Thinking about some of the historical reasons that contributed to Jewish culture evolving quite as it did, i started thinking about how history is taught, what is important, and the political correctness that surrounds it all. cause it was pissing me off another blah blah blah about how my kind does not get enough time on the curriculum. Rest assured, this will be another rant.

IIRC, a lot of why Jews evolved into some of the cultural roles (and stereotypes) they have, particularly in the financial industries, has to do with Catholicism having laws against usury but there still being an economic need for lenders in the marketplace. Jews had to become lenders to find jobs in a society where people did not otherwise support their businesses.

How important is this little bit of knowledge? How wrong is it that children everywhere do not know this, and I only am so knowledgeable thanks to the benefit of special secret hebrew training (during which they grow horns and plot the Zionist takeover)?

In the broad scheme of democracy, and oil kingdoms, and 10 million people in Beijing having their city shut down so the pollution is not broadcast during Olympic telecasts…this tidbit doesn’t mean shit. And it doesn’t bother me that this fact is actual European history and it wasn’t even taught commonly. There is a difference between happened, noteworthy and significant. Jews specialized in banking – that happened. The Battle of Hastings was noteworthy, but did it in itself fundamentally move history forward? Did the Crusades eliminate 1000 years of intellectual stagnation, or did they just uplift a lot of power and re-arrange it into the same paradigm? The French Revolution, however, was significant – a paradigm that had lasted 1000 years was overturned and rearranged.

These tidbits of history roll off my tongue because i was brought up in a euro-centric culture. All but maybe the French Revoluation are, today, small blips and would not make a list of top 50 event in history. And because i know them at the expense of several weeks spent on African history or Chinese history does not necessarily make some other history as significant to me. The perfection of a vase is not as important as the invention of democracy. The mobilization of half a billion farmers into a world superpower is. They should not be taught equally, just as the War of 1812 gets 1 day and WWII gets covered in bloody detail for at least 2 weeks.

I find some flaws in the phrase he who controls the present controls the past. It assumes such a complete Orwellian view of communications. He who controls the present is part of the past, and it makes sense to tell the story this way. Assuming the past can be monolithically erased assumes that people can not act currently for their own well-being, and will allow their future to be controlled. Bitching about not having the curriculum include a food-court of histories proves that this is not the case. It doesn’t mean insignificant details should be given stage time, just that we appreciate your application and a representative will contact you if your skill set meets our future needs. Meanwhile, take that energy and go teach a class or write a book, since no one has erased you for bitching yet.