is history useless to mordern people?

Question

Debate of whether history is useless.

Answer 1

I think that we are lucky as a species to be able to study our past and to understand it. We can learn a lot from out history; such as mistakes that we have made, however I think that it's important not to become to involved in the past and to remember that we have to move forward

Answer 2

Well, when modern people think it is okay to nationalize industry, create corrupt socialist authoritarian states, or fly airplanes into building, then no, I don't think history is useless.

Of course, if you want to forget the forces that can cause events like the Holocaust to happen, or have no idea how or why you were born in America and believe that you just ended up here, then don't study history. I'm sure you'll entertain more than a few people saying something funny at parties.

Studying history can't cure everything, though.

Oz, the poster above me, obviously spent too much time reading about history from salacious bloggers, and not enough time hitting the English grammar books and history books. Always remember, consider your source. (Note to Oz-affect and effect have different uses! Your great grandparents didn't come from the "lack of intelligence" South, did they?)

Answer 3

Goethe once said, 'He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.' If we choose to ignore history, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Technology may expand, names and border of countries may change, but the same human motivations can be traced back through the centuries.
To raise only one of a multitude of issues, how can one hope to understand America's fruitless and illegal war in Iraq without understanding the historical differences between Sunni and Shi'a or considering Britain and France's poor border establishment?
History is not only not useless; an understanding of history is essential to any person who wishes to hold an informed opinion of modern events.

Answer 4

History is suppose to help man NOT make the same mistakes of the past. With all the war and turmoil going on in the world, it seems like the lessons of history isn't worth much at all.

Answer 5

No, history allows modern man to know how to avoid making past mistakes

Answer 6

No of course not. History is one of the most essential tools to any civilization. History can be used in many ways, however it is most affective when used as a guidline. History allows a "modern" civilization to analyze what previous civilizations did to utimatly lead to their downfalls. When used affectively the "modern" civilization will realize what it needs to do to avoid large-scale tradegies, wars be it civil or world, famines, riots, segregation and so on. However our current civilizaton (refering to America) has refused to learn from past civilizations' mistakes by dehumanzing a group, however not just degrating but also making one single group of individuals an easy target. Previously in America those groups were the Southerners who were accused of weighing down the country due to their lack of intelligence and constant focus of agricultre and the blacks/African-Americans. Blacks and African-Americans are two seperate groups because blacks are during the age of slavery and African-Americans are used to describe the era of segragation. American has always had a group, which was very easy to target due to the group's lack of orators and freedom. The "group" today is rightfully Muslims, who are targeted extremely by Americans. Bush's administration has used the word Islamic extremists to basically mean Muslims on many occaisions. In many ways this targeting of one group theory has allowed Bush to create a escapegoat while he plans his own michevious oil campaign. It has helped him to be selected for two terms. Basically what I am saying is that history can be used in a manner to protect and prepare and also to stir up some old evils such as the crusades, which Bush has stir up again but he refuses to label it a crusade and calls it War On Terror. Bush needs to realize that he is creating terror to millions of Iraqis, Afghanis and Palestianian families who only want peace and no political ties with the U.S. I mentioned Palestione because in the past 60 years the U.S has granted 60 billion dollars to Israel, and 10 of that in 2003 during the Bush's presidency. So my freind Biology is the study of life but history is the study of not only previous life but also a preparation tool for "modern" civilizations.


To Bozik:

Well Bozik i am an not avid fan of history nor do I recieve my information from "bloggers". What I know I learned from professors, who have took the time after class to speak with me personally on issues, which frusterate me such as the Palestenian-Israeli conflict. All i was trying to do was to share my knowledge on the subject with the concerned individual who asked the question. Second my grammer is not that great because I have been only in America for two years. I was born and raised in Afghanistan (Northern). Therefore I think I would know a little about the advantages of analyzing history. I am not a historian or an English major. I am currently studying pre-med (guess which year) so I am pretty sure that grammar will not affect me in any way. I chose the profession to change lives but not only in a medical sense as you can see. I found some time to kill so I came here to posssibly answer some questions not start any fights, becuase simply I do not have that kind of time that you apparently have. So next time you start a war of words make a background check with the person to atcually see if he/she really cares. I just like to write a lot. Well Bozik i hope you do find sucess in the future by way of grammar. Goodbye and thank you for the taking the time to read my blog mch appreaciated.

Answer 7

nah,it is not useless,otherwize if u dont know your past and from where u came from u wont be able 2 succed in wot u will do in the future.so its usefull for people 2 learn from past mistakes

Answer 8

no, many people learn their mistake from the past and won't repeat similar mistake. In fact, everything from the alphabet to your the formulas u learned in sch are historical stuff, develop centuries ago and people are still learning them isn't it ?

Answer 9

History repeats itself and if we do not learn from it, we will repeat the same mistakes again and again and again.

Answer 10

It is to me because I don't like to learn History.
But You have to if you NEED to.