degringolade

I am gadding about intellectually. If I were 18, I would be accused of ADD because I bounce around and try to fill in gaps in my education/knowledge. If I were still eighteen, I would be accused of not having the laser focus needed to "make something of myself" and thus not be a "useful member of society". But since I am old and society has wrung it's danegeld out of me already, I can do what I want.

Last time I used my hard won SALC (program at the local third tier university that lets geezers attend for free once you pay the $25.00 entrance fee) to attend an in-person class on the subject of Ottoman history. I was significantly less than impressed by the Instructor (really, the guy showed up the first day wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, I shuddered when I saw it, even now, I shudder again at the mere thought). The students were the same flavor of undergraduate idiots that I was when I was in the 18-22 y.o. range. As I hold no real desire to re-live an excellent part of my life that is now buried, I found the whole experience made me bilious.

This time I will be doing something a little bit different. I have decided that I am going to take a pretty thorough look at the fin de siecle and the Decadents of the late 19th and early twentieth century. Simply put, I think that we are?/will? be going through an analogous sort of period. But I don't think that I will be able to understand if I just go and start studying that period. Luckily, this quarter the school is offering an upper division course in early modern (just post renaissance) French history that will be a good starting point.

I am of the probably mistaken belief that societies are defined by both their pasts and the minority desire to change the current. It is a constant battle with societal inertia whose direction cannot be understood without understanding the 500+/- prior years.