Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Hegelian Theory of History

Event 1. John, strongest kid in class, doesn't tie is shoes. + Event 2. John picks on a group of kids, bullying them.

Event 3. John chases the kids, but slips out of his shoe.


Event 1. John sprains his ankle. + Event 2. John gets jumped on the way home from school.

Event 3. John falls to the ground and is in pain.


Event 1. John is left alone with no help. + Event 2. John's mom comes and helps him home.

Event 3. John is at home suffering with a sprained ankle.


Notes on Types of History

Linear History - A timeline

it tends to be the way we think of history and the way textbooks present history.

Cyclic History - theory which says that the major forces that motivate human actions return in a cycle.

If you are born and you die, and are born, which came first in cyclic history? Neither. You keep being born and reborn.

Hegel History - Hegel wrote the Philosophy of History and sets up a view very different than linear or cyclic history.

Hegelian Theory of History

These + Antithesis = Synthesis

Event 1. John, strongest kid in class, doesn't tie is shoes. + Event 2. John picks on a group of kids, bullying them.

Event 3. John chases the kids, but slips out of his shoe.

Event 1. John sprains his ankle. + Event 2. John gets jumped on the way home from school.

Event 3. John falls to the ground and is in pain.

Event 1. John is left alone with no help. + Event 2. John's mom comes and helps him home.

Event 3. John is at home suffering with a sprained ankle.

HW: On our blog, from the example we started using, continue the story and add a third event then two more.

Vortex/Vortextual History - Yeats was an Irish poet.

[Gyer or tornado works from going big to going small.]

Yeats thought that history was like a gyer with a mirror.

He thought events go big, and then go small.

The events are always changing and never the same.