Why is it important to study history?

Question

I want to know YOUR opinions . I know why it's important but i would like to know why YOU think so.

Answer 1

~The past is prologue. To know who one is and to know why one is where one is and how one got there, and to have an inkling of where one is going, one must understand where one has been, and why.

However, to learn from history, one must 'study' it, which involves much more than reading it. One must read accounts from a variety of sources with differing viewpoints simply to try to get a handle on what the 'facts' and underlying circumstances were. Then one must internalize, conceptualized and generalize that which one has 'learned'. Only by learning the lessons of the past, recognizing the patterns that resulted in the mistakes and deducing where current trends are leading can one 'learn' from history and avoid previous mistakes.

Had people learned from history 6 years ago, it would have been obvious to all then that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were not only illegal, unjustified and immoral, but that they were unwinnable as well. Now that the lessons of history have come to bear and people realize at least the latter, they are once again ignoring the lessons of history by demanding the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. History tells us what a catastrophe that will be, but no one seems to care. After the withdrawal, when the real shooting starts and the US has to return to the scene in far greater numbers in a 'hot war' that historical lesson will be learned (too late, again) as well. Committing a blunder will not correct the previous blunder - it will simply compound the disaster. History makes that much clear. Yet, once again we are doomed to repeat. Why was I part of a 2% minority against the invasions 6 years ago and why do I find myself once again in a minority who understands that, although we had no right or reason to invade, we cannot in good conscience leave? [Probably because no one bothers to learn from history. Everything I said before we invaded has come to pass - I hope I am wrong about my predictions if we pull out (and heaven help us if I am right.]



To damiana112:

I just read your answer to "noble2be" and his question on Hitler.

Another good reason to study history is so that you don't look foolish in offering a opinion. Because you give a grossly inaccurate number and because you seemingly combine the death and concentration camps as a single thing, you lose all credibility.

About 18 million people died in the Nazi concentration camps and death camps. There is a huge difference in the two types of camps. Fewer than 3 million Jews died in the death camps (and those camps were not reserved for the Jews - Jasenovac was created for Serbs, not Jews, and the Jews represent a small minority of those who were murdered there, for instance). The Jews represent about one-third (6 million or so) of the total combined tally of the both types of camps.

As a Jewish woman, I am surprised and shocked that you didn't know this. If you did know it, your deliberate attempt to distort the facts is yet another reason that we should study history - so as to know when someone is lying to us (or simply spewing "facts") to justify a point or solidify a position. The neocons use this ploy all the time (for instance, Iraq is somehow responsible for or involved in WTC or that bin Laden was never a US ally in Afghanistan and we did not support his terrorists in his guerrilla campaign against the Soviets there). Without being able to challenge their "facts" with the historical record, we let them get away with it.

Answer 2

Hi Oreo, this is a great question that I'm going to try to answer from three different angles.


First, it's important to know where History stands in relation to other intellectual disciplines, or recognize where it stands on the intellectual framework. There are five branches of knowledge: Logic, Mathematics, Science, History, and Theology/Philosophy. All human knowledge emanates from these five disciplines. So, History is a big subject and it's very important.


Second, the conventional study of history allows the student to also know the discipline as "the study of power". Power manifests itself in different ways but the four basic examples (areas) in most political systems are as follows:

I. Political leadership
a) Military
b) Police and the courts
II. Economy (money)
III. Educational system
IV. Religion

There are 193 different countries in the world. The history student studies them individually and how they relate to each other.


Third, History is an important discipline from a theological standpoint. Most theologians consider History as the mode in which God reveals truths to man. Many theologians refer to God as "the master of history".


Unfortunately, they dont teach you how to study History in a public junior high or high school (and they ignore Theology altogether). Those social studies classes were NOT History class, not even close. Learning to know "how" and "why" something happened is different than memorizing a bunch of dates and names. History is a subject where there may be four or five (sometimes more) reasonable answers to one question; it can be a messy and troublesome subject. But it can really help develop your intellect, and aid in your discovery of the world. An excellent historian will know what will happen in the future...how does he/she do it???? It's easy, they've seen it before.....

