The Religious Tolerance of the Mongols
by Ron Steelman (really, a video by John Green)
June 3, 2018

My son mentioned seeing some short videos at school via YouTube, “Crash Course in World History – with John Green.”  The video that he saw mentioned a few interesting things that I didn’t know about Mongols.

For example, a) they were renowned for their religious tolerance, b) they had less patriarchal domination, c) Genghis Khan promoted people based on merit rather than family position (that seems topical). All of these points caught my attention. I must have missed this stuff in history class. My typical excuse for missing certain classes: “I must have been making out with my girlfriend in the library.”

John Green’s presentation is fast-paced and intentionally quite humorous. Attempts at humor often fail for various reasons. Those reasons are something I’ve studied my entire life. I love humor, even when it fails. I’m like a chemist doing studies in his laughter lab. How about a little more of this, a little less of that, and we must not forget TIMING! Very important. Mr. Green has a good sense of humor and the quick edits in the video take care of his timing. Even though this was created for high school students, I smiled a lot and did chuckle a few times. However, I’m not sharing this because of the humor, but rather because some of the content tickled my interest.

So hang on to your hat and enjoy a high-speed history lesson. He mentions five good things about Mongols (of course, he also mentions five bad things about Mongols).