[This is a delightful thing to wake up to. All things considered, though, he's heard worse. At least there's an implicit thesis statement here and not just pointless rambling.]
[Oh, well. He sighs and leans back a little. Better this than talking about Pretty Woman for the seventy-first time.]
Humanity is consistent through time, as is human society. Curiosity leads to great scientific and artistic accomplishments, but also to the exploration of the morbid and horrifying.
Still, you're only discussing half of the issue, don't you think? Like walking around with one eye closed. Certainly people did horrible things back then, and still do, and some of them did those things because they wanted to — because nothing made them happier than other people's misery. But plenty of others did horrible things because they had no choice. Economic unrest and instability have a tendency to choke the lower classes, squeezing the joy and the life out of them until they seek excitement in the only ways they know how. Sometimes those ways are simple schadenfreude.
And yet even from the most basic functions of humanity come great discoveries. For example: I'm sure you've heard of Étienne-Jules Marey? A Frenchman. He perfected — some say invented — the technique of chronophotography, the predecessor of film technology. Which you're using right now to describe how human nature is inherently vulgar and base, and yet in 1882 Marey was hard at work inventing a tool you surely use every day.
I hope you're not comparing yourself to a car crash.
un: attar
[Oh, well. He sighs and leans back a little. Better this than talking about Pretty Woman for the seventy-first time.]
Humanity is consistent through time, as is human society. Curiosity leads to great scientific and artistic accomplishments, but also to the exploration of the morbid and horrifying.
Still, you're only discussing half of the issue, don't you think? Like walking around with one eye closed. Certainly people did horrible things back then, and still do, and some of them did those things because they wanted to — because nothing made them happier than other people's misery. But plenty of others did horrible things because they had no choice. Economic unrest and instability have a tendency to choke the lower classes, squeezing the joy and the life out of them until they seek excitement in the only ways they know how. Sometimes those ways are simple schadenfreude.
And yet even from the most basic functions of humanity come great discoveries. For example: I'm sure you've heard of Étienne-Jules Marey? A Frenchman. He perfected — some say invented — the technique of chronophotography, the predecessor of film technology. Which you're using right now to describe how human nature is inherently vulgar and base, and yet in 1882 Marey was hard at work inventing a tool you surely use every day.
I hope you're not comparing yourself to a car crash.