I have asked a few students, "Have you ever been told by your instructors why it's important to learn history?" Have you been told by your instructors why it's important to learn history?"
Mountains of knowledge are built by adding information to the hills of cultures past. Consideration of the importance of history might have prevented NASA from having to backwards engineer the Saturn V technology that the scientists and engineers of the 1960s didn't record.
Without a knowledge of history, there is no foundation for the future. History is important because it shapes countries today. I think that if history were not taught or were somehow changed in our schools, there'd be a dystopian 1984 like scenario.
QUOTES ON HISTORY History, n. an account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools. AMBROSE BIERCE, The Devil's Dictionary The history of the world is but the biography of great men. THOMAS CARLYLE, Heroes and Hero-Worship, The Hero as Divinity History ... is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. EDWARD GIBBON, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors and issues. T.S. ELIOT, Gerontion The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice. MARK TWAIN, Following the Equator Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. PLATO, Ion History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity. CICERO, Pro Publio Sestio History is more or less bunk. HENRY FORD, Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1916 To remain ignorant of things that happened before you were born is to remain a child. CICERO To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning. It is a very serious task, young man, and possibly a tragic one. HERMANN HESSE, The Glass Bead Game Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort. MASON COOLEY, City Aphorisms Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. GEORGE SANTAYANA, The Life of Reason The memories of men are too frail a thread to hang history from. JOHN STILL, The Jungle Tide History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet: the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? WASHINGTON IRVING, The Sketch Book History can be well written only in a free country. VOLTAIRE, letter to Frederick the Great What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history or acted on the principles deduced from it. G.W.F. HEGEL, Philosophy of History It is difficult at times to repress the thought that history is about as instructive as an abattoir. SEAMUS HEANEY, Nobel Lecture, Dec. 7, 1995 History is philosophy teaching by examples. THUCYDIDES, The History of the Peloponnesian War All great historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice ... the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. KARL MARX, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Great men are the inspired texts of that divine Book of Revelations, whereof a chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some named History. THOMAS CARLYLE, Sartor Resartus History is the autobiography of a madman. ALEXANDER HERZEN, Dr. Krupov I'm interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a good deal more about history, we automatically understand a great more about contemporary life. TONI MORRISON, Time interview, Jan. 21, 1998 History ... is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake.
Say you wake up tonight from a nightmare... - your brain created the nightmare from whatever experiences and fears etc. - you woke up from it yourself Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
But is there anything to back up this hypothesis... It seems like those who know history are also doomed to repeat it... Did history professors in Europe evade the consequences of WW1 and 2... A good number of intellectuals fell in love with Hilter and Mao and Reagan, just to be on the polemical side, I added the last. And what does it mean to know history? Can we name someone or some group that avoided repeating history because they 'knew' history? By what mechanism does knowing history stop the experience of repeating it?
This is the best defense of 'knowing' history I've heard, but it is not what most people mean when they say 'history'. It would not be included in the syllabus of most history courses anywhere on earth. Is there any proof that knowing taking history courses - and even really trying hard to understand those courses - has ever prevented the repetition of societal problems?
With a nod to cosmictraveler for the quote, this is what I mean. James R., consider me an atheist in relation to the belief in knowledge of history's preventative value and present proof of its existence. (I realize how aweful and counterintuitive it may seem - that studying history might not really do us any good in preventing future societal problems - but I really can't see how 1) this is true or 2) how anyone can prove this even if it were true. So I will be devil's advocate on the issue.)
History has many values. It helps you pick out patterns, see "nature" of things. for example pretend this set of numbers is a time line. Now try to find the pattern without looking at each numbers predecessor: 12 25 51 103 207 History is necessary if you care at all what the future will be, or if you want to know how you got where you are currently. Its enlightening to the current state of things and implies to what the future may hold.
I didnt learn anything about history in school all though I did have highest grades possibly. It was only then when I became study myself history that I have learned something. History in schools are just memorizing dates, emperors and events and stuff. If you want to know why something has happened as it did you will have to look it up for yourself, IMO. Religion is even bigger problem in that sense.
Those who do know history are also often doomed to repeat it. WWII followed WWI even though all the combatants knew history. Nations sink into totalitarianism even though people know history. History tends to run in cycles and is repeated endlessly by those who know history and by those who don't.
Hitler knew history pretty good he said "Look what happened to the Armenians in WWI and no one remembers..."
WWII was really Part 2 of WWI. The two wars could be considered continuations of each other. One almost inevitably led to the other.
Ah right. So history is essentially what we create, but cannot wake up from, no matter how we try.. So in essence the nightmare is that we keep repeating history's mistakes.. no matter how hard we try..
