history, Turkey, and Bob Harris

Bob Harris is in Turkey and blogging about it at This Modern World. It's a lovely post and quite thought-provoking. One of my favorite parts:

You sort of have to give up the idea that human history is linear, or that progress is inevitable. It ain't. I pick up a newspaper, and now in our tenth millennium, humankind is still killing itself in the name of imagined gods.

Istanbul is also a fabulous reminder of how poorly we imagine the future. A short walk from here is the Hagia Sophia -- St. Sophie's, if you will -- a 1500-year old architectural miracle about 18 stories high with a nave the size of a football field. (This is one big building.) It was built as a Christian church, became (after a military conquest) a Muslim mosque, and now (after a secular government took power) stands as a multifaith museum. But could the Christians in 532 realize they were in fact building what would one day become the greatest temple to a religion that didn't yet exist? Of course not. Did the Muslims who rehabbed the building for centuries realize that someday it would become a proud museum in a (supposedly) secular state? Aw, hell no.

Someday there will be people speaking languages vaguely resembling our own but indecipherable if we could eavesdrop. Their maps will not be our maps. And they will look at our wars over half-forgotten gods the same way you and I look at the struggles between the tribes of Ur, very possibly while killing each other in the name of gods which do not yet exist.

They will dig and puzzle and speak of the Oil Age and how its brevity stunned humankind toward the end.

Go check it out already; it is most clickworthy (Could I sound any more like Bill and Ted?).