As a kid in school, I hated history, and always did poorly in history classes. For one, I never really cared much for memorizing names and dates
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I always hated history too, but for a different set of reasons. In school, the only version that we got was the whitewashed victor's version which had been stripped of pretty much everything of interest (mostly anything which makes historical figures human and not just faceless archetypes) and reduced down to a list of battles, dates and names which we were required to memorize as facts. There was no attempt at getting us to understand the overall stretching narrative, how the events played into and caused each other, the reasoning and logic.
As an adult, I got to reading things like A People's History and other stuff like this which flips everything I was taught in school on its head - the versions of history I was taught were so full of omissions and unstated assumptions as to be basically complete lies. The so-called "facts" of history are anything but - history is largely nothing but he-said, she-said with whoever has the most power getting their version told. Even scholars of a particular field (such as, for example, those
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Well, I had a reply written up, but that's gone. I'll just say that you make excellent points, Fey!
Definitely, the schools do it wrong. They distill history into a sort of "names and dates" trivia quiz. It's a damn shame they don't focus more on asking us to recognize the patterns you mention, or teaching how the lessons of history can apply to our own lives. But then, history is dangerous. How, for example, could the government benefit from teaching that excessive nationalism might cause ethnic cleansings; or that most other republics aren't subjected to a two party system, and we don´t have to be either
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I agree completely with everything you've said here, especially about the possible reasons schools in this country might have for wishing the past to be seen through a certain lens. Our entire school system is based on producing unthinking factory workers with a rudimentary skillset, after all, and having us think for ourselves is often counterproductive if the goal is producing more consumers
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Haha, true! I can't think of any 100% practical reason to be upset about things I can't change.
Though sometimes I wonder if the world would be different if more people got upset at injustice. Upset enough to feel compelled to study its origins with dedication, and strike it at its root. I know that my emotions drove me to keep digging and digging and digging: Why does ethnic cleansing happen? Why does slavery happen? How can I avoid the same mistakes? How does this all connect with animal exploitation? Why, why, why?
Most people seem to be like "Whatever, who cares? Slavery and bad stuff ended after the Revolutionary War, and I passed all the tests in grade school."
I'll admit I'm possibly just rationalizing my emotions. As I said, I am getting desensitized. And as you said, it's probably a healthy response.
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As an adult, I got to reading things like A People's History and other stuff like this which flips everything I was taught in school on its head - the versions of history I was taught were so full of omissions and unstated assumptions as to be basically complete lies. The so-called "facts" of history are anything but - history is largely nothing but he-said, she-said with whoever has the most power getting their version told. Even scholars of a particular field (such as, for example, those ( ... )
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Definitely, the schools do it wrong. They distill history into a sort of "names and dates" trivia quiz. It's a damn shame they don't focus more on asking us to recognize the patterns you mention, or teaching how the lessons of history can apply to our own lives. But then, history is dangerous. How, for example, could the government benefit from teaching that excessive nationalism might cause ethnic cleansings; or that most other republics aren't subjected to a two party system, and we don´t have to be either ( ... )
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Though sometimes I wonder if the world would be different if more people got upset at injustice. Upset enough to feel compelled to study its origins with dedication, and strike it at its root. I know that my emotions drove me to keep digging and digging and digging: Why does ethnic cleansing happen? Why does slavery happen? How can I avoid the same mistakes? How does this all connect with animal exploitation? Why, why, why?
Most people seem to be like "Whatever, who cares? Slavery and bad stuff ended after the Revolutionary War, and I passed all the tests in grade school."
I'll admit I'm possibly just rationalizing my emotions. As I said, I am getting desensitized. And as you said, it's probably a healthy response.
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I've been bored by it for the past decade or so....
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