The Super Summary of World History (101 page)

Since the individual notes have no meaning or importance, the message is that the individual has no meaning or importance. Life has no meaning, just as the music, the notes, the vocals, and the performers have no meaning. Finding unity, order, beauty, or harmony in this music is impossible; therefore, finding unity, order, beauty, or harmony in the world is impossible.

Post-modern music and painting depict a world without reason or meaning where the individual is without importance or value; in consequence, the arts say our world is dark, sinister, and filled with chaos. Note the painting “
Vine
” by Brice Marden (Figure 83). In this painting the world is without form or meaning, as the shadows and the substance merge into meaningless lines going nowhere and resulting in chaos. Note that a vine is a living growing entity, normally reaching for the sun and sprouting leaves, but in this painting even the vine cannot discern where the sun is and does not have leaves. The sun is out (note the shadows), but the vine is not reaching for the sun. It is lost and alone. Without leaves the vine is dead and without purpose like modern “life”. (Fortunately, anyone looking at a real vine would see extreme order, beauty, and purposefulness.)

Figure 83 B. Marden, Vine, 1992-1993

This worldview of meaninglessness does have challengers. Classic music survives as the scores to popular films (
Star
Wars,
Superman,
Raiders
of
the
Lost
Ark,
The
Chronicles
of
Narnia
), some of the best attended movies of all time set forth themes of good versus evil where evil is conquered (The
300,
National
Treasure,
The
War
of
the
Worlds,
the
Star
Wars
Trilogy,
the
Passion
of
the
Christ),
and religion has many followers. Still, one must admit the overwhelming popularity of modern music and art tell us that we are under the malevolent influence of World War I, the Depression, World War II, the cold war, and the ever-present danger of atomic annihilation. Cynicism, irrationality, and meaninglessness are the tattoos of modern life, but we also notice the marvels of technology are pointing to a brighter future if our world chooses to embrace it. If one thinks about it, the mere fact that our universe is highly ordered, from the galaxy to the atom, should confirm that life is not just chaos.

Can history tell us to what future the present is heading? Not specifically, but we can make some predictions based on the
assumption
that the
major
trends
of
the
past
will
continue
. By major trends, I do not mean events that have occurred in the past one hundred years, but events with the commonality of repetition that have been recurring for thousands of years.

If we can depend on anything, it will be that
people
will
keep
killing
one
another
. There will be unremitting wars and slaughters of blameless people. Philosophers of hate will continue to attract adherents who will slaughter others who have the audacity to be different. This really is not a prediction; it is only holding up a mirror to the past, seeing what was, and extrapolating it into what will be.

If technological trends continue as they have since the Paleolithic, computers and
technology
will
have
more
and
more
control
over
our
lives
, and every aspect of our existence may soon be in the hands of machines. Medicine is on the verge of defeating death. Is there any doubt that people start aging because something throws the DNA switches in our genes to command our cells to stop producing the stem cells needed to heal and correct deterioration in our bodies? According to
Science
News,
scientists have discovered how to throw certain DNA switches. Once they discover which switches in the DNA code control aging they will be able to throw those switches and stop the aging process. In many ways the future looks bright, but there is always the cloud of human character hanging over humankind. Humans now have the power to destroy the entire planet overnight, and there is no doubt that some people are willing to destroy everything with a smile. Humanity may defeat death, disease, and other human problems with advancing technology, but human nature will remain the same. When it comes to inventing tools humans are unsurpassed. Avoiding our human characteristics for killing, conquest, and control is the problem.

The Hebrew prophets who wrote some three thousand years ago foretold of a future world governed by numbers and occupied by people who lived well past one hundred years of age.
[390]
These prophets predicted that everyone would have to have a number to buy or sell, and they predicted a one world government that would operate this system. Strangely, in the year 2010, we can see the outlines of this world forming. Prior to the advent of computers it was impossible to understand how everyone could be assigned a number and forced to use it to participate in the economy. With computer technology we can understand how easily the near future could contain such an economic system.

Today, it looks like the Hebrew prophets were right about the future world economy and the possibility of defeating death. These same prophets said the world would end in chaos, war, famine, pestilence, and plague. If this proves to be correct, then the world will end as it existed with the only difference being a much-increased degree of chaos, war, famine, pestilence, and plague. This prediction sounds reasonable given our increase in war-making capability. The world must also take note that our planet is a dynamic place where asteroid strikes, volcanic explosions, and changing weather all place humankind in constant jeopardy. There have been mass extinctions in the past, and we would be foolish to assume there will not be others. The Bible seems
[391]
to foretell of a combination of man-made and natural destructive events that will annihilate the world. As far as predictions about the future goes, this is about as good as it gets because it nicely covers what has happened in the past and simply brings the events of the past forward—with a twist thrown in of God’s return to earth. It is interesting to note that many ancient cultures agree that the world will end in terrible violence.

The only way out of this evil termination of the world is to change human nature, and history says this will not happen.
The
one
commonality
in
all
history
is
the
unchanging
qualities
of
human
nature
. No matter where we study the past, we can count on one never changing thread: human nature stays the same. We can read the writings of Marcus Aurelius (121-80 BC) and discover his thoughts were not so different from ours today, in spite of the gulf of two thousand years between his thoughts and ours. Cain killed Abel for no good reason according to the Bible, and everywhere we look people are still killing one another for no good reason. It seems people have been cheating, lying, seducing, raping, murdering, stealing, and conquering—among a host of other ills—since the human race started. If this does not change then the ancient Hebrew prophets will be correct, and we will end up the same way we started out, murdering one another.

Human
nature
is
dogged
by
irrationality
. People murder with increasing gusto, massive amounts of money are spent buying propaganda, pornography, illegal drugs, other fundamentally irrational things, more nations are acquiring nuclear weapons, and people ignore the plight of others. Meanwhile, science, empirical knowledge, new inventions, and new discoveries continue to accelerate and better the human condition. The dual nature of human beings is clear in this divergence. On the one hand, we enjoy magnificent rationality and progress while on the other hand we suffer irrationality striving to undo every advance. No human society has ever overcome the dual nature of humankind. The future may depend on our ability to meet this heretofore-impossible challenge.

A
Final
Thought

Look back over the history that we have covered. From the very start of history to the year 2010, at least one political division has been clear. Governments by dictators, kings, and tyrants who believed the state was everything and the individual was nothing, have been faced down by men who thought the individual was greater than the state, and only by respecting the individual did the government have any right to exist. From Marathon to Inchon and beyond, this has been true. It is still true today, and America is currently the only nation able to face down the tyrants and dictators of the world. America alone holds the future of freedom. If the United States of America fails, that dream of individual liberty fails. If radicals manage to change America by degrading its culture and its government America will fail, and with it individual liberty based on individual rights.

Observe closely what is happening around you. Read history and compare the events of the past to the events of today. Evaluate what the results of failure have been throughout time. Then look around and discern how today’s decisions bring tomorrow’s blessings or curses.
It
is
decisions
that
make
history.
Make
your
decisions in favor of the bright line of liberty for the individual. Uphold the memory of Thermopylae and Trenton. A million ghosts of liberty are looking to you. Learn about the past and then, as you go into the future,
demand
that
the
ancient
dream
of
the
individual
being
greater
than
the
state
remains
alive
and
well.

Your
friend
,

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Online
Sources

Many of our maps and information for commentary came from
THE
UNITED
STATES
MILITARY
ACADEMY
WEST
POINT
history site at:

http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/web03/atlases/AtlasesTable-fContents.html

West Point also publishes a wonderful set of books with attendant maps on World War II, Europe, and the Pacific in separate volumes (one book is text and another is a complete set of maps) and World War I. And the
UNIVERSITY
OF
TEXAS
LIBRARY
Web site at:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical

Wikipedia
can be a wonderful resource for information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk