Our period in history

From 2020worldpeace

This thought experiment requires some background knowledge. Use wikipedia to inform yourself about the Chinese Revolution in the middle of the 20th Century, the Russian Revolution in the early 20th Century, The Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century, the Enlightenment in the 18th Century, the Renaissance in the 16th Century, the Islamic Golden Period peaking in the 10th and 11th Centuries, the Romans around the 1st Century, and the Greeks in the 5th Century BC. You do not need to have a deep knowledge of all these periods. It is sufficient to have some understanding of one, and by extrapolation, a sensitivity to the others.

What characterises these periods is the rate of change of social transformation. Social transformation may be brought about directly politically such as the civic rights of Athenians for example in Ancient Greece, or as a consequence of philosophy such as with the Enlightenment period in Europe, or from technology such as with the Industrial Revolution. The exact causes and effects do not concern us here -- let us leave that to the academics. What may interest us is to consider the awareness of individuals during these periods.

Were the Greeks aware of the momentous nature of their new-found social cohesion? How many people were aware of the Islamic Renaissance? While living in Italy, how many were aware of the European Renaissance?

These are interesting questions, to be sure. However, of more interest, is our imaginative leap to be able to immerse ourselves in such a period and imagine what it would have been like to an enlightened fellow, someone who for one reason or another, was sensitive to the great moment of his/her time.

Consider now the factors which define out period in history.

uniquely now

You may wish to view the concept-nodes Tortoise Minuet and the Time-lines if you are interested in pursuing this idea, or visit the basic idea first.