I'm a terrible history teacher.
Ok maybe not, but I did forget it was MLK day and that as such my career center (my old university as a whole) is off. Go me for waiting till last Friday morning to get my bloody resume in.
On another note, and completely off topic, a certain post had me thinking how I was a nerd as well. No, I wasn't really perplexed or gripping with whether I was or not, my old school illistrated LOTR poster next to the Empire Strikes stand proudly on my wall as if they were some grand diploma from Nerd University. However, I can very easily get very uncomfortable around "nerds".
I don't believe WoW is necessarily a mark of nerddom though, rather like every MMO before it is an easy social outlet of pure entertainment and is thusly addicting if you have significant social ties that pull you into the game (real life friends etc). While it is extremely nerdy, only nerds that play it will know this (references to dune, Zelda, star wars, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Trek: NG, etc etc). It is much more in the realm of FPS rather than real RPG.
I do love to play dynamic well done RTS games, and I used to be one hell of a melee FPS player (I lived and died by quake3-gauntlets and UT shield guns), but what I really would like would be a small scale Co-op game, fantasy or otherwise. The thing that came closest was Systemshock 2 with a coop mod. Nothing is as delightfully nerdy and fun as encouraging someone one room over IRL to go for a power up you know is booby trapped and watch him plummet to his death down an elevator shaft.
WoW did a decent job of this except for a couple factors. Most everything required having exactly five people, having only four people in our RL group this meant for 50 some odd levels we had to recruit terribly incompetant people. Since this is very much a key component of every MMO, that pretty much means if I were to ever get pulled into another I'd better have four people I know I'm going to see there regularly. This is why I vastly prefer RTS games, you know who you're playing with and it's episodic. It is like a console experience except it is a genre of games that can never be played well using anything other than a keyboard and mouse (people who argue that point with me need to lay off the acid).
I am hopeful that consoles can provide the co-op modes I crave, but I do love my mouse and keyboard.
My major was not a nerd major. When I talk CS, Engineering, or any science, I do so on the most superficial of layers unless I've taken a hobby-like interest in one or more aspects. I can ramble for HOURS about history and geography. The problem with this is that human events compose a science that is almost not a science. Things happen, they exist as ascertainable facts, however specific words, actions, and motives are subject to perspective. Perspective from a present day high ground looking down upon history is a terrible thing on so many levels. People who study this must look for accurate accounts and physical evidence. Then most horribly of all they must use present day logic and reasoning to fill in the gaps. I find this almost like knowing the width and length of the grand canyon and then being forced to imagine and describe the area inbetween to minute detail.
Post-modernists believe that we are constantly rewriting history and researching trivial branches. While I find it pleasant that so many people can take the cleverness of post-modernism to ends that the original thinkers would find slightly annoying, they've become their own simulated scholars. History is not being rewritten anymore than it is beginning or ending this day or that.
Like astronomers, historians are benefitted by the advance of technology. Centuries, decades, years and days are given focus through improved lenses. Why people find a revision of history so abhorent I'll never know. Pluto used to be a planet, the earth was flat, and women were supposed to be anatomically incapable of achieving or besting male mental feats.
Why is it important to know history in more accurate, more distinct ways? For the same reason it is good to know the geologic record, evolution, and the human genome. If people don't know where they've been, they won't know where they are going. There are numerous sayings in numerous languages but they all come out the same; people who do not learn from past experiences are doomed to repeat the mistakes. Why else do empires seem to rise and fall? Why do wars-to-end-all-wars seem to cause more wars?
I used to be a person very much ashamed of his passion. History, in my mind, was the most trivial of intellectual delights. Knowing how Alexander influenced Asia Minor, how the Greeks influenced the Romans, how the Romans influenced Europe, how Europe influenced Africa/Americas, and by what events places today find themselves where they are, all that was a subject of interest that would not cure cancer, put a man on mars, or solve starvation. Yet it might actually.
My fallacy was that history was not a worthy thing to know. However, history alone is nearly useless. Hence the reason that the best historian will know another language, will know a bit of science, a bit of philosophy, theology, sociology, psychology, politics, and geography. The body can be the history, but it needs to be a body with limbs.
To be a good historian or a history enthusiast, one most be a cosmopolitan. This, I believe, is also what a good nerd is. I am not saying that WoWfreaks, Trekkies, and PCmoders are bad nerds, on the contrary they are the pure congealed mass of their passions. I'm saying whether I like talking about those things or not, I'm going to feel semi-pathetic/uncomfortable if I do so for more than 30 minutes at a time.
The key there is passion. Think of a nerd. When you talk to them about what they know, what immediately becomes apparent? They know what they are talking about like it is their religion. Nothing gets a nerd more hot blooded than besting them in a game they take pride in, or knowing some detail of their expertise that has left them unaware. That is a bad thing, but it is also the best thing. I would rather be at odds with a passionate nerd than a passionate religious person. I think a society is probably healthiest when its passions take unique and unusual forms for every individual than to have one over driving fanatacism.
