Why was male history always looking backwards?
Thank God We Got Rid of the Men; A Story of Restoration for SpaceShip Earth
#16 of a series of pieces from a text in progress. Publisher inquiries welcome.
INDENT
We were making the future, he said, and hardly any of us troubled to imagine what future we were making ~ H.G. Wells, “When The Sleeper Wakes” (1899)
END IN
Consider how in history of the 1700s-2000s, men were so proud of:
- Warfare and World Wars,
- Who killed who, and when and how many?
- Their many Frankenstein monster science creations.
Consider how under male leadership, 1820–2020 warfare was viewed as a solution to problems.
Consider how in the 2030s, on a self-contained SpaceShip Earth with limited resources, warfare was viewed 100% as a problem, a disease brought on by lack of K-12 education in Best Practices in interpersonal competency; and, healthy group process.
Male pride in his achievements in warfare were ashes in the mouth of women in the 2030s; and, to the whole-brained movement in psychology after 2070.
As former enablers of bad male behavior, women had some grief when they realized how little of past male history, as it had been taught by men, was relevant and useful to our future.
Where men preferred mindless regurgitation of past historical facts; whoever can memorize the most facts, wins. History as an empty game of Trivial Pursuit, played competitively among males un-engaged in what could be done locally to make the entire world more wonderful.
Women preferred integration and independent thinking about the historical past; and then, saw the greatest need to apply insights learned to where we are going.
Looking back on male history, a score of insightful biographies aside, it seemed males were mostly incapable of writing history as if “making Earth more wonderful” mattered.
Men could take pictures of Earth from space. Do something about Earth’s wellbeing as a whole? Redeem, repair obvious damage? Not a thing. There was too little profit in it.
In the 2030s urgency did not exist for more-accurately-described historical soap operas. Urgency was on NOT REPEATING THE ERRORS OF 1820–2020.
As taught by men, history had been overwhelmingly all about men, virtually HIS-STORY. Just try to find a history book on the history of the natural environment, 1820–2020. Just try to find a workable college text on the history of:
- air pollution
- water pollution
- soil degradation
in the period 1820–2020. Except for Silent Spring (1962), no objective college level texts existed before 2006. By 2017 you could count the good titles on one hand.
In 2030, gearing up to re-make history books and history teaching, women asked each other, why were men teaching the future pilots of Spaceship Earth, about the lives of old dead men, who disrespected and/or trashed every Public Commons? Very little of male his-story was relevant as an Operating Manual for SpaceShip Earth.
How can you train crew members for SpaceShip Earth without any history of the Ship and what proved workable and un-workable in the past?
SIDEBAR ~ The Lorax (1971) by Dr. Suess
User review by Alyssa Miller, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorites!
I read this book several times to my class of 5th graders every year- because I feel like it really speaks a lot about life. I work in a Title I school. Myself and my fellow teachers really focus on getting all of our students to succeed- via whatever path they choose, after high school.
Many of our children had never been out of the county before this year, when we took them on a field trip across the state to a zoo.
I feel the message of the Lorax not only encourages them, it also kind of gives them a heads up of the reality of “later life”. Sometimes you aren’t on top of the world, and you do get lost, and you do have to keep going to try to get out of your rut. And you don’t want to be caught with the people who are just “waiting around” Be proactive and do something about the problems you see around you.
I save up all year and purchase each of my students a copy of The Lorax. Inside I write a note to them individually, so that they know they have someone who is in their corner, really pushing for them.
This being said, I also read this to my own small children- because they just really enjoy the story, and all of the pictures.
117 people found this helpful
Think the above is an usual response? Go to Amazon, read the next 20 top user reviews. Many people doing this.
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Consequently, core college humanities curricula included required courses in:
- the history of agriculture from 5000 B.C. to present as core curriculum for all college graduates,
- the history of humankind’s stewardship of natural resources on Planet Earth,
- Political history of Public Commons.
Further indictments of his-story as it was
Women looking at his-story found it:
- Increasingly irrelevant to getting or keeping a good paying job,
- Outright toxic, King of the Hill, Game of Thrones stories, one minority dominating all the others,
- Outdated in light of Goethean Holistic Science, The Three Sciences We Use Every Day.
A new history paradigm had to be composed. The most urgent task of humankind? Redeeming SpaceShip Earth from dreadful male dystopias 1820–2020.
New history had to be much more functional and workable as an Operating Manual for SpaceShip Earth. It had to:
- Lead learners to the values of appreciating our ecosystems,
- Highlight the give and take between humankind and our ecosystems,
- Honor and encourage workable stewardship of every Public Commons.
By 2040, the new history, now matured somewhat, reflected these new priorities.
SIDEBAR ~ Why male history obsessed on looking backwards
In the olden days of male-dominated his-story, 1750–2028, what men thought was meaningful was:
- What men had done before,
- What had been learned which was workable,
- What useful legal precedents existed,
- How past was prologue for what came next in historical sequence.
Consciously or not, given these goals, male history became increasingly academic and backward-looking.
Historians did not exist in pre-history There was only chanting and songs, most of it devotional and spiritual-religious in nature. When history began 99.999% of all historians were male.
What locked in the habit of look backwards was Scholasticism
INDENT
Scholasticism is a method of critical thought. It dominated teaching by academics (“scholastics”, or “schoolmen”) of medieval universities in Europe, from about 1100 to 1700. It was also a program of employing a method for articulating and defending dogma, in an increasingly diverse present day context.
