
????????
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This is a great example of invoking "evolution" to obscure historical specificity for right-wing political purposes.
Slavery has taken various forms over time. Slavery in the Atlantic world -- the legacies of which surround us -- was utterly bound up with empire and capitalism.
It is not at all "ahistorical" to connect them.
It is, in fact, ahistorical to ignore the historical contexts in which slavery has emerged and to pretend instead that every instance of slavery over time was same, and had the same, non-historical, "evolutionary" causes.
When evopsych fans call an explanation of a historical phenomenon "ahistorical", there's a better than even chance that what they're offering instead is an outright dismissal of historical contexts and processes in favor of some handwaving bullshit about natural behaviour.
idk, but maybe people who claim to be in favour of critical thinking, facts, etc, etc, shouldn't reflexively RT someone who gets his news from Dan Crenshaw, even if he is also selling a scam diet
History often reveals the specificity and contingency of social, cultural, intellectual or political arrangements that appear natural or universal. At the same time, historical contextualization and comparison often undermine categorical distinctions and exceptionalist claims.
It seems to me that either giving up history as a study of the particular in favour of pursuing it as a putatively Big, predictive science, or turning it into a kind of junior political science via councils of historians, tends to work against both of these critical functions.
A focus on irreducible particulars is essential to what history does. So is a methodological diversity that resists routinization and (as is much lamented) even very large-scale collaboration. I think viewing history through the lens of science, pure or applied, is a big mistake.
Enjoy this slow-motion shell game, wherein the whiteness of the canon is obfuscated only so that it can be insisted upon as the only *safe* option... which is somehow also *meritocratic*
Shorter Bo Winegard:
- extremists agree that the canon is white, while moderates just think it's good
- the canon moderates like is also white, and if you change it there will be white backlash
- this one time we wedged in a couple nonwhite authors but that wasn't meritocracy
Note: this should be read while the Curb Your Enthusiasm music plays in the background