👍 A philosopher explains how our addiction to stories keeps us from understanding history
historical narratives seduce you into thinking you really understand what’s going on and why things happened, but most of it is guessing people’s motives and their inner thoughts. It allays your curiosity, and you’re satisfied psychologically by the narrative, and it connects the dots so you feel you’re in the shoes of the person whose narrative is being recorded. It has seduced you into a false account, and now you think you understand.
The second part is that it effectively prevents you from going on to try to find the right theory and correct account of events. And the third problem, which is the gravest, is that people use narratives because of their tremendous emotional impact to drive human actions, movements, political parties, religions, ideologies. And many movements, like nationalism and intolerant religions, are driven by narrative and are harmful and dangerous for humanity.
In this talk to design students from Georgetown University, Audrey Watters unpacks a history of educational technology often overlooked. Too often when we talk about EdTech we rush to talk about the computer. The problem with this is that it overlooks so many developments and decisions that led to that point. To explain her point, she discusses the origin of the blackboard. What I found interesting were the pedagogical practices associated with its beginnings. A reminder of how technology is a system. I think that too often we choose narrative and convenience over complexity within such conversations.