Answer 3

Yawns. The standard answer is well represented here - "So we don't repeat the same mistakes." After much consideration - and feeling slightly disappointed that so many would drool at the ring of the bell - I have to answer:

It is important to study history so we will not be forever ignorant of the past. It is important to study history to learn the contributions others have made in the past and affect us (negatively or positively) today. It is important to study history to learn as much of the truth as we can to the myths we all believe today, but rarely question.

Answer 4

There's a quote in Thomas Wolfe's LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL that I love:
"Each of us is all the sums he has not counted: subtract us into nakedness and night again, and you shall see begin in Crete four thousand years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas. . . . The seed of our destruction will blossom in the desert, the alexin of our cure grows by a mountain rock, and our lives are haunted by a Georgia slattern, because a London cutpurse went unhung. Each moment is the fruit of forty thousand years. The minute-winning days, like flies, buzz home to death, and every moment is a window on all time."

That's why it's important to read history- it is the biography of humanity on earth. Everything is interconnected, nothing is isolated. The Muslim World of today is how it is because of British Imperialism a century ago, because of Turkish-Austrian conflicts 3 centuries ago, because of the bar-Kokbah rebellion by the Jews against the Romans in the 2nd century AD, because of the cousins of Muhammad claiming power in the 7th century AD, etc.- to see the effects of NOT studying history look at the quagmire caused by men in power who can't even be bothered to pick up a beginner's guide to Islam and learn why Iraq was created in the first place or what the difference in a Sunni and a Shi'ite is.
Is it insignificant to know that blacks were brought to America as slaves, or does it still affect how they're perceived? Or that the Spanish settled Mexico rather than South Carolina? Why is South America, which has vast resources of minerals and gold and raw materials, so far behind the USA and Canada in wealth? The answer lies in reading history.
History shows us how much difference one person can make (even if you never know his/her name), how evil can be overcome, how values and "truth" can change (often several times in a generation), how nothing is permanent but some things are eternal.
In 1920 a Mormon farmer's son worked for an obnoxious supervisor at Westinghouse who refused to give him a week's bereavement leave when his infant son died. That obnoxious manager's idiotic and unfeeling behavior delayed the invention of television by more than 20 years. (The farmer's son was named Philo Farnsworth, and because he was furious at the manager he quit the job when his contract was up, and because in so doing he lost his funding David Sarnoff/Vlad Zworykin became the frontrunners in bringing about TV, and because Sarnoff's team got there first using some of Philo's patents it resulted in years of lawsuits, and if it hadn't been for all of this TV would have been available and on the market in the late 1930s- can you imagine, good or bad, how different life would have been if we'd had TV in WW2? That's one of a thousand examples where history turns on a tiny fulcrum, and there are examples of a simple act of kindness also having incredible after effects. In reading about history we are reading about ourselves (particularly us in the New World who are here 100% because of occurrences in the Old World).

Answer 5

I agree with madamez. The U.S. for example continues to make the same mistakes over and over again, because our leaders are ignorant and unaware of the past. I am shocked daily by the mistakes countries, leaders of countries and society continue to make. A little reading into history might educate us and help us not to repeat these mistakes.

Answer 6

The best reason to study history is so we dont repeat our mistakes but it seems to be an abject failure as wars continue.

Answer 7

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. In other words we learn from our mistakes in the past.

Answer 8

The past is the gateway to the future. Short and sweet...we learn from past triumphs and mistakes.

Answer 9

We can learn from the past and use it as a guide for how to behave in the future.

Answer 10

..."what comes around, goes around"... "we" can learn or continue to fail by "our" mistakes or excell in the knowledge that "we" know... why...? because History has shown us so...