Let us think about Bill Gates predictions on college education
It is not a coincidence that differences between Plato and Confucius correspond also to differences between whole peoples in the West and the East – and it is also not a coincidence that in Mongolia there existed to whatever degree neither a Plato nor a Confucius.
Yet living in the start of a 4th millennium of magnificent cultural developments going back to Homer, at least partly having been born as we are because of them, we wouldn’t do justice to our thinking by neglecting history as a present / currently active social dimension that is or can be to some degree even independent of our ‘face-to-face’ every-day relationships in our families, schools, cities and countries – and at this point Gates’ argument begins to acquire its validity.
In fact, we need not even live so late in history – already some Presocratics, Plato and the hellenistic philosophers had to and were able to interact with history more than with their local company.
If there was a society that gave birth sometime to Homer, then all posibilities (at least all those opened by Homer and his society) remain open, even in spite of future societies.
Related:
