The Lessons of History by Will & Ariel Durant
Three Point Summary | Notes on big ideas from intriguing books
Jeff Sullivan’s Three Pointers
Will Durant was an American writer and historian. He and his wife Ariel Durant wrote an 11-volume series called The Story of Civilization. As a result of their work, they were jointly awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty-four hours and too little on the last six thousand years.
Will Durant
I. Biology and History
Understanding the primal aspects of our nature is the key to understanding the world. To do so, Durant gives us the 3 biological lessons of history.
The first biological lesson of history is that life is competition.
Competition is the essence of life. Every organism is competing with other organisms to acquire food & resources for itself and its loved ones.
Modern humans have developed complex ways of competing. But the underlying motivations are the same. People seek wealth & status to increase their chances of progress and survival.
Individuals compete as well as groups. As Durant notes “we co-operate in our group—our family community, club, church, party, “race” or nation—in order to strengthen our group in its competition with other groups.” Life is competition.
The second biological lesson of history is that life is selection.
Durant makes the observation that “in the competition for food or mates or power some organisms succeed and some fail. In the struggle for existence some individuals are better equipped than others to meet the tests of survival.” Not all organisms are equal.
In certain skills and intelligence all people differ. It is for this reason Durant also wrote that “freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free, and their natural inequalities will multiply.”
Romantic/sexual relationships are a prime example. Males compete for the attention of females, while females are drawn to males who are attractive and have wealth & status (or predictors of acquiring it in the future). All males differ in these qualities, therefore some are not selected as mates by females.
The third biological lesson of history is that life must breed.
The purpose of every organism is not just survival but reproduction.
Durant explains how “nature has no use for organisms, variations, or groups that cannot reproduce abundantly…She is more interested in the species than in the individual, and makes little difference between civilization and barbarism.”
II. Religion, Morals, Economics, and History
Religion
Durant writes that religions came about as ways of explaining natural forces we didn’t understand. And that they evolved into tools for getting people to act more benevolent:
Religion does not seem at first to have had any connection with morals. It was fear that first made the gods-fear of hidden forces in the earth, rivers, oceans, trees, winds, and sky. Religion became propitiatory worship of these forces through offerings, sacrifice, incantation, and prayer. Only when priests used these fears and rituals to support morality and law did religion become a force vital and rival to the state. It told the people that the local code of morals and laws had been dictated by the gods.
The first half of this quote could explain why so many early religions had angry gods. They were personifications of dangerous forces of nature like lightning, floods, and earthquakes.
Humans have never hesitated to use religion to justify their competition against other individuals and groups. Durant elaborates:
Does history support a belief in God? If by God we mean not the creative vitality of nature but a supreme being intelligent and benevolent, the answer must be a reluctant negative. Like other departments of biology, history remains at bottom a natural selection of the fittest individuals and groups in a struggle wherein goodness receives no favors, misfortunes abound, and the final test is the ability to survive.
But this doesn’t mean you can call religion a negative throughout history:
Even the skeptical historian develops a humble respect for religion, since he sees it functioning, and seemingly indispensable, in every land and age…There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.
This echoes what I wrote in a previous article about religions role in individual happiness and how vital it is as an ‘operating system’ for society.
It’s important to note that you can recognize these ideas as possible rational explanations for the origins of organized religion, while still believing in God.
Morals
Concerning human morality, Durant puts it bluntly:
Man has never reconciled himself with the Ten Commandments. We have seen Voltaire's view of history as mainly “a collection of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes” of mankind.
In every age men have been dishonest and governments have been corrupt; probably less now than generally before.
As an optimist who always wants to find the good in people, I was glad to see Durant also note the following:
In recorded history we find so many instances of goodness, even of nobility, that we can forgive, though not forget, the sins.
Economics
The biological lessons of history prophesize the economic lessons of history:
Since practical ability differs from person to person, the majority of such abilities, in nearly all societies, is gathered in a minority of men. The concentration of wealth is a natural result of this concentration of ability, and regularly recurs in history.
Capitalism is essentially built into human nature.
There will never not be people who want more freedom, as there will never not be people who want more equality. Therefore, socialistic and capitalistic ideologies are in a constant tug of war, with capitalism—because of its realism—pulling more rope.
However, concerning this dynamic Durant makes an interesting observation:
The fear of capitalism has compelled socialism to widen freedom, and the fear of socialism has compelled capitalism to increase equality. East is West and West is East, and soon the twain will meet.
III. Government, War, and History
Government
The two most common forms of government have been monarchies/dictatorships and oligarchies:
Monarchy seems to be the most natural kind of government, since it applies to the group the authority of the father in a family or of the chieftain in a warrior band.
Most governments have been oligarchies-ruled by a minority, chosen either by birth, as in aristocracies, or by a religious organization, as in theocracies, or by wealth, as in democracies. It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized for united and specific action, and a minority can.
The United States is sometimes referred to as ‘The Great Experiment’ because so few human societies throughout time have been a democracy. Durant, a Frenchman, expresses praise for democracy:
All deductions having been made, democracy has done less harm, and more good, than any other form of government…though men cannot be equal, their access to education and opportunity can be made more nearly equal.
War
Humans fight a lot:
In the last 3,421 years of recorded history only 268 have seen no war.
Once again the simple biological lessons of history in part explain more complex matters, like war:
War is the ultimate form of competition and natural selection in the human species.
The causes of war are the same as the causes of competition among individuals: acquisitiveness (excessive interest in acquiring material things), pugnacity (aggression), and pride; the desire for food, land, materials, fuels, and mastery.
AND 1—The Magic of Studying History
Durant leaves us with one of the most beautiful paragraphs ever written:
To those of us who study history not merely as a warning reminder of man’s follies and crimes, but also as an encouraging remembrance of generative souls, the past ceases to be a depressing chamber of horrors; it becomes a celestial city, a spacious country of the mind, wherein a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, lovers, and philosophers still live and speak, teach and carve and sing.
Social
Love the Durants. What an astute summation!