hist125 week 8 discussion latest 2016 september

Week 8 discussion

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR DISCUSSIONS: Your contributions should be thoughtful and developed. Answer all parts of the question and use concepts from the course materials. Use a professional style of communication, with attention to grammar, spelling, and typos. Do not copy and paste information into discussions—write posts in your own words and cite all sources of information used. See the sample discussion post as a guideline.

Unless your instructor specifies otherwise, choose ONE of the following questions, and give a substantive response to at least two other students. A substantive response is not simply an agreement to your peer, but the response should add significance to the post and further the discussion.

To access the rubric for discussions, click on the discussion link for that week. The rubric is located towards the bottom of the discussion instructions.

Initial discussion posts are due by Thursday at 11:30PM ET and at least two responses to fellow classmates are expected by the end of the week on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.

One of our themes this semester is that before several transformations, people looked to the past in order to make sense of their universe; people lived in a world with little change; people were not particularly optimistic. All of this changed, however, over the course of several centuries. In the readings this semester, where do you see people beginning to look to other sources than an authority from the past; beginning to experience and expect more and more change in their lives; and beginning to expect the future to be better than the present? This question appeared in Week 4. You may gain insight by looking at your own or your classmates' responses there.

Compare the strengths and weaknesses of these two worldviews:

Western, experimental, scientific

Religious, mythical, or magical

While most historians believe that neither futurecasting (predicting what will happen, based on what happened in the past) nor writing "what if?" histories are appropriate approaches to professional historical research, these activities can be useful thought exercises that help us analyze the past from a different perspective and thus help us understand what happened and why in a new way. How do you predict that technology will transform human lives and worldview and over the next century?

If there is some area of the text that you have been burning to discuss all semester and have not had the chance, here is your opportunity. You may address any area of Burke that struck you as particularly important or with which you disagreed. Support your assertion of importance or disagreement with evidence.