by: mumu

杜兰特夫妇的《历史的教训》是一本对人类历史的哲学思考。作者出版过许多文明史相关的书籍，这本薄薄的小书是他们的思想的精华综述，涉及范围非常广，从生物学，地理，宗教，道德和战争等角度来谈历史。

书中有许多新鲜的观点，是对所做的事情全情投入和不断思考才会有的吧。

地理好比是历史的子宫，哺育着历史，规范着历史。它的河流、湖泊、绿洲和海洋，吸引着移民定居于沿岸，因为水是生物和城镇的生命之源，并为运输和贸易提供廉价的航道。

生物学给历史的第一个教训就是：生命即是竞争。战争即是一个国家觅食的方式。战争促成国家间的合作，只是因为战争是竞争的最终极形式。除非我们的各个国家变成一个大而有效的保护性群体，否则国家之间势必将继续上演狩猎时期个人和家庭的行为。

“自然”对我们梦想中的自由与平等的结合付之一笑。因为自由和平等是永恒的不共戴天的仇人，一方取胜，另一方即会死亡。当人们获得自由时，他们之间天然的不平等差不多就会呈几何式的增长，若要防止不平等的增长，就必然要牺牲掉自由。

道德规范不断调整自身去适应历史和环境的条件。好斗、残暴、贪婪和好色在为生存而战斗的狩猎期，是一大优势。很可能今天的每一种罪恶，在以前都曾经被视为品质——一种使个人、家庭或者团体得以生存的美德。新的制度要求新的美德，同时把一些旧的美德视为罪恶。于是，勤奋变得比凶猛更加重要，讲究规则和节俭比武力更有价值，和平比战争更加有利。

马克思是黑格尔的不忠实弟子：他将黑格尔辩证法的意思解释成资本主义和社会主义之间的斗争，将会以社会主义的安全获胜而结束。但是，如果黑格尔的正题、反题、合题公式应用于历史，工业革命是正题，资本主义对抗社会主义是反题，那么下一个状态就应是资本主义和社会主义的合题。对资本主义的恐惧，迫使社会主义不断扩大自由；而对社会主义的恐惧，则迫使资本主义不断增加平等。东方就是西方，西方就是东方，这一对双胞胎很快就会团聚。

在网易看耶鲁大学的导论类公开课，隔着屏幕都可以感受到老师对所讲内容的巨大热情。毕竟是自己研究的心血，讲起来如数家珍，课是根本不用“背”的。讲音乐的老教授目测已经七八十岁了，随堂附带六张音乐CD，还经常收到毕业后的学生弄丢了CD来信要复刻，选了这门课的学生均享有“终身的售后服务”。

今年8月份看到屈婉玲教授去世的讣告，享年75岁。算下来十几年前屈奶奶给我们上算法课的时候竟然已经65岁了！每堂课都是手写板书满满四大黑板，从来不用PPT，公式都是现场推导，感觉都是built-in在脑子里，当时就极为感慨。后来朋友圈看到有人贴出来屈奶奶的邮件谈网课。七十多岁身患癌症的时候还在对新型的网课表示感兴趣，言语间谦虚不卖老。这些前辈在各自领域的专注和投入总是让我深受鼓舞。

AI-generated translation.

The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant is a philosophical reflection on human history. The Durants published many books on the history of civilization, and this slim volume feels like a distilled summary of their thinking. Its scope is surprisingly wide, moving through biology, geography, religion, morality, and war.

There are many fresh ideas in the book—the kind that probably only come from throwing oneself wholeheartedly into a subject and thinking about it for a very long time.

Geography is the womb of history: it nourishes history, restrains history. Its rivers, lakes, oases, and seas draw migrants to their shores, for water is the lifeblood of organisms and towns, and offers cheap transport for trade.

The first lesson of biology is that life is competition. War is a nation’s way of eating. Cooperation among states happens only because war is the ultimate form of competition. Unless our separate nations become one large and effective protective group, they will continue to behave toward one another as individuals and families did in the hunting stage.

“Nature” laughs at our dream of combining freedom and equality. Freedom and equality are eternal enemies: when one prevails, the other dies. Once people gain freedom, natural inequalities among them tend to grow almost geometrically. To prevent the growth of inequality, one must sacrifice freedom.

Moral codes constantly adjust themselves to historical and environmental conditions. Ferocity, brutality, greed, and lust were great advantages during the hunting stage of the struggle for survival. It is quite possible that every vice condemned today was once regarded as a virtue—a quality that enabled an individual, family, or group to survive. New institutions demand new virtues, and old virtues are recast as sins. Thus diligence becomes more important than ferocity, discipline and thrift more valuable than force, and peace more useful than war.

Marx was an unfaithful disciple of Hegel: he interpreted Hegelian dialectics as a struggle between capitalism and socialism that would end in the secure victory of socialism. But if Hegel’s formula of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis is applied to history, then the Industrial Revolution is the thesis, capitalism versus socialism is the antithesis, and the next stage should be a synthesis of both. Fear of capitalism forces socialism to expand freedom; fear of socialism forces capitalism to increase equality. East is West and West is East—these twins will soon meet again.

When I watch Yale’s introductory lectures on NetEase, I can feel the instructors’ enormous passion for what they teach even through a screen. After all, they are talking about the work of their lives, so the lectures come out naturally; there is no need to “memorize” them. One elderly professor teaching music looked to be in his seventies or eighties, came with six CDs for the course, and still received letters from former students years after graduation asking for replacements after losing them. Anyone who had taken the class seemed to enjoy a kind of “lifetime after-sales service.”

This August I saw the obituary of Professor Qu Wanling, who passed away at seventy-five. That means when she taught us algorithms more than ten years ago, she was already sixty-five. Every class was filled with four whole blackboards of handwritten derivations—never PowerPoint, always formulas worked out on the spot, as if they were simply built into her mind. I was deeply moved even then. Later I saw someone post an email from her about online teaching. Even in her seventies, while battling cancer, she was still curious about new forms of online classes, humble in tone and never using age as an excuse. The focus and devotion these elders bring to their work always inspire me.