why study history - 24hourcampfire

Why study History? The pat answer is to learn from the past so as not to repeat History. I see several other answers besides the pat answer. What do you folks think?

History puts today's problems in context.
 
 For instance, the debate over gun ownership. Those who hate guns claim there was never REALLY a guarenteed right to own them. Just a right for states to have militias. But if you know history, you know the argument wasn't about states' rights or militias at all.
 
 It was about keeping government in check. But if you don't know history you can and will be lied to by those who either don't know better or hope you won't know any better.
 
 A knowlege of history, like any knowlege, is empowering. You know the world for what it is and not what someone else tells you it is. You have the informaiton to make up your own mind.
 
 Of course, you have all you need to make the wrong choices or the wrong decisions as well as the right ones. But they're your mistakes. You can learn from them. Just as history teaches you to learn from other people's mistakes as well as their successes.
 
 The same argument can be applied to the study of any subject, from history to computers to quantum mechanics. Know the world for what it is. Only then can you evaluate your place in it and use your knowlege to your advantage.

a good example of history we should study is in my sigature. And I think more people, epshily hear in Massachusetts, should see it.

It's not "the pat answer" except to those who don't understand it or examine it. The complete "pat answer" is that we study the past to know how to avoid repeating mistakes of the past. It is proven wisdom, not something that any wise person thrusts aside with a superior sneer.
 
 A convenient microcosm for this particular group is the question of why we consult handloading manuals and how we benefit from reports of blown-up guns -- in looking at specific load histories, we learn how to avoid the mistakes of those who ignored the warnings of this branch of history.
 
 The lesson of the microcosm applies to life in the macrocosm.

History also teaches us we are not the only generation to undergo hardship. It puts our problems into perspective.
 
 For example, we no longer have small pox, polio, whooping cough, or tuberculosis sweeping the country. Our main health problems today are more or less self-inflicted.
 
 Red Coats, Indians, Rebels or Yankees do not threaten our neighborhoods.
 
 This is not to say our currant difficulties do not deserve our full attention and ability. But history will show America is up to any challenge. It is our job to teach this lesson to our enemies as many times as it takes.

History was always my best subject in school. Never got less than a "B", and always an "A" in American History.
 
 But now that history has been politicaly corrected, I'd be lucky to get a "D". As some of you know, I do alot of reading on the American Civil War, both general history and biographys of leaders from both sides. Alot of the books out now, and I'm pretty sure the schools do this, focus on slavery as the main/only cause of the war. The new Battlefield Center being built in Gettysburg will have a whole section dealing with slavery.
 
 Forget the facts. Nevermind that the Union tried to hold on to Ft. Sumpter to collect revenue. Ignore the fact that emancipation came only after a year and a half of bloody fighting, and then as a blow aimed at the Southern economy.
 
 History is being sanitised to teach only what the powerful want you to know. Kind like Oceania in Orwell's "1984".
 7mm

I can put my hand in a fire and get burned-----or, I can learn about somebody else doing it and avoid the pain.
 Thats the purpose of history.

the ability to study history is one of the things that put humans ahead of animals. Anchent humman munkey things could pass on how to make a good spear, the regular munkeys couldn't teach eachother such advansed things, and that is why humans thrive, and munkeys don't as much. As humans we don't have to, as they say, "reinvent the weel" for everything. We use other people to get imfomation if we can instead of starting form scratch.

Pat answers and all it boils down to this for me..
 
 If you do not learn from the past (history), the good, the bad and the ugly, you are condeming yourself to repeating it. I do not know about others but I do enjoy not having to make the same mistake as someone else all ready has. The only true 'short cut in life' is what we can learn from the past to help us in the present and guide us to our future goals.
 
 If someone already has done all the work, why should I repeat it?

All very good answers, we all know what history is and how it is used as an educational tool. We learn from the past this is one of the features that seperates humans from the rest of the animals of the world, we pass on our knowledge through oral history or written word. This is the view of history that I call macro history. I seperate history into two catagories one, macro the other micro. I feel we are taught history for a couple of reasons the first is obvious to see what the world has become and how it evolves. The second is a bit more obtuse this is to learn our own history, that which I refer to as micro history. Micro history is difficult to understand unless you know how the study of history works. Cause and effect this is the bottom line, cause and effect. Once this is understood we can appreciate the family unit, our own family history has much to do with how each and every one of us become who we are. Even if we are from disfuntional familys or single parent familys or familys with nine kids. The ability to reason why things are the way they are often answers questions and resolves problems before they get out of hand. History is a complex subject much more than who what and where, it is us.
 
 Bullwnkl.

I think Talker summed it up for me. And, I would add, history is just plain fun. It is real, and it challenges one to look beneath the wool on a given subject if one is really interested in it. To read several treatises on one subject, digest all of the viewpoints, separate the wheat from the chaff for oneself, and draw one's own conclusions about what really happened and why is very satisfying.
 
 God, I love coming to the 24 Hour Campfire. JustinH

It's a great story,a fun read.History is the interpretation of the past.Most times,though, both sides get it wrong.

Bullwnkl,
 
 Well I just have to do it !!!! I really do !!! I just have to give you a new handle Bullwnkl... I am from now on going to refere to you as Plato.
 
