History is so boring!

[Mercen-X]

Betwixt the eras of the poet and the scribe, there were bards to sing of the whispered rumors among the nations dared not be spoken for their "benefactors" to hear. From lost eras wherein people were so far apart and knowledge could only be spread by word of mouth to now with world-wide-web-interconnectivity, history has been shared in one form or another. How accurate these tales have been comes down to the deliverer's measure of how willing his audience had been to listen. Sometimes, a simple story had to be spiced just a bit. History, sadly, is boring, as it repeats itself again and again. From the birth of a life, to the emotional and physical struggles to maturity, to the eventual death which befalls us all, there is no originality in history. Just look to Christopher Booker's "Seven Basic Plots" (found here: Denis Dutton on The Seven Basic Plots) and you'll also see that there is no originality to the plot of literature either. You can go to tvtropes.org to see that every conceivable twist, turn, tunnel, turbulence, and truism (cliché) has been done over and again.

Strife and chaos rise because someone is unhappy with the present. That someone feels there is something missing from "life," unidentifiable as it may be. Sadly, without strife, there would be no forward momentum. We would be amoeba in a puddle. Some people are satisfied with the security of the familiar. Others desire a threat to their security (albeit subconsciously) so that they can appreciate life's charms.
But by and large, the cycle continues and the waves of the ocean continue outward toward the shore and the stars in the night sky continue ever outward as years pass. Perhaps someday new life will emerge, something we've never seen. But then that lifeform will begin it's own cycle. It will certainly be interesting to watch while it lasts, but as I've said twice or three times so far, history repeats.

[Shlup]

Totally, dude. I hear you.

[Pike]

History, sadly, is boring

[Tigmafuzz]

>thread title


No.

History is awesome and fun to study and how dare you ;_;

[Jiro]

trout's gonna get real in here soon enough. History isn't boring. I mean, I'm not one for dates or anything, but some smurfing wicked stuff has happened back in the day. Did you know that people just up and built smurfing castles? Did you know that people up and built smurfing tanks and then sent them at each other like giant metal death machines? SERIOUSLY even trout like people got in rickety boats and raped and pillaged is good times.

[Laddy]

Mansa Musa, oh how I long to be you~

[Cuchulainn]

learning history is what makes me tick. love that trout. Obviously not all history. Some is boring as hell but human history is amazing

[Sephex]

Aliens.

[Clo]

Nice essay, but I give you a C for purple prose.

Nobody likes that.

[Shorty]

I find American history intensely boring, but history from other cultures fascinate me. I'm especially fixed on Egyptian history.

It's true that history does repeat, but each culture and country repeats it in it's own way and that makes it interesting.

[Shauna]

Nah.

[krissy]

There's just something I want to add:

Betwixt the eras of the poet and the scribe, there were bards to sing of the whispered rumors among the nations dared not be spoken for their "benefactors" to hear. From lost eras wherein people were so far apart and knowledge could only be spread by word of mouth to now with world-wide-web-interconnectivity, history has been shared in one form or another. How accurate these tales have been comes down to the deliverer's measure of how willing his audience had been to listen. Sometimes, a simple story had to be spiced just a bit. History, sadly, is boring, as it repeats itself again and again. From the birth of a life, to the emotional and physical struggles to maturity, to the eventual death which befalls us all, there is no originality in history. Just look to Christopher Booker's "Seven Basic Plots" (found here: Denis Dutton on The Seven Basic Plots) and you'll also see that there is no originality to the plot of literature either. You can go to tvtropes.org to see that every conceivable twist, turn, tunnel, turbulence, and truism (cliché) has been done over and again.

Strife and chaos rise because someone is unhappy with the present. That someone feels there is something missing from "life," unidentifiable as it may be. Sadly, without strife, there would be no forward momentum. We would be amoeba in a puddle. Some people are satisfied with the security of the familiar. Others desire a threat to their security (albeit subconsciously) so that they can appreciate life's charms.
But by and large, the cycle continues and the waves of the ocean continue outward toward the shore and the stars in the night sky continue ever outward as years pass. Perhaps someday new life will emerge, something we've never seen. But then that lifeform will begin it's own cycle. It will certainly be interesting to watch while it lasts, but as I've said twice or three times so far, history repeats.

[Pike]

I find American history intensely boring

Really? I effing love American history. Freaking Revolutionary War (reading a great book on it right now), freaking Civil War, freaking wonderful gilded age and progressive era and shiz.

[Madame Adequate]

I find American history intensely boring, but history from other cultures fascinate me.

It seems to me that a lot of people tend to feel this way about the history of their home country, and I suspect it's because said history is usually - and I use this word loosely - taught in a repetitive and shallow fashion. Yay we're good. Brits learn about what we did in WW2 but we're less enthused to teach people about our perfection of the Concentration Camps during the Boer War. Yanks sure love themselves some "We saved the world like nine times!" but they're less keen on debating Grenada. So you get a few years of that same basic tit over and over and it impresses in a negative fashion, both because it's another boring-ass school subject and because it's always just a big lacking.

But when you really dig into it American history is fascinating. I mean, I'm a huge fan of all history; I devoured Pike's book on WW1 when I was over there, then a book about the history of the vidya, then a book about the Civil War, then when I got back to England went through a book on the history of violence in the media. Now I've just started re-reading Mark Mazower's Dark Continent, which is 20th Century Europe. But Americans have a pretty uniquely breakneck history. Y'all went from being a bunch of upstart colonists on the edge of the world to the paramount military, economic, and political force on the planet in a little over a century and a half. Starting from before the Revolutionary War, through that, the expansion westwards, conflicts with the natives, the Benevolent Empire/Second Great Awakening, the Civil War, the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, the Depression, both World Wars, the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement, the Space Race, Watergate, actually I could really just link you to this for the 20th century.

All this in two centuries. All this in a country that is still trying to figure out the promises it makes to its people and how to deal with the world as it is. It's a breakneck ascent to prominence.

In short, Shorty, you are wrong and American history is great.

[Jiro]

The small amount of history I learnt in school really did turn me off Australian history. The fact that it is utterly disgusting and shameful also helps.