Modern people are too busy with hustle bustle for meeting instance gratification that most do not see the benefits of studying history. The culture encourages liberalism and consumerism as well as commercialism. Unlike the aristocrats in the medieval society who know their duties to the country and society, the leaders of our time let their own greedy and entitlement take over the sense of responsibility for the society. While they enjoy the privilege, they tend to regard it as their natural right of birth rather than as a contract with the Divine for fulfilling obligations. History provides many perspectives that demonstrate the complexity of interpretation to sharpen our critical thinking skills. For example, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire written Edward Gibbons (1737-1794) is such an enduring volume that can teach us so many things:
- Overexpansion Can Lead to Disaster: Rome’s vast size made it difficult to govern and defend. Empires or nations that expand too quickly without consolidating control risk collapse.
- Internal Conflict is More Dangerous Than External Threats: While Rome faced external invasions, its internal divisions were often more damaging. Civil wars, corruption, and political infighting weakened Rome from within, making it vulnerable to external enemies.
- Societal Complacency Leads to Decline: Many historians believe that as Rome became wealthier, its citizens and leaders became complacent. A decline in civic duty, military discipline, and public engagement contributed to its downfall.
- Economic Stability is Key: Economic mismanagement can weaken even the strongest empires. Modern nations must balance economic growth with sustainable policies.
Another good case study is long history of Medieval social unbalance that eventually lead to French Revolution. Traditionally, medieval France was a threefold society, with each of the three orders contributing in their own way. The clergy prayed, the aristocrats fought, and the peasants worked. In short, the first two orders paid their dues to the king in other ways: the clergy prayed for the monarchy and tended to the people’s souls, and the nobles spent their time training and fighting for the king on the battlefield. The Third Estate – everybody else – did the “actual” paying (which they usually paid “in kind” with agricultural produce rather than with coin). This seems like a pretty raw deal to us, but what is crucial to understand is that the system wasn’t about fairness, but about a divine understanding of the world. Similarly, we should note that these privileges extended beyond aristocrats, and could include the residents of a city, the members of a guild, or the members of a corporate body, such as the candle-makers of Paris, say. The three orders reflected medieval Christian cosmology. Praying and fighting were both noble endeavors, so they counted for more than a peasant’s labor. These were the symbolic reasons for tax exemptions and they remained central up until the end of the Old Regime.
As of late thirteenth century, there had been a big conflict between Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip IV of France involved the king’s attempts to tax the clergy without papal consent, leading to Boniface’s issuance of the papal bull Clericis laicos in 1296. The bull forbade any imposition of taxes on the clergy without express license by the pope, under the penalty of excommunication. By the time of Pope Alexander VI (in reign 1492-1503), the Catholic Church’s power is so dominant that its corruption is just as evident. This Pope is one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, partly because he acknowledged fathering several children by his mistresses. As a result, his Italianized Valencian surname, Borgia, became a byword for libertinism and nepotism, which are traditionally considered as characterizing his pontificate.
These situation continues to the time right before the French Revolution. The French clergy, as a corporate body, were traditionally exempt from direct taxation under the ancient régime, and their financial obligations were negotiated through the Assemblies of the French Clergy. These assemblies had long been the mechanism for the clergy to set their own tax contributions, and they resisted royal attempts to impose new levies without their consent. The First Estate was the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church—about 100,000–160,000 people (roughly 0.5% of France’s population)—who held major privileges such as tax exemptions, vast land ownership (about 6–10%), and strong political influence before 1789. French political structure at the time granted exemptions from direct taxes to the First and Second Estates (the clergy and the nobility) but not to the Third (everybody else) before the revolution. Their opposition to changes in taxation and land ownership led to the confiscation of church lands and the abolition of tithes, which were key revolutionary measures aimed at reducing the Church’s economic power.
A pivotal moment of French Revolution came with the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790), which reorganized the Catholic Church in France under state control to revolve the huge debt of the country. Jurors faced persecution from radicals who accused them of hypocrisy, while royalists viewed them as traitors. The schism and persecution of clergy continued until the Concordat of 1801 under Napoleon, which partially restored Church authority and reconciled many divisions.
History textbooks tend to explain this as an unquestioned adherence to the medieval great chain of being, because why else would the French king allow aristocrats and the Church to amass wealth untaxed while trying to squeeze peasants out of all their sad little copper coins, King John in Robin Hood-style? Framing it this way makes it seem so blatantly unfair and illogical that the French Revolution looks inevitable in hindsight. While tradition had something to do with it, that reading misses the financial and political incentives that led the French kingdom’s tax system to operate this way, and it doesn’t explain why the Third Estate put up with this system all the way until 1789, both of which this article tried to address in this answer.
Third case for study, in 1212, Crusader fever hit Europe, a call went out from the ope that all good Christians should journey to Jerusalem to drive out the hated Muslims and return the city to Christian control. Heeding the call, thousands of children made the journey. parents bravely allowed many children to go, and entire communities were inspired by the faith of these small Crusaders. Unfortunately, many boarded ships captained by slave traders, who enthusiastically sold the children into slavery as soon as they arrived at their destination. Thousands died from disease, exposure, and starvation on the long march across Europe to the Mediterranean Sea. Others perished at sea.
Fourth example, a modern secular one, During War II, there were as much as 110,000 Japanese Americans sent to interment camps. Hatsuye Egami was on the them. He wrote in his diary: “Since yesterday we Japanese have ceased to be human beings, we are numbers. We are no longer Egamis, but the number 23324. A tag with that number is on every trunk, suitcase and bag. Tags, also on our breasts.”
History certain leave us many thing to think about, and there are variety of perspectives, not only we need to slow down and think clear, but we also need to expand our consciousness by step into opponent’s shoes, and see them as part of us – a practice of cosmic communion, a yoga of broad mindedness – that requires us to place true compassion and spirituality parallel with material desire, power and status, if not above them.