I think the purpose/value of knowing history is exactly the same as remembering one’s own past: to learn from it. But it’s not just “learning” - it’s grounding, it’s knowing who you are, where you came from, who you knew, what you did, why you felt you did that at that time, and how your choices led you to where you are today.
What are your thoughts on this? Why do you think people should learn history?
I think history is the greatest story ever written. Our story. The story of all humanity. The more one studies history, the more it becomes clear that we’re all interlinked. Nation’s and cultures are just labels we use to categorise people, whereas in reality history is a fluid mix of everything and everyone everywhere. With historical literacy, there is simply no place for xenophobia anymore.
Right. Totally. History opens up what really should be obvious to us all - that we’re the same people sharing the same planet with common overlaps in our stories that we should share with each other instead of fearing or rejecting or demonizing.
The purpose of learning history is that to be knowledgeable about the past. If you don’t know the past, how can one shape a future. There is no age limit of learning. Our ancestors from where we came from. Oldest civilization Mesopotamia. Neanderthal to current human face.
I agree with Jan that history is the greatest story ever told. It has an impact on pretty much every aspect of our daily lives, whether we realise it or not; the laws we follow, the lessons we are taught at school, art, the theatre, medicine. Each one has evolved throughout history to become what it is today.
History opens up the world beyond the small corner we each live in. We can learn about powerful kings and queens, brave soldiers, inspiring peasants, struggling artists, and the list goes on… It’s a never-ending source of fascinating stories and characters.
I think at the end of the day, the most important thing about learning history is acknowledging that the human story is the same. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what language you speak, or what religion you practice. Everyone throughout history has endured hardships, overcome obstacles, and experienced joy, and that’s the one thing that has linked us all since the beginning of human existence.
The Neanderthals were actually a different branch of human, not our ancestors. However, there was some interbreeding between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals, which is why many people (mainly Europeans) have some traces of Neanderthal DNA.
Yes. I totally agree with Liana. American author Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that we’re all on a ship, in our own staterooms, looking out our own portholes. And all we know of life is the view from our own portholes. And we have a choice: to stay in our staterooms and keep looking out that same porthole and calling what we see “reality” - or we can go visit others in their staterooms and look out their portholes to get a different view. And, to me, that’s really what the study of history is all about: getting a view from different portholes - and communing with people on the ship who are the same basic human that you are.
That’s a beautiful way to put it. I’d only add from what little I’ve learned studying food history that it’s also taught me how much of what feels “natural” or “obvious” today is actually just historically contingent. Dietary norms, ideas of purity, social hierarchies none of it is fixed, it just accumulated over centuries.
I find that oddly humbling. Studying how people ate or worshipped differently in the past makes me a little more careful about assuming my own present-day habits or beliefs are somehow the “correct” default. Still learning a lot myself, but that’s the value I keep coming back to.
Right. It is “oddly humbling” - we think the view from our own rooms is the “right view” - but it’s really only the one narrow view from our rooms. We have to get out and have a look from other rooms.
That’s a great way to put it the view from other rooms. It’s easy to forget how many rooms there are until you actually go looking. Appreciate the exchange.
Actually I think that’s why this forum is really great. We get to view history from other points of view by discussing it here!