https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=aC8hEtON5GQ
So Greg Garcia says, hi Jonathan, how did the ancients approach history? That is in contrast to our modern historical critical method, Polish statistics motives, whether political, economic or social, everyone is fighting over the narrative of history, where people have done this in antiquity if they had the technology. The hyper focus on ironically seems to be breaking down trust. So I think that ancients approach history the way that we talk about universal history in our universal history series. So if you’re interested in that, you can watch those videos. You can get a sense of the more mythical origin of historical action and the idea of finding common story. Like that is actually what makes history. And so the fact that right now everybody’s arguing about common story, whether it be the kind of multiplication of historical narratives of the past, whether it be these different reinterpretations of American history or Canadian history, and it has to do with reaching the end. Because you can understand it in a positive or negative way. Think about it in two ways. So think about it in the negative sense. So in the sense that you have a common identity and a common history and a common core that binds you together. And so now when you reach the end of that, when it’s running out of steam, what happens is that all these elements, they want to capture the story. And so one aspect of the history is like wants to capture it. So what it does is it fragments because you start to have fighting. Everybody’s fighting over the story. Like what’s the story? And what it shows is that the story is breaking down. And so now there is this infighting about who’s going to control identity and story. So you can see it that way. But you can also see it in a sympathetic way towards these stories, these multiple stories, which is that in order to create a myth or a story, you have to order things in a certain way. And to do that, you also have to exclude and marginalize certain aspects of society. Because we’re not God. We don’t encompass all things. And so in doing that, you are, it’s like you’re casting out or you’re casting down certain elements of interaction. You are casting roles on certain elements of the story. And some of those are not great. Like some of those are not particularly pleasant. Or some people are in a way do become like the victim of that story because they end up in a marginal spot. And so when you reach the end, it’s like, so when this story now starts to run out of steam, you can also have sympathy for all these competing stories now that want to free themselves from the negative aspect of the story. So it’s like imagine a society where in that society there is a lower caste in that society. And that lower caste is blamed for everything. That lower caste is blamed for all the problems, all the stupidity. And so they’re constantly the butt of the jokes are constantly the ones that are, become the scapegoat for all the behavior. And so that works like it holds the world together. You have a coherent story. You have a scapegoat. You just put all your bad stuff in there and then it like functions. But then when you reach the end of that story, it’s like that scapegoat is still there. And it’s going to come back. Why wouldn’t it come back? It’s going to return and it’s going to return with a scythe. Like it’s going to return with vengeance. So it’s like that’s also one of the things that’s going on in the story right now. And it’s like I’m not even saying one is good or the other is bad. Or like I’m not trying to say that this should happen. I’m just saying it is happening and we have to be able to understand it and be able to see it from all sides. Because I don’t particularly like watching the narrative get completely corrupted and that there’s these parasitic narratives that try to take over the story. But I also kind of I understand why it’s happening. I get it. And so yeah. But I mean I think that there are excesses. And so it’ll become the revenge of the scapegoat. It’s not good. It’s excessive. It’ll create its own scapegoats and it’ll create its own kind of weird narrative. So I’m not saying that I’m not trying to justify anything. I’m just trying to help you hopefully understand what is going on and what is happening right now. you