On another note, and completely off topic, a certain post had me thinking how I was a nerd as well. No, I wasn't really perplexed or gripping with whether I was or not, my old school illistrated LOTR poster next to the Empire Strikes stand proudly on my wall as if they were some grand diploma from Nerd University. However, I can very easily get very uncomfortable around "nerds".
I don't believe WoW is necessarily a mark of nerddom though, rather like every MMO before it is an easy social outlet of pure entertainment and is thusly addicting if you have significant social ties that pull you into the game (real life friends etc). While it is extremely nerdy, only nerds that play it will know this (references to dune, Zelda, star wars, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Trek: NG, etc etc). It is much more in the realm of FPS rather than real RPG.
I do love to play dynamic well done RTS games, and I used to be one hell of a melee FPS player (I lived and died by quake3-gauntlets and UT shield guns), but what I really would like would be a small scale Co-op game, fantasy or otherwise. The thing that came closest was Systemshock 2 with a coop mod. Nothing is as delightfully nerdy and fun as encouraging someone one room over IRL to go for a power up you know is booby trapped and watch him plummet to his death down an elevator shaft.
WoW did a decent job of this except for a couple factors. Most everything required having exactly five people, having only four people in our RL group this meant for 50 some odd levels we had to recruit terribly incompetant people. Since this is very much a key component of every MMO, that pretty much means if I were to ever get pulled into another I'd better have four people I know I'm going to see there regularly. This is why I vastly prefer RTS games, you know who you're playing with and it's episodic. It is like a console experience except it is a genre of games that can never be played well using anything other than a keyboard and mouse (people who argue that point with me need to lay off the acid).
I am hopeful that consoles can provide the co-op modes I crave, but I do love my mouse and keyboard.
My major was not a nerd major. When I talk CS, Engineering, or any science, I do so on the most superficial of layers unless I've taken a hobby-like interest in one or more aspects. I can ramble for HOURS about history and geography. The problem with this is that human events compose a science that is almost not a science. Things happen, they exist as ascertainable facts, however specific words, actions, and motives are subject to perspective. Perspective from a present day high ground looking down upon history is a terrible thing on so many levels. People who study this must look for accurate accounts and physical evidence. Then most horribly of all they must use present day logic and reasoning to fill in the gaps. I find this almost like knowing the width and length of the grand canyon and then being forced to imagine and describe the area inbetween to minute detail.
Post-modernists believe that we are constantly rewriting history and researching trivial branches. While I find it pleasant that so many people can take the cleverness of post-modernism to ends that the original thinkers would find slightly annoying, they've become their own simulated scholars. History is not being rewritten anymore than it is beginning or ending this day or that.
Like astronomers, historians are benefitted by the advance of technology. Centuries, decades, years and days are given focus through improved lenses. Why people find a revision of history so abhorent I'll never know. Pluto used to be a planet, the earth was flat, and women were supposed to be anatomically incapable of achieving or besting male mental feats.
Why is it important to know history in more accurate, more distinct ways? For the same reason it is good to know the geologic record, evolution, and the human genome. If people don't know where they've been, they won't know where they are going. There are numerous sayings in numerous languages but they all come out the same; people who do not learn from past experiences are doomed to repeat the mistakes. Why else do empires seem to rise and fall? Why do wars-to-end-all-wars seem to cause more wars?
I used to be a person very much ashamed of his passion. History, in my mind, was the most trivial of intellectual delights. Knowing how Alexander influenced Asia Minor, how the Greeks influenced the Romans, how the Romans influenced Europe, how Europe influenced Africa/Americas, and by what events places today find themselves where they are, all that was a subject of interest that would not cure cancer, put a man on mars, or solve starvation. Yet it might actually.
My fallacy was that history was not a worthy thing to know. However, history alone is nearly useless. Hence the reason that the best historian will know another language, will know a bit of science, a bit of philosophy, theology, sociology, psychology, politics, and geography. The body can be the history, but it needs to be a body with limbs.
To be a good historian or a history enthusiast, one most be a cosmopolitan. This, I believe, is also what a good nerd is. I am not saying that WoWfreaks, Trekkies, and PCmoders are bad nerds, on the contrary they are the pure congealed mass of their passions. I'm saying whether I like talking about those things or not, I'm going to feel semi-pathetic/uncomfortable if I do so for more than 30 minutes at a time.
The key there is passion. Think of a nerd. When you talk to them about what they know, what immediately becomes apparent? They know what they are talking about like it is their religion. Nothing gets a nerd more hot blooded than besting them in a game they take pride in, or knowing some detail of their expertise that has left them unaware. That is a bad thing, but it is also the best thing. I would rather be at odds with a passionate nerd than a passionate religious person. I think a society is probably healthiest when its passions take unique and unusual forms for every individual than to have one over driving fanatacism.