Why do we learn history?

Dionysus said:
World war I sucked hard, the sequel was better.

Dionysus said:
World war I sucked hard, the sequel was better.

Urjuan said:


Third version sounds most trustworthy. :D

Sohei said:
Anyone that doesn't know who Stalin or Mao is should be shot.

Kaiserpingvin said:

idk, I'd prefer just telling them.

I think everything is worth knowing for the sake of knowing it. Practical value is overrated and hard to define anyway (I get joy out of knowing something, is that not a practical value of the knowledge?).

Sohei said:
I think classes like Physics or Chemsitry have no day to day use, while history does.
So?

Alchemistx4 said:
History is great but I think they should substitute it for a basic Law class. I think that would be more beneficial after you graduate even if your not a criminal. lol

ladyxzeus said:

Well, after you are forced to learn them you start seeing in daily life, thing that does not happen with history. =(

Kaiserpingvin said:
Certainly no intrinsic value, the term "intrinsic value" makes no sense anyway.

Sohei said:
Intrinsic value is simply the psychological condition of doing something for the sake of doing it, as you said, as opposed to extrinsic value. 'Tis a word.

Anyway, i think the problem with history is not that people are not interested in wanting to understand it, but the local setting they're brought up in and are taught in limits their understanding of the larger picture. if you're not exposed to the outside world, there would be no way for you to comprehend a foreigner's reasoning as opposed to yours.

Sohei said:


i doubt you'll start seeing molecules, or looking for chemical formulas in your tea.

Sohei said:
if you're not exposed to the outside world, there would be no way for you to comprehend a foreigner's reasoning as opposed to yours.

Kaiserpingvin said:


Hmm, I always connect intrinsic value to "objectively true value inherent in said object".

My history education was pretty much the opposite of that; the only class we learnt of critical thinking, scientific methods and so on was history class, and we had material from all over the place, learnt of different wiepoints on history etc. The current class I'm taking in International History has been great in portraying conflicts from the angles of both participants. So it certainly depends on the educational system and your teachers; I shudder to think of the poor sods brought up knowing only the narrow view of "then King A said B and we invaded country C, and now we'll look at how the battles went".

Baman said:
I'd recommend Total War to remedy that. Role Playing is, after all, the best way to see things from someone else's perspective, and TW helps you with that just fine.
I've spent many hours searching wikipedia about information on Schytia, Parthia, The Seleucid kingdom, Thrace, the Timurids and so on, whom my rotten history education didn't even scratch the surface of.

Sohei said:
Theres an inherent difference in the philosophical defintion to intrinsic value and the psychological defintion, so thats probably where you misinterpreted. Anyway, its quite startling to think that the only class one takes where critical thinking and scientific methods is encouraged would be history, although that might also be because you only took one social science? I know both have been encouraged in my economics, psychology and political science classes (although the latter wasn't open to alot of interpretation).

Meh, some educational systems are simply too bland, and the overzealousness in promoting mathematics as the most important subject by schools can be somewhat annoying at times. Simply put, i think social sciences overall are under represented as compared to both sciences and languages.

ladyxzeus said:
Unfortunately...
It happens more with things related with biology though. For example, you say tea and I remember caffeine, followed by nicotine, followed by ketamine, followed by anesthesics class. Then I will eventually remember about the culture associated to tea and have a conversation about that.

I think everyone tends to remember things about the issues they work with, maybe a history teacher finds it in daily life instead. xp

Aeiou said:


When people use 'there' instead of 'their', I have to laugh at their failure as the only alternative is to cry.

shinkeikaku said:

I agree with ladyxzeus. You see things you are sensitive to, so it's naturally based on your "speciality." There's more to science than.. molecules and chemical formulas. Chemistry manifests in very macroscopic ways, such as little things like why we put salt on the roads during winter or why potholes form.. etc. Even though underlying physics is driving most of that, I don't really see it that way due to my frame of mind.

If I was more concerned about social issues or relations as a whole (instead of just interpersonal relationships), I'd probably favor history more too. As it is, I learned it because I was told to.

Sohei said:
I wouldn't say that theres absolutely no practical use to sciences in daily life, but í do think there's less when compared to History. yes, salt or ice crystals may be applications of chemsitry but it surely does have as much practical capabilities as history. Now i wouldn't know too much about chemistry itself (unlike you, i'm not interested in a chem PhD ; ) ), but from what i can gather about the subfields in chemistry, there really isn't much to it, just like the impracticality of pure mathematics as compared to practical arithmetic. I'm not stating the Chemistry is less important as a subject of study, but solely less useful in your day to day life.

Gilliene said:
The truth is because we need it to pass. Period.

Anitnelav said:
"History is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever."

That's all I wanted to say in this thread. XD

keainanhai said:
Because it might allow for one to prevent similar events from re-occuring. Or it can teach about how things have previously happened and allow us to better estimate or hypothesize about current events.