Authors: will durant and his wife Ariel Durant, will durant (1885- 198 1), famous American scholars, lifelong philosophy professors, Pulitzer Prize (1968) and Medal of Freedom (1977).
The foundation of society lies not in human ideals, but in human nature. The composition of human nature can rewrite the composition of the country.
Theoretically, it is bound to change, and natural selection has assumed that it will affect physiological and psychological changes.
In Plato's time, the behavior of the Greeks was very similar to that of the French, and that of the Romans was similar to that of the British. Although the lifestyle and tools of life have changed, the motivation and goals remain the same.
Such as action and rest, striving for or giving up.
An individual with pioneering spirit, a "great man" ||| a hero, a "genius", won his position because of the power of shaping history. They are not all the gods mentioned by Carlyle. They grew up in that era, that land. They are not only executors and spokesmen of historical events, but also their products and symbols. If it is not forced by the situation, their new ideas will be outdated and impossible to implement.
Just as Churchill can defeat thousands of troops, just like Napoleon is invincible, just like Pasteur (French chemist), Morse (American inventor), Edison, Ford, Marx and Lenin, all of which are the results of countless reasons and will have endless influence.
A person, no matter how dazzling and knowledgeable, can't know everything in his lifetime, and he can always make wise choices about the customs and habits of his society.
Because these habits and customs are the crystallization of wisdom and experience formed by countless generations in the long history of many centuries.
A young man with strong hormones may ask: Why can't I fully enjoy the freedom to vent my sexual desire?
Conservatives who resist change are as valuable as radicals who propose change, or even more valuable, because deep roots are more important than lush foliage. New ideas should be heard, because some new ideas may be useful. However, it is also true that new ideas must be honed by dissent, opposition and contempt.
Moral norms are different because they constantly adjust themselves to historical and environmental conditions.
If we divide economic history into three stages: hunting period, agricultural period and industrial period, we will find that the moral rules in one stage will be developed and changed in the next.
In the hunting stage, one must always be ready to hunt, fight and kill. When he catches food, he always eats three times as much food as his stomach can digest, because he doesn't know when the next meal will come.
The living conditions at that time depended on the ability to kill people, just like the country now.
Generally speaking, the mortality rate of men was higher than that of women at that time-because men often risked their lives to chase prey. Some men must have several women at the same time, and each man is expected to get a woman pregnant.
Therefore, being aggressive, cruel, greedy and lustful is a great advantage in that era of fighting for survival. It is quite possible that every evil today has been regarded as a quality-a virtue that enables individuals, families or groups to survive.
So diligence becomes more important than courage, rules and frugality are more valuable than force, and peace is more beneficial than war. Chastity is very important for young women, because if they lose their virginity, they may become abandoned wives.
Monogamy is a requirement for a roughly balanced number of men and women. The industrial revolution changed the economic form and upper moral structure of Europeans and Americans.
This process happened slowly at first, and then developed rapidly and widely. Men, women and children leave their hometowns and families, abandon the authoritative community, and go to work as individuals, and their income is also owned by individuals. After economic independence, children are no longer economic assets, marriage is postponed, and premarital chastity becomes more difficult to maintain.
Individualism in industrial society is growing day by day, which makes the authority of father and mother lose its economic foundation. Rebellious young people are no longer restricted by villagers' supervision and can hide their sins among strangers in the city.
The mechanization of economic production puts forward the philosophy of mechanical materialism, and the popularization of education encourages the suspicion of religion. First of all, norms have lost more and more natural support.
The old agricultural norms began to die out.
In our time, as in Socrates and Augustus, war encourages violence and relaxes morality. Divorce, abortion and adultery emerge one after another, and shallow sophists proudly show off pessimism and cynicism.
This is almost a portrayal of European and American cities after World War II.
Share two questions this time. First, the foundation of society lies in human nature: as far as known history is concerned, human behavior has not changed much. The second is cruel and unsafe memory: insecurity is the mother of greed, and memory is cruel-the memory of an era is cruel, even deep into the bone marrow.