Scholasticism grew out of and was a departure from Christian theology, within monastic schools at the earliest European universities.[1] The rise of scholasticism was closely associated with the rise of the 12th and 13th century schools which developed into the earliest modern universities, in Italy, France, Spain and England.[2] … ~ Wikipedia
END IN
The backward-looking nature of male history is also tied up in now-academic issues of the Dark Ages and medieval world looking back to, honoring and then imitating the perceived former glory of classical Greece and Rome.
History conceived as looking backward was further institutionalized after WW I. Before WW I there was more open-mindedness about the future, how to make it better for the 99%. After WW I, future social systems more and more recycled past systems of monarchy into oligarchy and dictatorships, monarchy in new disguises. In the realm of values, mercantilism, colonialism, the profit motive, took up all available oxygen.
In this way history became like driving a car by looking only in the rear-view mirrors. No wonder men were so prone to running into unanticipated obstacles. They were looking back, not forward. Too many men were worshipping the past, turning a blind eye, giving too little attention to, the future — except for profit and material gain.
The 1930s New Deal era; and, 1946–1953 were two of very few bright spots in recent centuries — until the women took over.
-=+ -=+ -=+
Women’s history was, “What shall we become?”
Women were more interested in the future, how it could be more fair, equitable and engaging for the 99%.
Female psychologists had become more focussed on “what works?” and “which methods are most cost-effective for this client?” Similarly women historians increasingly focussed on practicality, “What history do our children need to create a better future for the whole of SpaceShip Earth?”
Not obsessed with being on top
Women have less drive to “be on top,” no obsession about being on top. For women, past history certainly has lessons we want to learn from. Yet our past should not overshadow where our attention should mainly be, on our future, where we are going, making the world more wonderful for the majority, as much as this is possible. “How will the next generation of young adults navigate SpaceShip Earth to safe harbors?” This was the primary task; all other tasks were secondary.
To women historians fell the task of composing a positive history curricula for new learners. They asked each other, “How do we revise history away from a male competition to the story of changing planetary needs and what repair and stewardship needs are most pressing now?”
This became known as, “transforming his-story into HER-story.” The was the slogan energizing women historians and the title of scores of summer conferences worldwide.
Gearing up their courage, to remake both history and psychology in the 2030s, the project was so big, crowd-sourcing was the most elegant way to start.
Learning becomes exciting and interesting again
A great deal of re-making of his-story into HER-story occurred in scores of summer conferences worldwide. For those familiar with Waldorf teacher conferences in the 1980–1990s, these were similar, exciting opportunities to learn and contribute to a new field, a new history intending to uplift anyone willing to learn.
Starting in 2024–2025, new progressive ideas entered and spread thru summer conferences, attended 85% by women. Why here? No filtering from conservative, Regressive, and “fair and balanced” mass media. Women felt, saw, and heard each other’s passions and new ideas.
Never had women felt so free and unimpeded from corrective man-splaining, excusing accountability, and other distracting nonsense.
Filmed historical dramas in the classroom
In the 2020s, Women In Congress had accepted an inconvenient truth. Most TV and movie presentations of history, if not strictly documentary, were not much useful as history teaching.
Many filmed historical dramas were terrific for teaching media literacy. In high school and college level history classes, history teachers divided a class into two teams. Then they watched a segment of any of a score of 1950s “sword and sandal” costume dramas. Each team tried to uncover and articulate as many historical inaccuracies as possible. The teach uncovering the most historical inaccuracies, wins.
For reasons explained shortly, after 2025 low-quality, low-human-values, filmed historical dramas for TV and movies receded into the rearview mirror.
History as art
HER-story historians did revere:
- Steven Pressfield’s historical novel, Gates of Fire (1998),
- John Adams TV miniseries (2008), adapted from David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, produced by Tom Hanks. These works of art illumined not only WHAT and WHO but the VALUES and HUMAN SPIRIT behind historical happenstance,
Other books and films were added to this list as worthy examples were uncovered.
He who does not know their own history, is doomed to repeat it?
This is how HER-story was criticized by regressive historians. Their bottom line was. “You can’t simply toss out male history on the trash heap.”
It took women several years to formulate a coherent response with consensus behind it. “Oh yes we can. Males only gave lip-service to this wisdom. Males kept repeating the errors of the past, again and again. The used past history as their excuse for repeating past male insults to the 99% and to SpaceShip Earth. No more.”
A clean break in how history was taught was called for. History had to focus on past events RELEVANT and USEFUL TO workable futures for the 99%.
Looking back from 2120, with men out of the Game of Culture for several decades, K-college history teaching gravitated towards stories supporting women’s values of connection, cooperation, collaboration, learning and growth in new directions. This was new and welcomed by college learners.
In this history was transformed away from an inevitable death march towards zombie apocalypse — and towards — the romance of learning, on all levels.
In the worst days of college education, it was too much like World War I, where the best and the brightest were sent off to die in un-winable trench warfare. The modern version was the best and the brightest, men and women, sent off to die a soul death in wars for profit, shareholder dividends, extract-exploit schemes, and creating better, more profitable Frankenstein monsters, thru chemistry and science.
dg-1939 “Better Things for Better Living…Through Chemistry”.
From history to psychology
What surprised many involved in re-making history was how much of what they thought of as “history” was much easier to change when framed as “psychology.” In this way women “outed” how the genius of Psyche had been discounted, obscured, ignored and downplayed so men’s Frankenstein accomplishments could shine more brightly.
In the next piece, we’ll be shifting gears towards how the women changed mainstream psychology — because This Changes Everything.
