if we take the long view of ism’s and ideologies,
then we understand that the ism’s and ideologies of
say, Napoleon, weren’t all that different from the ism’s
and ideologies of Julius Caesar… in fact, the world of
Napoleon wasn’t all that different from the world of
Julius Caesar… it would have been recognizable to
Caesar… so from 44 B.C, Caesar to 1800 A.D. the world
in western Europe was still basically understandable by both…
for example, in travel, you got around by horse or carriage, in
both… in France in 1794, they removed the monarchy,
that is something very understandable to Caesar… you
had large cities with a large lower class, Paris in one, Rome in
another… no real difference there…technology wasn’t all that
different from one to another… it would still been understandable to
Caesar…the underlying principles of the world of 1800 was Roman…
the law and philosophy and engineering were all principles that the
Romans would have understood easily… it wasn’t that much of a different
world from 44 B.C to 1800 A.D. but the world in the last 217 years has changed
far more then the previous 2000 years put together…new experiences and
new knowledge has changed the world in such a dramatic way, that the world
is a much different place compared to 1800…whereas it would have been
relatively easy for Caesar to understand the Napoleonic world, it would
have been dam near impossible for Caesar or even Napoleon to understand the
modern world with all the changes in the last 217 years…one of the
events that truly changed the world was the Industrial revolution…
That has transformed the world (and not necessarily a good way) to the
world that we see the world today…in fact, you cannot explain the
world today without explaining the Industrial Revolution…and that
is something that would have been foreign to both Caesar and Napoleon…
(England was far ahead of France in the industrial revolution in 1800)
the ism’s and ideologies that would have supported both Caesar and
Napoleon were substantially the same because of the long line of
traditional thoughts and attitudes were, roughly, the same in both…
but the new thoughts and new experiences of the last 217 years
have so changed the landscape in every way, shape and form,
that unlike Caesar and Napoleon who had things in common, we
don’t have any real commonality with either…our world would
not be understandable by either one…this is an example of
how traditional thoughts and attitudes have been changed by
new experiences and new knowledge…this conflict between
the old and new was played out in the 20th century in
the many wars and conflicts that existed in that century…
you could say, that the 20th was the conflict between the old traditional
thoughts and attitudes and the new experiences and new knowledge…
and for better or worse, the two didn’t really settle anything for we still
have that conflict raging today…and I suspect that the reason for
this conflict is that we still haven’t created a philosophy, ism or ideology,
that allows us to place into context the new experiences and new knowledge…
the failure of philosophy to adapt and change to the new experiences and
new knowledge has contributed to the conflict we see today between the old
and the new…until a philosophy can be found/discovered/created that
can account for the new reality we find ourselves in, a reality that is
chaotic and random and unpredictable and we must create a philosophy
that can account for the chaos and randomness and unpredictability, we
know exist from science and from life…a philosophy that accounts for
the new experiences and new knowledge we had have since 1800 or the
last 217 years…
Kropotkin