Standing on the shoulders of those before us

History has much to teach us about living out today.
None of us operates in a mental vacuum. We have our own history that informs the way we look at things. And our ancestors have passed along information that reveals how they looked at things. They were sometimes wiser than we are; sometimes they were ignorant of the "why" of things.
We do not have a lock on wisdom yet. And we can be as blind or biased as were any of our ancestors. What do they have to teach us?
Archeologists have made a fascinating discovery. The earliest writings in the new world have been found in Mexico. NPR is covering the story, from which I quote,

A heap of debris taken from a quarry in Veracruz, Mexico has yielded a stone block inscribed with what appears to be the oldest writing ever found in the Americas. Numerous symbols are carved across the block in rows. Experts say the block dates back almost 3,000 years, and was created by people from the Olmec civilization. The Olmec were an early central American people who rose to prominence before the heyday of the Maya.. . . Not all of these symbols are unfamiliar to archeologists. Mary Pohl at Florida State University is an expert on the Olmec. She's analyzed Olmec symbols on jewelry and a cylindrical seal that dates almost as far back as the inscribed tablet. She says a few of the symbols are clearly written versions of carved stone objects, like an ear of corn, previously found at Olmec archeological sites. . . .
Houston and scientists from Mexico who first identified the text say they have no idea what it actually says. With no previous text to work from, deciphering it will be difficult.
What's needed are more texts for comparison. Archeologists say there are a lot of Olmec sites in Mexico that are still unexplored, and any one could hold the key to reading the oldest known language in the Americas.

The key is the phrase above that says, " What's needed are more texts for comparison." For us to be wise and unbiased about the challenges of the day, sometimes the tests of history already contain our answers. We just have to integrate or synthesize history with what is going on today. We may not have to re-invent the wheel, over and over.
My topical post today at South by Southwest is about government's checks and balances.
Tags: Mexico archeology history wisdom
Myth is the public dream, and dream is the private myth. - Joseph Campbell