Daniel Kuhner Blogs
4th period Hatmaker
Why History Matters
As someone who has lived in this day and age, at some point in your life, one will be forced to take a history class. Everyone has their own opinion, but in some cases, history can be seen as boring, useless, and dull. Many students find history boring or uneventful because its common sense to think "why do I need to know something that happened 400 years ago." It's too bad some people feel this way because no matter how much they want history to disappear unfortunately history is inevitable. History will always matter because it makes one connect and answer any questions someone might have on our present today.
Understanding the past helps people learn the quality of human life. When a person is more knowledgeable about the past it helps them grow as a person comparing and understanding the conditions of human life of the past and present. Not only does history help one person, but it helps society as a whole. As humans, we always want what's best for our society to grow and improve. The only way to do this is looking back at our history to fix the problems that occurred in the past whether it be from 20 to 200 years ago. The same can be said for animals and evolution. Animals have a genetic mutation in their DNA for the next generation to improve their species for better survival based on their history. For every living creature, knowing the past is a vital part of sustaining the future.
History, at some point, will make one come to the realization of the impact it plays on our present society. History is inescapable because of the variety of data it gives to better further yourself or society. History helps people understand different cultures in the past and present. As long as there is a future, history will always be needed.
Citation links: http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/why_history_matters.html
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate you sharing your perspective on history in this post. I would echo the sentiment that history is what connects people to the past and also to each other.
I also thought it was insightful to compare society having the opportunity to improve itself with each new generation through the study of history with the way animals have genetic mutations that make them better suited to the world around them.
What is one lesson you have learned from your past studies of history? In what way could you or someone else apply it personally?
Thanks so much Mrs. Hatmaker for the awesome feedback! One example of a lesson I learned, quite recently in your class, is how cruel our own Americans were to the Native Americans. It made me realize how greedy and selfish we were and the amount disrespect we had for their culture. As a American, your views are obviously going to be bias thinking your civilization in history did everything that was morally right. Its easy to make excuses for why someone did something but sometimes you just have to face facts. One thing I will take from this is becoming more objective and see two sides to every story.
DeleteWow dude... that was a deep analysis. Introducing the idea of evolution as a reason for why history matters was especially interesting. As History can answer all questions, one might say there ARE NO stupid questions, just questions asked at the wrong time. I definitely liked that you included society into this and I wish you would've given an example of how, "If you don't know history... your society is subject to repeat it's earlier history" and maybe used America for that example. All-in-all, good post. Very scholarly sounding.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! I appreciate your comments and feedback. I will definitely work on giving more examples to support my claims!
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