History teaches us of the many great things mankind has achieved but can also show us the big mistakes made over and over again in time.
Depending on how you were taught it in school you most likely either love it or hate it and that has a lot to do with how it was presented and what way you engage with the past. This video by ‘The School of Life‘ gives a good intro to ‘History’ as a subject and the problems in the way it is taught.
Through time many things change including consensus over certain topics and behaviours which brought us to discussing if moral behaviours committed by people in the past should be judged by today’s standards. We listened to some extracts of BBC Radio 4’s programme ‘The Philosopher’s Arms’, originally aired in 2013 and available online via BBC Sound.
During the discussions, the participants shared a lot of interesting suggestions on things to read about connected to the topic. We listed some of them here:
Books:
- “Enlightenment Now” by Steven Pinker
- “Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.” by Bertolt Brecht
- ”Årstafruns dagbok” a dairy by Mrs Märta Helena Renstierna
- “The World of Yesterday” by Stefan Zweig
Originally the event was scheduled to last approximately an hour but ended up lasting almost two hours. We sent out a survey to all the participants to get their feedback and see what can be done to improve the format before our next event which we expect will take place towards the end of July / beginning of August. More info coming soon!
Our first digital cultural café was presented by Alexander Maxia and Tove Ljung from Base10 startup hub in Uppsala. It took place on Thursday, July 2nd and people joined from four different countries. More events will follow, keep following us on social media and sign up to our mailing list here!
Big thanks to Jason Dainter, CEO of Base10 for kindly lending us the space to broadcast; Joakim Fichtel from Almi Uppsala for the support and advice leading up to the event and James Maxia for additional research into the topic presented.