Why study History?

On your own

This article originally published on my personal website.

“The Tea Party movement and other libertarians have convinced millions of Americans that they have to answer to no authority but themselves. Many in our culture have come to define freedom to mean the liberty to do whatever one wants as long as it is within the bounds of the law. In a consumer-driven society, we as individuals have become empowered like never before. The wild growth of capitalism in the United States means that everything is a commodity—something to satisfy our every want and desire. We have been created for something more than this. Yet we continue to deride any quest for the common good as something akin to socialism or anti-Americanism.” ― John Fea, Why Study History?: Reflecting on the Importance of the Past

I recently did why we should study philosophy. Today, i am going to discuss why we should study history.

Books inspire, motivate, and build nations.

Not inflating this at all. To destroy a civilization, is to not burn books. Just keep them enough distracted with other things. History is taught not just to break students by making them answer abstract questions with no lessons and stories behind. But to answer some of our and civilization's fundamental questions.

One of the first cities we recorded was Indus civilization. But question arises why we live build cities? And not just stayed in forest? Answer to this question helps us understand why we do what we do in contemporary world. And why we build cities now.

Why did we start farming even though its most ineffective way to acquire food and it has nearly killed the fragile planet? We don't know. (Some experts says its due to the abundance of food. And when you get abundance of food, you build cities). But one thing we can say for sure is that its irrevocable to the planet earth. Whatever has been done is can't be changed.

The decisions we take today will be remembered as revolutions in history. Today's ordinary decisions are revolutions for future generations.

To not repeat the mistakes we made in history. Reminding them is first step.

James Altucher asked a science fiction author asked why his books always have tragic ending of modern world due to robots. His answer was, so that we know what mistakes to not make.

Your past is everything you are, yet everything you can never be.

Your present is everything you have, yet everything you can never own.

Your future is everything you want, yet everything you can never become.

So the moral of the story is. Live life as much as you can. Don't get caught up in negativity. Don't get caught up in cellphones, social media, and the internet. Go meet people. Go somewhere new. Climb a mountain. Go fishing. Read a book. Go be alive. - James Cioffi

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. - Ray Bradbury

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

― Aldous Huxley

Now, why study philosophy?

This article was originally published on my website.