are you interested in your country's history, or the history of humanity? Why? Why not?

Question

I am amazed by how few people seem to know what happened even twenty years ago, let alone two thousand or twenty thousand years ago. If we don't know the past, we are doomed to repeat it, and frankly we can't afford to keep screwing up. I actually know people who don't give a fig about the planet or the future...they won't be here, so so what. I find that attitude appalling but widespread. Everything is okay so long as you get yours, etc.
A lot of people are lost spiritually and I think it may be because we've forgotten how to connect with ourselves and each other. If you aren't interesed in the past or the future, then you are denying yourself and essential connection; you're closing off a fundamental aspect of what it is to be human. We are individuals, but we cannot exist solely as individuals. We have to connect to be whole. Just wondering what others think about the present state of humanity, and how it bears on a lack of connection to history. good day!

Answer 1

I have always been incredibly interested in history. History is the human story....how can you be human and not interested in your own story?

History can be frustrating because it is always skewed by the people who are interrupting it---no matter how diligently they try not to.

I'm not sure what you meant by your last sentence. I think that it is sad that for many history is just a bunch of dates and they do not see that real people who were influenced by their times were making decisions and living their lives. Real people who do not have the benefit of being able to see into the future....just as today.

Sometime in the future all we debate and fight over now will be viewed differently. We will have the benefit of hindsight. I wish more people saw the relevance of all that has come before. If history were taught as stories, with character development and background information-- kids would be far more interested.

1066 is so much more than the Battle of Hastings, Henry the VIII was so much more than a man who beheaded two wives, George Washington was so much more than a powdered wig and bad teeth.....

I agree, you can find a great deal about the human spirit in studying history and immersing yourself in times gone by. We live forwardly but we understand backwardly...as someone once said.

Great question!

Answer 2

I guess people find history boring because they don't think how history has shaped their lives. For example World War 1 shaped a lot of people lives and they don't know it. The mover and shakers of that time period caused the beginnings of World War 1 and the death of over millions of people including almost destroying the Jewish People. Both my grandparents on both sides of my family had to move to Canada because of effects of World War 1. Had no choice in the matter, no food their home countries of Germany and the Ukraine were destroyed by the war. So they had to move. So for me going back into the past gives me an idea where I am coming from what shapes our world today and how it will shape it tomorrow. I lived in an interesting time period when I was growing up and so did my parents for in the last century everything was moving very fast and it seems like you were living in the past and in the future. But on the whole if you are talking about the general population they find no interest in history why because it's boring to them and they want to look at how their families were shaped by history. Unfortunately with that way of thinking yes we are doom to make the mistakes of the past.

Answer 3

History is a fascinating subject to learn and to explain to others. Without history we will make mistakes more often that our ancestors pledged never to do again: eg. Without history, we may [within 100-200 years] repeat the Holocaust. Without history, time would be still. We would still be **** Sapiens, but we wouldn't have advanced. We would just be another animal on the face of a cleaner Earth. When man started documenting history everything started moving forward: Science, Agriculture, Culture, Understanding of Life, Religion and so on. Without proper historical recording we would understand less about ourselves.
That is why history interesting. Because we depend on it so much and without it, we would be no where.

Answer 4

I love History and not just of my country! I like to learn things about what happend around the whole world years ago before this place was ever thought of and I also like to learn about who was here before the People in Europe got here! History tells the story of how we got to where we are today and who thought up everything! It is my favorite subject to read, watch, see for real!!

Answer 5

That old saying - those who don't learn history are condemned to repeat it - is so true. But no one learns from it, we make the same mistakes and we're always going to.
My favourite area of history is looking at social "outrage" at things - like communism, racial intergration, masturbation, the Y2K bug.... all those things that people were up in arms about, that seem so funny now....

Answer 6

Actually I love all history!! I have always been fascinated with history even as a small child

Answer 7

whoa there partner ya cant generalise like that, we all have a vested interest in what went before and seeing as how we make our own future, we are the ones that need to get it right, there will always be people who dont care so we have to care twice as much, geddit. regards LF

Answer 8

Absolutely. To understand history is to understand yourself. The same is true of studying humanity.

Answer 9

If you do not learn from your history, you are doomed to repeat it.