> The historical actors had no idea where the future was going.
Does it matter in order to explain how things came to be?
Understanding their motivations, the incentives that led them to do what they did, the sociopolitical context they were inserted into, the limitations of a historical perspective (quite often the accounts of past historical figures were written by people invested in portraying it in one way or another).
All those things would help, when looking at history critically, to make some sense of the present and where things might be going in the future.
In a sense, things that happened were inevitable because they came to pass. We are not talking about a possibility, we are talking about a certainty long after the fact. Understanding that it might have been avoided in some ways can be helpful, but also is an exercise in wishful thinking and guesswork.
Does it matter in order to explain how things came to be?
Understanding their motivations, the incentives that led them to do what they did, the sociopolitical context they were inserted into, the limitations of a historical perspective (quite often the accounts of past historical figures were written by people invested in portraying it in one way or another).
All those things would help, when looking at history critically, to make some sense of the present and where things might be going in the future.
In a sense, things that happened were inevitable because they came to pass. We are not talking about a possibility, we are talking about a certainty long after the fact. Understanding that it might have been avoided in some ways can be helpful, but also is an exercise in wishful thinking and guesswork.