[matthewowen]

It’s tempting to think that if you just look and think hard enough you can find perfect analogs between the past and the present. But when you do that, you don’t engage with the past on it’s own terms and your understanding of it is fundamentally weakened. It’s best not to do that.

[pc86]

I don't think either of the two "sounds like ..." comments above are interested in any sort of understanding about the past (or present), fundamental or otherwise. It sounds like they're more interested in making cheap political / social commentary.

[coldtea]

I think that this comment is not interested in any sort of understanding the parent comments, fundamental or otherwise. It sounds like it's more interested in scoring cheap putdown points and signalling superiority.

I'm also uncertain of what, aside from relevance, makes political/social commentary "cheap" as opposed to "expensive", or why the latter would be more desirable.

Perhaps it's based on a misguided idea that commentary must be tied in scholarship to be worthy of utterance (and that such "expensive" commentary is not just a ritualized and impotent form of social commentary). Or that history moves because of such "expensive" commentary, as opposed because of the "cheap" opinions and actions of puny laymen.

[bobboies]

Sounds like you’re speculating…

To be honest I skim the article don’t have time to read a whole history book on Ancient Roman law—but I’m definitely interested in Ancient Rome.

But I mean this is hacker news if you want history news go somewhere else.

[forgetfulness]

It's _hard_ not to take for granted the way our own societies functions. I know I'm treading a touchy issue here, but West/Westernized societies have failed to wrap their heads around Afghanistan repeatedly and engage with Afghans, because Afghanistan simply not a nation-state like the ones they are organized around.

It's not, it never was, and I don't mean to say that by that they're in a "prior" stage of development than how our societies have turned out, because these processes aren't linear, but a couple of centuries ago no polity or region was a nation-state, including the ones we live in, and despite the relative recency of that we can't understand how a "country" may not be what we imagine a country to be like, when presented with an example right now.

[tivert]

As they say, the past is another country, and I'd say the past of an ancient, foreign culture is doubly-foreign.

Human cultures can be very different and alien, which is especially hard to really wrap your head around when you've only experienced your own WEIRD one.

[coldtea]

What you describe as desirable is a form of analysis paralysis.

Engaging to the past "on it’s own terms" is noble.

But refusing or failing to find patterns and analogies (lest they not be "perfect"), and to engage with the past as a store of experience to learn from, and leverage the past to inform your understanding of the present, renders the whole point of studying the past a moot endeavor.

[ffhhttt]

Yes but a quite often when you don’t actually understand what you’re looking at those patterns and analogies end up being imaginary.

[coldtea]

I think a much larger problem is that most people are not looking at the past at all, and know very little about it except what they've seen in some movie or, at best, some documentary. Rather than people making distorted analogies based on a less than functional understanding of it.

[ETH_start]

Analogy can be a powerful aid in learning.