 So from here on out I will refere to you as such.. YOU HAVE BEEN NOTIFIED [Linked Image]

Well friend Pick, there is nothing philosophic about History it is a study of facts and how they relate to the present. Many people read history some people make history and a few interpret history, the later are the ones to be aware of, these are the folks who call themself historians and write the history books. they are human with human adgenda. Some history is writen by revisionists, some factual some bovine scathology. The true history is the personal you know what happened you have the resourses to find out why. Thus the basic study of the craft should teach you how to evaluate your own history and where you fit into the scheme of things. Most of us are just the fodder of the doers, the sheepal we read what we are told to read and believe what is fed to us as gospel until a revision comes along at which time we are usually told an injustice was done and we have to reform our views. Such is the teachings of groups like PETA, Hand Gun Control, and others like them. So learn how to evaluate your own history first before you buy into that that is preached by those who want to change the world to suit their point of view. I say teach your children to love history especially that that is close to you, this you must do inorder to save our way of life from those who would control us rather than govern us.
 
 Bullwinkl.

Bullwinkle, I didn't know you were such a scholar !! Just kidding! I love history, especially the ole West! I traveled to Kansa City one summer to meet Jesse James great granddaughter and hear some family folklore. When I stand in the doorway of Lincolns home in Springfield my imagination goes wild knowing that ole Abe also stood on that very spot. Same with Robert E. Lee at the Lee-Custis Mansion that the Union STOLE from his family! I knew a lady in the mid to early 50's that actually met Robert E. Lee during the civil war. She was over 100 years old at that time and Lee camped out on her fathers farm. Anyway, learning from past mistakes so you won't repeat them?? History is full of incidents where we Americans have repeated mistakes over and over and over! Custer fell prey to many repeated mistakes! History is fun and interesting to me, but beyond that I don't think we have learned from past mistakes. What have we learned or done anything about the oil embargo of the early 70's? Taurus

Why study history?
 Well.....
 It's a place on the map those we relate to,started.
 Go back far enough and you will find somebody in your family sitting in a tree,flinging crap at his neighbors.
 Do we wanna go back to that?
 Everybody has a branch or two that involves some dirtbag.Thank god someone in the family decided that we aren't upstream of that branch.
 As a society,us Americans can trace history back to places all over the planet.
 Those places now kiss our ARSE.
 How did we get here,to this place,as we are now?
 Can it be better?Yes!
 However to keep from back sliding to where folks once were,ya gotta shoot a back azimuth now and again to make sure you aren't going in a circle....(like those morons the liberals are wont to do.)and repeat the mistakes of your forefathers.
 Besides.Our history as a collective,is what defines us as
 individuals in the present,and our children in the future.
 Ignore it,and your kids will be flinging crap again.
 Free will,and natural selection dictate that those to be culled will repeat the observed mistakes of others.
 On the other hand...it is fun to go back to those mistakes and pick them apart,add a new twist and see if you can't get away with it....like Democracy for an example.
 Cheers!
 E4E

E4E wrote: "Go back far enough and you will find somebody in your family sitting in a tree,flinging crap at his neighbors.
 Do we wanna go back to that? "
 
 We have, Pat. It's called politics.
 
 Sorry, I could not resist.

LOL, you got that right!

I too enjoy reading history. The older I get the more impressed with our fore fathers I become. I find that history is very subjective and the facts are different depending on who is presenting. One man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. This is a never ending subject as I hope it will continue to be.pak

Many good and thoughtfull answers here. Mine is almost contained in the question. The study of history allows me to answer the "why" of things. Things are the way they are because something happened in the past. Your great great great great grand father took that fork in the road in stead of the other and so you are where you are. Why did he take that fork?
 BCR

Being a history teacher, I like to learn from both the stupid things that people and nations do, and the smart things that they do.
 
 Another reason for me is that I find it enjoyable. Just one man's thoughts.

Rant mode on.....
 Where is it written that History is facts with dates to be remembered and regurgatated,only to pass a test?
 That is OBSCENE!!!!!!!
 History should be felt,related to,and brought into the import. of the NOW.
 It's not what a bunch of pizzed off farmers did in 1775 that is important,it's what they felt in their hearts and were willing to die for.
 It ain't about how many death camps that puke Hitler had,it's about the EVIL he shared in his heart with the mindless sheep that followed him.
 It's all about directional purpose,and learning from those that went before us and failed,or triumphed against the odds for the better of us all.
 It takes a mindless and heartless soul to review the emotion of Normandy or Tarawa,and discard it as yesterdays news and without worth.
 It also takes a special breed of dung maggot to revise history for a personal agenda,or worse..profit.
 In a sense we are no different than the Native American story tellers that pass their peoples history down to their young,through word of mouth.The wisdom of such a practice is obvious.It cannot be bastardized by government or popular thought.
 There is one place politicains cannot effectively reach with their agenda,and that is the heart.
 Only through the parent can the truth be kept alive and passed on.
 History whatever it is,shapes the future of our species,and our nations.
 Thanks! to the history teacher I had in Highschool that filled the facts with faces and emotion.
 Lest Nero be just another name.
 E4E

E4E, RIGHT ON!!!!
 
 BULLWNKL.

Well put, E4E! You nailed it!
 
 The reason I've always loved history is reading about people who put an idea above their own personal safety. Without this kind of people we'd all be lost.
 
 Yhis is one of my favorite quotes, but I can't remember the original author: "A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the existing of better men than himself."
 7mm

Studying history is a way to learn about the past to be able to better shape the future.

Just remember that the winners get to write the history. Can you imagine what history would say if for example the Germans had won WWII? Just because it is written somewhere doesn't always make it true. TM

Hey, doncha know Texans don't study history, WE MAKE HISTORY. If the USA don't keep a TEXAN as president we will all become slaves. Texas is half way between the coasts and sees both sides, now if Texas AND Alaska joined forces the Liberals would be in real trouble.:-) -- no

I don't know about Texans seeing both sides, Texas is about as form Massachusetts as any place I know of. Not that there is anything rong with that