One of my favorite Cromwell stories (even if apocryphal) was the time he was riding with an aide to Parliament. The crowd was cheering him loudly and the aide commented on his popularity. Cromwell answered: "Beware the fickleness of the rabble. The same people who cheer us so loudly today would jeer at us just as loudly if we were standing on the gallows waiting to be hanged."
Nice post. I've long thought that among the reasons to learn history is that it promotes epistemic humility. For example, I take great comfort that our leaders have made so many catastrophic errors in their time, many in good faith, and yet we have survived and even flourished notwithstanding. It is simply very difficult to know how anything will in fact turn out.
Conversely, I worry when historians who have a high profile in the media make claims that they, in fact, *can* predict long-term consequences or a given thing. This seems unlikely, and the opposite of epistemic humility.
When Richard Harris played Cromwell in the 1970 biopic of that name, I got the impression that he was a bit of a stuck-up jerk. Obviously his enemies felt the same...
One of my favorite Cromwell stories (even if apocryphal) was the time he was riding with an aide to Parliament. The crowd was cheering him loudly and the aide commented on his popularity. Cromwell answered: "Beware the fickleness of the rabble. The same people who cheer us so loudly today would jeer at us just as loudly if we were standing on the gallows waiting to be hanged."
Nice post. I've long thought that among the reasons to learn history is that it promotes epistemic humility. For example, I take great comfort that our leaders have made so many catastrophic errors in their time, many in good faith, and yet we have survived and even flourished notwithstanding. It is simply very difficult to know how anything will in fact turn out.
Conversely, I worry when historians who have a high profile in the media make claims that they, in fact, *can* predict long-term consequences or a given thing. This seems unlikely, and the opposite of epistemic humility.
This is excellent.
When Richard Harris played Cromwell in the 1970 biopic of that name, I got the impression that he was a bit of a stuck-up jerk. Obviously his enemies felt the same...