What good is studying/researching/doing history?

[Pappa]

Surely the secondary skills you learn from studying history are useful in a much wider way... learning to search for sources of information, assess the quality and validity of that info and combine it with other sources of information??? They're really useful to anyone really.

But you learn the same skills in science, English, etc...

Perhaps that's why they're obligatory too.

[FBM]

My original major, which I had transferred schools to be a part of because it was very unusual and specific, was cancelled the semester I got there so I needed a new major. I enjoyed both history and English, so I double-majored in them. Unfortunately my decision was all from the heart and not the wallet - I was foolishly thinking of my own satisfaction rather than a future career. Silly, in retrospect.

I majored in Philosophy and wound up with English as a minor, so I can . It got me where I am today.


Seriously, do you feel that your knowledge of history has enriched your life? If so, how?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Seriously, do you feel that your knowledge of history has enriched your life? If so, how?

Don't know about Bella, but history adds depth to many things for me. That admiral's statue in Pusan, without history you wouldn't know who he was. There's a town here in Missouri, unremarkable unless you know the Mormons were massacred there during their trek west. Donner Pass? Without history you couldn't have a good laugh at the menu at a particular diner. (The sandwiches all have name of people who were eaten there. Very "inside" joke.)

[Bella Fortuna]

My original major, which I had transferred schools to be a part of because it was very unusual and specific, was cancelled the semester I got there so I needed a new major. I enjoyed both history and English, so I double-majored in them. Unfortunately my decision was all from the heart and not the wallet - I was foolishly thinking of my own satisfaction rather than a future career. Silly, in retrospect.

I majored in Philosophy and wound up with English as a minor, so I can . It got me where I am today.


Seriously, do you feel that your knowledge of history has enriched your life? If so, how?

I like the context and depth that knowledge of whatever corner of history one likes gives to life. I like being able to 'get' cultural references, to know where things and practices today originated from, and to see contextual historical patterns - it helps in dealing with the human condition to see the cycles of human history.

[Bella Fortuna]

Zilla - snap!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Zilla - snap!

I is professional.

[FBM]

Not everybody who studies history fails to learn from it. The military is said to "always be training to fight the last war." Without history they'd know nothing of the last war. And studying the events that transpired when they did that have lead us to try and avoid that silliness in the future.

The last war is usually within memory's reach, so that's not quite the same as 'history' in the sense that I'm using it. I mean, if Westmoreland had boned up on Sun Tzu, he would have known how to win in VN. His memory of WWII outweighed his longer-range education in history, making his education in history worthless IRL, no?

But history isn't just about the wars, of course. "Heritage" is history, as is "legacy" and "culture". Those things all draw on the past to shape the future.

Yep. The past conditions the future in broad terms, but I'm talking about history as a profession. What you describe is just as attributable to folklore, innit?

Perhaps that's why they're obligatory too.

It's redundant all over again, IMO.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Not everybody who studies history fails to learn from it. The military is said to "always be training to fight the last war." Without history they'd know nothing of the last war. And studying the events that transpired when they did that have lead us to try and avoid that silliness in the future.

The last war is usually within memory's reach, so that's not quite the same as 'history' in the sense that I'm using it. I mean, if Westmoreland had boned up on Sun Tzu, he would have known how to win in VN. His memory of WWII outweighed his longer-range education in history, making his education in history worthless IRL, no?

What happened in the last war? What did we learn from it? How do we train to meet those circumstances again. Bad history, but history.

But history isn't just about the wars, of course. "Heritage" is history, as is "legacy" and "culture". Those things all draw on the past to shape the future.

Yep. The past conditions the future in broad terms, but I'm talking about history as a profession. What you describe is just as attributable to folklore, innit?

Folklore, oral history, call it what you will.

[FBM]

Seriously, do you feel that your knowledge of history has enriched your life? If so, how?

Don't know about Bella, but history adds depth to many things for me. That admiral's statue in Pusan, without history you wouldn't know who he was. There's a town here in Missouri, unremarkable unless you know the Mormons were massacred there during their trek west. Donner Pass? Without history you couldn't have a good laugh at the menu at a particular diner. (The sandwiches all have name of people who were eaten there. Very "inside" joke.)

I like the context and depth that knowledge of whatever corner of history one likes gives to life. I like being able to 'get' cultural references, to know where things and practices today originated from, and to see contextual historical patterns - it helps in dealing with the human condition to see the cycles of human history.

I really do appreciate that, and again, I'm not saying that knowing history doesn't make life more interesting, only that it's not much use for anything else. That said, the Third Reich and Stalin found uses for "history", as do China and N. Korea. (Inventing, revising it for their political ends, that is.)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I really do appreciate that, and again, I'm not saying that knowing history doesn't make life more interesting, only that it's not much use for anything else. That said, the Third Reich and Stalin found uses for "history", as do China and N. Korea. (Inventing, revising it for their political ends, that is.)

Detectives are historians. Researchers are historians. They both collect data and create a picture from it. The detective wasn't there at the time the crime was committed. (Unless Internal Affairs is tracking him, of course.) So he has to look at what other people tell him and the physical evidence available. Historians use oral statements and documentary sources to recreate an event.

You use history to determine if you're going to buy a particular brand of booze. "Last time that shit nearly killed me. I'd better buy some more." History tells you that NK is a problem for you. And WHY. That's the important part of history, WHY. I used to tell my student to answer a question like it was a party invitation:

Who
What
When
Where and
WHY

The WHY was the part where they made their points, the rest fed the WHY. WHY is the Middle East a mess? WHY does China worry about Russia? WHY?

[klr]

I am definitely with 'Zilla here, and I have an ever-growing history library to back me up.

[FBM]

Detectives are historians. Researchers are historians. They both collect data and create a picture from it. The detective wasn't there at the time the crime was committed. (Unless Internal Affairs is tracking him, of course.) So he has to look at what other people tell him and the physical evidence available. Historians use oral statements and documentary sources to recreate an event.

You use history to determine if you're going to buy a particular brand of booze. "Last time that shit nearly killed me. I'd better buy some more." History tells you that NK is a problem for you. And WHY. That's the important part of history, WHY. I used to tell my student to answer a question like it was a party invitation:

Who
What
When
Where and
WHY

The WHY was the part where they made their points, the rest fed the WHY. WHY is the Middle East a mess? WHY does China worry about Russia? WHY?

Hmm. Fair enough. Ehm. OK, this is going to take some thought...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Detectives are historians. Researchers are historians. They both collect data and create a picture from it. The detective wasn't there at the time the crime was committed. (Unless Internal Affairs is tracking him, of course.) So he has to look at what other people tell him and the physical evidence available. Historians use oral statements and documentary sources to recreate an event.

You use history to determine if you're going to buy a particular brand of booze. "Last time that shit nearly killed me. I'd better buy some more." History tells you that NK is a problem for you. And WHY. That's the important part of history, WHY. I used to tell my student to answer a question like it was a party invitation:

Who
What
When
Where and
WHY

The WHY was the part where they made their points, the rest fed the WHY. WHY is the Middle East a mess? WHY does China worry about Russia? WHY?

Hmm. Fair enough. Ehm. OK, this is going to take some thought...

Whenever you're ready to pick this up.

Historically, I've been here.

[Azathoth]

A philosopher moaning about how useless history is

[Bella Fortuna]

A philosopher moaning about how useless history is

Where's a good chartered accountant when you need one?