Why is history studied and why do we learn this subject?

Answer 1

An old adage says, "there's nothing new under the sun." George Orwell, in his frightening classic anti-utopian 1984, opens the book with the quote, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

In truth, while the fields of science and technology advance to heights that were unimaginable a few centuries ago, human nature never changes. This is probably the most important lesson of history. The entire field of political science and international relations is governed by theories that treat the behavior of entire nations as having their roots in human emotion and behavior. Everything that will ever happen has already happened; thus, by studying the past, we learn about our future: since human nature never changes, we will face the same pitfall again and again; it is for us and future generations to learn about ourselves and try our best not to do so.

History also provides us with context in order understand why our world came to be the way it is, plagued by war and strife, famine and hostility, rivalries and greed, power and oppression. The world wasn't created this morning when the sun rose. A complicated chain of events has unfolded of thousands of years, among billions of individuals, separated by thousands of miles and entirely different linguistic families, religions, geography, and value systems. What has resulted is the astounding diversity of interests, views, and peoples that we see today, despite the fact that, at birth, we are all identical. Studying history enlarges and deepens your perspective, to avoid passing ignorant judgment on others -- also one of man's worst downfalls.

Why is the African-American community plagued with persistent poverty, crime, and low socioeconomic status? Read the history: hundreds of years ago, they were kidnapped and brought to a foreign land, kept in ignorance and illiteracy on pain of death, exploited, murdered, and reviled for centuries, and only just in the last few decades have they been given some of the freedom to prosper. Just 25 years after the playing field was finally leveled, we have a black President.

Why is there so much strife in the Middle East? This dates back primarily to the Crusades, during the Middle Ages, when European nations, for purely financial reasons, brought unjustified war and carnage to the Arab nations living there; though done for purely trade and financial motives, the banner of Christianity was appropriated to motivate the troops.

Why are Islamic nations so obsessed with destroying America? This further backlash from Medieval times has been exacerbated by other historical events -- America's support of a Saudi Arabian monarchy that denies its citizens any civil rights or benefits, squandering the nation's riches on gold- and diamond-encrusted Lamborghinis and lavish palaces; they violate all the precepts of Islam, while imposing the harshest Islamic laws on the populace to keep them in subjugation. America's foreign and trade policies over the past hundred years indicate that we have not learned the fair trade lesson from Great Britain, and instead still choose to let history repeat itself by propping up corrupt regimes in order to effectively steal cheap goods.

What is the cause of modern terrorism? The above results in a hopeless and miserable class of disenfranchised persons without any options for self-sufficiency, self-support, or any semblance of a tolerable existence. When this happens, the oppressed rise up in revolt. This happened before and will happen again. It happened during the French Revolution, when peasants turned on the monarchy and aristocracy and murdered them. It happened successively in nearly every former British colony, after the Crown turned a deaf ear to their entreaties, spawning independent nations all over the planet -- to include India, China, South Africa, and even the United States of America. It happened in Russia during the Bolshevik revolution, in an uprising against the rule of Czars. It happened in China during the Great Cultural Revolution.

That's the message of history, it's all happened before, it's all happening now, and it's still going to be happening in the future.

Why are some nations so poor and backward? All nations have resources. Human nature says to hoard and fight over them and grow more powerful, rather than cooperate and flourish. The extent of a nation's development depends to a great extent on a moderate level of resources. What history tells us is that when an area's Natural Resources are extravagant and highly concentrated, strife results. As examples, take the many African nations that war over diamonds, while neglecting establishing a functional government or attending to corporate needs of the people. Oil exporters are also great examples, and nearly every oil exporting nation worldwide is an oppressive autocracy, from Iraq to Saudi Arabia, to Chile.

Why are some nations so obsessed with developing nuclear weapons when their people don't have clean water, food, or education? Though their actions, more developed nations have shown them that resources and development is attained not through trade and encouragement, but through exploitation and coercion. They speak only the language of power. Oppression of India by Britain spawned a nuclear-crazed society with a capital city so filthy that it can be smelled from 10 miles out on the ocean. The India/Pakistan schizm developed similarly, and along with religious persecution, produced an equally aggressive nuclear Pakistan. Iraq similarly fought for nuclear capability. Nuclear weapons are the cheap, easy, and irresponsible path to full recognition in the eyes of Western nations.

Why is the economy so bad right now? Our current economics dilemmas are a corollary to the third-world exploitation of laborers and resources that the British Empire continued (historically a tradition of the Romans... and before them, the Greeks... and before them, someone else). In short, after the breakdown of the most rampant exploitation of the Third World through outright conquest and theft of their resources, we continue to this day to exploit Third World laborers to labor in misery to produce the products that our lifestyles demand. In doing so, we create trade imbalances that lower the value of American currency, causing inflation and all sorts of economic woe.

The answers to all our problems lie in the history books. Others have been here before and have made the right and wrong decisions each time. We need only look to their example to see the outcome future outcome of our present-day decisions.