Several World Historians like Peter N. Stearns and Jared Diamond have pointed out that Western Civilization courses over-emphasize the importance of the West in the development of World History. Often they cite the tendency to adopt ideologies and traditions together so that it seems Western Civilization is a continuous ethos from Ancient Egypt to the Declaration of Independence. Since those of us educated in the West take certain dubious historical distinctions as "givens," where would be the appropriate place to start a Common World History that respects human diversity, and even our homonid ancestors as precursors rather than "sub-humans?"

My concern is that even if you begin "Human History" with Anatomically Modern Humans you still run the risk of Anthropocentrism creating imbalances within our single and vitally important enviroment.

I'm honestly not sure if this dances too close to the whole evolution/design argument since I take things like Mitochondrial Eve as an absolute proof of the existence of our species back 200,000 years. I may already be alienating a fairly large segment of the population by trusting scientific evaluation... Though my understanding is that the design people believe the world is more than 6 or 7,000 years old anyway.

What do you want to focus on? Evolutionary biology or the history of human civilizations?

If the latter, then you cannot begin at one single place as human civilization arose in different places (at least insofar as useful records were left behind).

I don't understand what it is you are asking. Do you want to "discuss"

How far back we go as a species?
How far back does human civilization go?
Where did Western Civilization begin?

I am (perhaps too delicately) trying to figure out if there can be a consilience between Evolutionary Biology and Psychology, Human Civilzation, and Cultural Studies... and, if so, how far back in the devolopmental record of the species do those of you on here that can imagine such a thing think we should go in order to remove the most distractions in terms of bias and pride?

The whole thing is still pretty convoluted in my mind, but I think if someone out there figures out a faily balanced/inclusive method we could create a World Standard for the history of the species that may alleviate the Nationalistic or Hereditary or Tradition-Based conflicts, etc...

Just wondering and wandering outside the box a little far perhaps. Slow weekend.

My vote is at least 50-100 years from now (maybe, it could happen even later than that).

Honestly though, I still don't know exactly what you're asking.

As far back as we can go. Leave nothing out, make nothing up.

But I'm not sure if that's what you're asking...

As far back as we can go. Leave nothing out, make nothing up.

But I'm not sure if that's what you're asking...

What bias and pride? Human v. Chimpanzee bias? Stop being delicate...

To answer what I think you are asking, "going back far enough in time" is not the way to eliminate bias.

In fact, it is nearly impossible for humans to assess anything without introducing some bias, so trying to eliminate it is itself a distraction.

The important points are understanding that it exists and being able to recognize it and separate it out from the "facts".

What you are left with will still require you to make some judgments of your own, and then you will be introducing your own bias into the discussion (but at least you can do so knowingly).

This is actually pretty good from a noogenic perspective.

Agreed.

I think I'm reaching in this direction, but I'm gonna have to think s'more to come up with a meaningful (non-stoner) question.

Sort of. In the grand scheme of things we are but 1 of many species on 1 of many planets orbitting 1 of many stars in 1 of many galaxies. That being the case how do things like royalty, subjugation and religious division exist if not for a complex and biased view of history?

If I recognize these realities, and these systems still exist because so many other people don't recognize these realities due to the way they were taught the history about themselves and "their" people, what's the most true, most interesting place to start more humans on the road to recognizing reality?

The only answer as to why more people aren't asking this same thing that I can think of is a rather sad state also... there's more money in keeping our neighbors and countrymen ignorant, anti-intellectual and anti-rational.

Though it wasn't purposeful, I'm glad this discussion started so broad as I think it aids in setting up a perspective.

It can't be over emphasized... developing the west meant Europe conquered the world. That's why they were the powers at the time. Think about not knowing what a sea worthy boat is and then trying to get across a sea. Gold, Gunpowder and Glory. There is sometimes a reason to the verbiage of historians and not everything is a bloody conspiracy. So tired of people youtubing their information, getting bits and pieces and then developing an argument with "support."

Yeah, I may be failing to start an interesting "out-of-the-box" discussion on the function of teaching history, but I am not whatever it is you're referencing here. Thanks for your interest though.

You also have guys like David Christian who think history ought to start with the Big Bang. Personally, I think that pre-human times are matters for Cosmology, Geology, Paleobiology, and so on, but to each his own I guess.

Fwiw, when I teach Ancient World History, I generally start with the transition from the Neolithic period to the Agricultural Revolution (mentioning ever so briefly human migrations and the Pleistocene, etc... but I'm not teaching Human Evolutionary Bio). I think that's perfectly reasonable from a "Civilization" perspective, since I generally stress that agriculture is the ultimate factor in the formation of complex societies. But I know other instructors who would rather not teach anything before the rise of cities in Mesopotamia.

whenever we tamed fire?

what are you asking exactly?

Did anyone ever read "Born to Run"? Interesting discussion about running being one of the main factors for us out-competing the Neanderthals.

^^^ Never heard of it, but it sounds very interesting. Added to my reading list, thanks.

I haven't read the book yet but I did hear reference of it on a documentary I watched recently. Happily I have access to it in my local library so I'll check it out, thanks.