Driving History
Happy Monday everyone! Can you believe that school starts in about five weeks!?! I am not sure what emoji to add there. On the bright side we still have about half of the summer left!
Today I wanted to share a clip with you that was shared with me in one of my master's classes. It is a clip titled "Why Man Creates" by Saul Bass. This cartoon tries to encapsulate the 10,000 years of world history into a four minute clip. Not an easy task. But this clip is successful in pursuing a question, why does man create? Watch the following clip using the link below:
Why Man Creates
What do you believe is the driving force behind history? Why do we "do what we do?" Is it money, conflict, love, the desire to better ourselves, or something else? What force do you believe drives history?
Today I wanted to share a clip with you that was shared with me in one of my master's classes. It is a clip titled "Why Man Creates" by Saul Bass. This cartoon tries to encapsulate the 10,000 years of world history into a four minute clip. Not an easy task. But this clip is successful in pursuing a question, why does man create? Watch the following clip using the link below:
Why Man Creates
What do you believe is the driving force behind history? Why do we "do what we do?" Is it money, conflict, love, the desire to better ourselves, or something else? What force do you believe drives history?
I believe the driving force behind history is man wanting to grow and prosper. People do what they do for power and control in my opinion. For example certain civilizations declare war, trade, worship and create inventions because it is usually in the best interest of their people, they want to grow and live more beneficial lives. However if all civilizations want the same thing or disagree with each other, then there will be setbacks and conflicts, which is why history repeats itself with the fall of certain cultures and nations.
ReplyDeleteTrue, you raise an interesting point about conflict. Is it possible for everyone to want more? If someone gets more does someone else in the world get less? A lot of political analysts out there are saying that our next major war won't be fought for oil, it will be fought over fresh water!
ReplyDeleteOver thousands of years history has became better, but with today's people I feel that they are selfish and want it all to them selves. This is why I think people want is money, all money. if money falls in the wrong hands, what can we do? War? No that will pull more money out of our pockets. For example raising minimum wages to $15? Well if that happens everything will be price much more. Money is power.
ReplyDeleteI like the example you used of minimum wage. I think that is a definite example of a driving force of change. I mean it seems like wages have been a focal point of class conflict ever since the Industrial Revolution... Maybe longer. Interesting!
ReplyDeleteI believe human nature is what drives history. Although there are a lot of good humans out there, the reason why everything has happened in history, be that the rise of a civilization or the fall, inventions, religion, money, etc, all come from humans trying to be better than someone else or even be better than them self in the past. Every one wants the next best thing and that leads to humans wanting power. The desire for power is what most history has come from.
ReplyDeleteA driving force behind history is change, but more specifically, improving upon each change. Revolutions occur because people want to improve their previous form of government. Inventions and innovations seek to refine the human experience. Adults go back to school to get more education to improve their credentials, get a higher paying job, and make more money so they can better their quality of life. We're not always thinking of others when we're seeking to improve (for example, slavery), but I believe that's a driving force. We're always looking for something more.
ReplyDeleteThe driving force behind history is survival and competition. Since the beginning when they hunted just to keep from starving to present day when we try to be better than other people. Survival was originally having food and a shelter, then it became competing for those basic needs against others. Competition forced people to better themselves through education and technology. The bottom line is if you were inferior to your neighbor then there was no guarantee that you would survive. So over the course of history education, weapons, technology, and everyday items were improved to beat the competition.
ReplyDeleteHistory is driven by many different things, but the one that stands out the most is to better ourselves. We are constantly finding inventing things that make our lives easier. The new smartphones can act like a computer, IPOD, and phone all in one. We have machines to do what humans used to do. As a society, we seem to try and make everything better and easier for our selves. That is what drives our progress.
ReplyDeleteHistory is driven by people pushing to better the lives around us. In early civilizations, everything that was invented had somehow made their life easier, same as inventions today. I'm watching my dad fold laundry right now and it is making me think of how awful laundry would be if we didn't have a washer and dryer. Instead of taking hours to hand wash and hang dry clothes, we can throw clothes in the washer, leave, and come back later to change it out. History has been driven by the force to make our lives easier and more successful.
ReplyDeleteReally interesting point. And what amazes me about it all is that is no matter how productive and efficient we become, we are busier despite these time saving inventions. In 1930, John Keynes (Keynsian Economics) hypothesized that his grandchildren would only have to work about 15 hours a week due to our increased efficiency. In most recent studies, it is estimated that Americans work about 50 hours per week. We are busy busy people.
DeleteI think the main driving forces behind history are money and the desire to always want to one up each other. Money has been a class conflict for many years now and I think it will continue to be a driving force for many more years. We are also constantly comparing ourselves to other nations and if we see that they have cooler gadgets or a better education than us, then the competing nation will do everything in its power to out do the other nation. We're always looking for ways to be better than another nation and have more money than any other nation.
ReplyDeleteReligion and Ideology, in my opinion, are the major driving forces behind history. Different societies will always have either different ideologies or religions, and this simple differences makes it hard for people to see eye to eye. Just look now at the sunni and shiite, almost the exact same religion with only a few variations. Yet, the current situation in Iraq is a result of the religious and ideology difference of the two. But that still is only one example of how religion and ideology insight a driving force behind history. My arm is killing me so i am done.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, everyone throughout history and still today want to create the "new big thing". Who knows if it's for their 15 minutes of fame, the money or just to better the community. Just depend on the person i guess. Anyways, one example on this would be the cellphone. It started out HUGE and then people got the idea; why not make it smaller? So after all the different companies trying to out sell each other and create the next cell phone that was better than the last they got to a tiny square cellphone and now androids are like small computers but very large for a cellphone. Its all just for recognition and the satisfaction for themselves. Now a days i think corporations make new and different things for the money and expansion and not to better the world or their community.
ReplyDeleteI think the people are the driving force in our history because things wouldn't be the way they are now if it weren't for people. I think that we still "do what we do" because it's all we know now and until there is change of something new comes everything will remain the same. We are driven by being better or having the best so anything really drives us. If there is something new out there people want it like cars, money, jobs. There is no force it's just us. We make change. We make things happen whether by accident on purpose. We evolve by creating and thats what force drives our history.
ReplyDelete