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The Space Time Continuum: Thoughts from Dublin

2013-02-08 · Hank, John · watch on YouTube · History & curiosities · reflection essay

Hank says Dublin first looked like old set right beside new, but its long history turned it into a continuum; as the self is made by continuity with its past, so are places and cultures, and without that perspective we may be culturally stunted.

What is said

00:00:00 — From London to Dublin: 'this place is old' - and new; old-beside-new juxtaposition; an American's lack of historical perspective

  • ★★ After London, Hank (with John and Katherine) went to Dublin, where he was hit by the realization Americans have in Europe: this place is old. (playful) — 00:00:07
  • ★★ Hank says Dublin at first seemed a city of extreme juxtaposition, old right across from new, as if two categories with a fine line between them. — 00:00:24
  • ★★ Hank admits that someone raised where the oldest building dates from the 1950s might lack historical perspective, as he does. (playful) (hedged) — 00:00:48

00:00:54 — Bookshops checked for TFIOS; a cathedral with Romanesque and Gothic arches and a crypt, Dublin's oldest structure; Dublinia and the pooping Viking

  • ★ Travelling around, they popped into every bookshop to see if it had The Fault in Our Stars; John was caught videotaping his own book. (playful) — 00:00:54 · The Fault in Our Stars, John Green
  • ★★ Hank says a Dublin cathedral took so long to build that Romanesque arches sit right next to Gothic arches, over a crypt older than both and Dublin's oldest structure. — 00:01:07
  • ★★ At Dublinia, which celebrates Dublin's founding as a Viking colony, they learned that Dublin's history reaches back much further. — 00:01:33

00:01:49 — National Museum of Archaeology: a chained timeline of objects from axe heads and bog mummies to the cat and rat in Christ Church Cathedral and the first Viking

  • ★★ At the National Museum of Archaeology Hank chains objects across Irish history: axe heads 5,800 years before brooches, then Strongbow's death, a library, bog mummies, Christ Church's mummified cat and rat. — 00:01:49

00:02:43 — The self, a place, a culture are continuities; Dublin became a continuum Hank felt part of; without consciousness of the past we may be culturally stunted; watch Crash Course World History

  • ★★★ Hank says we only have a concept of self because we can recall our past and stitch together a story of who we are; continuity, not sameness from instant to instant, makes us us. — 00:02:43
  • ★★★ Hank says the same holds for a place, a culture or a species: Dublin, at first a city of juxtaposition, became a continuum reaching back tens of thousands of years that he felt part of. — 00:02:58
  • ★★★ Hank: without consciousness of our past, easy to lack in towns barely 100 years old, we forget we are part of an ancient continuum, and may be culturally stunted. (hedged) — 00:03:21
  • ★ Hank's playful conclusion: watch Crash Course World History. (playful) — 00:03:41 · Crash Course

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