Among the plethora of irrelevancy and uselessness that can be mentioned that the subject of history clearly demonstrates day in day out:
http://lewrockwell.com/orig12/velikovsky2.1.1.html
It also can not but help attract cranks of the worst kind
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
I'll send this to my friend who believes in Atlantis.
Wait, I didn't understand what you are saying.
Is that article serious?
@ Whey
That the subject should be declared dead, dead, dead as it has no uses - not only is it worthless, but it also tends to be counterproductive due to crankishness.
@Bert
People really believe in Atlantis?
To me it seemed like it might have been a joke article. At least I hope it was.
I don't think it is. Velikovsky is a famous crank - and given LRC's record of promoting alternatives, I don't treat it as a joke. I wish it would get off the survivalist, creationist, alterna medicine, etc bus..but whatever.
More to the point: I think the whole promotion of a concern for history/ history revisionism is not a good option. It is as poor an intellectual option (and along the same boat) as neo-leftist deconstruction. Which in itself is somewhat of a problem, as neo-leftists are nothing more than people trying to back door the humanities to the top dog of the subsidy / social hierarchy table - as that is their (semi-worthless) comparative advantage in life. No reason to play any game they're good at that we don't have to play, we can just ignore them and let life continue on.
I think the correct way to go about this (and well within the liberal tradition) is to just take history off the table as anything serious to consider about anything.
Interestingly enough, when any one of these over ponderous intellectual cranks start going on about "the ages of history","spirit of the times", etc, etc and than notices how we will progress to an "end of history" - we can actually kind of agree.
We can say the "spirit of egoism/ capitalism/ daily life /or whatever" puts an "end to history" by simply ignoring it and moving on asserting our own will regardless of how what came about - which is what we all do anyway, no matter how many clever words or psychologisms one of these dolts wishes to throw forth.
So the "end of history" comes by you simply ignoring it and living out your day.
Well, the current framework of government is largely motivated on incorrect history, so setting the record straight is important (think Gilded Age, Standard Oil, AT&T, Sinclair)
I have a friend who's die hard into that stuff. Atlantis, ancient aliens from other dimensions, stuff from Michael Tsarion and Edgar Cayce, etc. She can make a convincing argument, but then I must come back to an objective reality.
I hope she's not a libertarian.
@Wheylous
People believe all kinds of wacky things - trust me even more outre ideas are not going to give liberterianism a more wacky image than it already has. And once again, if you think liberterians in general usually have "normal and scientific" views read LRC for a month.
Hey douchebag, how is it that we advance knowledge again?
Let me clarify:
If you think I was doing some type of character assasination on all of LRC, you are wrong. I was just pointing out it offers some very left of center views on things- which I am pretty ure it admitts to doing. I didn't mean for it to come out all that harsh sounding. If anything, I was kind of sort of implying tol Wheylous not to be so judgmental of other people who espouse his political position.
If that was the reason you decided to call me a name, sorry for the miscommunication. If it is for any other rason, I don't know why in the world you would expect me to do anything other than ignore you from here on out.
You didn't answer his question...
Frankly, that article was ten times better than anything I've ever seen from David Kramer or the History Channel.
Atlantis was on the Sunda Shelf!
Interesting underwater stuff
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