parrhesia.substack.com
SS: Americans are rather ignorant about history. Moral reasoning by historical analogy is bad. Historical examples can be misleading for making predictions. These facts suggest that the utility of history courses is overestimated. In fact, they are mostly useless.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
History, if well taught, would be one of the most useful academic disciplines to understand the happenstances and quirks of the present: social taboos, socio-economic systems, laws, present day wars – it doesn’t matter how nonsensical – can all be better understood through the contextualizing lens of the study of history. This forma mentis aided by the knowledge of History allows us to generalize this contextualizing attitude by using it not only to the past but to the present even: in particular, it can allow us to understand modern day propaganda: one doesn’t have to look further than the Ukrainian-Russian war to understand the importance of a foundation in historical thinking and knowledge: “Are Ukrainians the original Rus?”, “How do we determine if historical claims to a territory are justified?”, “How can historical truths be used as propaganda?” and so on…
One obvious criticism of the study of history is its reliance on “just-so” stories and the construction of not so convincing but so morally attractive for the modern audience narratives that make it seems like History is a matter of opinion and sentiment: I affirm that this is a criticism of, not history, but Academia in general: the post-modern, post-truth Academia to be exact. The solution it’s not less History but better historical education at every level of the educational system, which is guilty, of course, of stifling every interest one could have in History by reducing historical thinking and historical knowledge to parrot-like repetitions of the talking points of the textbook: memorization of relevant knowledge it’s of course important, but not only it’s not sufficient there are various way to memorize that engage the brain and curiosity better than “regurgitations”.
Teachers generally do not receive a good historical education and then they go on teaching the same way they were taught, keeping the cycle closed – another interesting historical concept: its cyclical nature – making History the worst taught subject in school after Math (not that the other subjects were taught any better, one need to rely on autodidacticism to gain something from school).
From Cicero:
"History, in truth, is the Witness of Times, the Light of Truth, the Life of Memory, the Teacher of Life, the Messenger of Antiquity”: History is inspiration to act through the examples of our Ancestors, it’s the preserving through remembering what is good in tradition, it’s a warning to the danger of forgetting, it’s vindication against falsehood.
Let’s not forget History, let’s study it better, let’s remember.
More options
Context Copy link