Yes, this.

I find it amazing every day how few people appreciate context.

Many people assume actions and interpretations are always correct or incorrect, but rarely is this really the case. A recent example is the fundamentalists who believe that government should never regulate markets, and the fundamentalists who believe strict regulation is always appropriate.

The point is larger than that, though. This lack of appreciation for context pervades modern viewpoints and understandings.

And when you look back to the past with your eyes from the present, you can see things that eyes then never could have.

One of my favorite phrases, one that I use often is, “The past is another country.” I use it and think about it so frequently because the ineffable strangeness of the past is something that is really difficult to grasp, perhaps because all of your life and mine were lived in some part of that past.

Still though, really, truly, understanding the mindset and weltanschauung of a 12th-century Mongol or 5th-century Polynesian is in my opinion impossible. Not hard — impossible. There is no emulation layer to get you from here to there.

I could write a book about that blog post, but I think I’ll stop for now.

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