Tag Archives: Historical commentary

Literacy Beats Empire | Literacy II

This video explains one of literacy’s most important effects. I’ve long been puzzled by the “Long Peace” we’ve been experiencing since the end of the second World War. Despite what our media tells us, the world is much more peaceful than it has ever been. There has been very little war between great powers since WWII, and the pace of civil wars has slackened greatly since the end of the Cold War as well. Even more importantly, the great powers have not been able to exploit this period of peace to beat up on everybody else they way they have in the past.

Europe experienced a great period of peace from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 until the Crimean War in the 1850’s. Even that war was a relatively quick, if costly, break in a period of peace stretching up until World War I (1914). During that period of time however, Europe extended over the whole world, crushing indigenous peoples and empires all around the globe. It was peace for Europe, and suffering for everybody else. This time it has been different. This video lays out why Literacy has a lot more to do with this than is currently recognized.

If you’d like to earn my undying gratitude, please click here to support this project through Patreon. Please do reach out to us through Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, or our e-mail newsletter.

Video Transcript after the jump…

Continue reading

How the Reformation Started the Modern World | Literacy I

Everybody’s got a theory on why Europe has done so well over the past couple hundred years. Why were the squabbling peoples of this small peninsula able to humble great empires like China and India’s Mughals? Well, obviously, there are a lot of reasons. And the internet (and the US congress) is awash in some really dumb ones. But I think I’ve got a good candidate that isn’t championed enough which I lay out in this video.

I’m a big fan of Western Civilization. I’m well aware of the downsides, but I’m also pretty impressed with what has been accomplished. But I find the standard story lacking. It’s too reliant on easy answers, and a direct line up from the Middle Ages. In this video I get into the details of the Protestant Reformation, and why it doesn’t match the standard story. The success of Western Civilization has been down to a few acts of genius, but mostly a muddle of unintended consequences, and some horrific mistakes, that ended up turning out pretty well. I think I’m paraphrasing a great David Hume quote there, but I can’t find it at the moment. If you know the quote I’d be grateful if you’d send it my way…

This two video series on literacy may seem to be a departure from my current production, but in many ways it’s an outgrowth of the thousands of comments I’ve answered over the past couple months. My “Everybody’s Lying About Islam” project is an attempt to point out how pointless it is to talk about 1400 year old ideas when we are dealing with the problems of the present day. This quick series deals with the importance of literacy, and why little that happened before mass literacy matters all that much. Let me know what you think!

If you’d like to earn my undying gratitude, please click here to support this project through Patreon. Please do reach out to us through Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, or our e-mail newsletter.

Video Transcript after the jump…

Continue reading