Little help please

It's all hearsay.

Edited by Bolt3 - 20 April 2010 at 10:48pm

its not important because it is boring. only good thing to learn about in history is war

Yeah, its not that easy of a question.

Seriously, you guys need to do some critical thinking exercises.

Now, my caveat before I start is that I don't believe a single word of what I'm going to write below:

History is unimportant do to the simple matter that the focus of historical study is what has already happened, what is in the past. When we consider the world we live in today, we must take into account the massive advances that human kind has made in such a short time. The advancement of not only our technology, but our thought processes, our ideals, and even our morals, means that events as recent as two decades ago no longer hold any actual importance or relevance for our modern society much as our own experiences today will hold little or no relevance for our children, or our children's children. We are so advanced at this point, and given our global socio-economic climate, that the events governing and shaping the lives of those living in the isolated and nationalistic times of the early 20th century hold no pertinent lessons for us today. How the machinations of nationalistic captains of industry affected the world leading up the the second world war simply cannot be likened to today's global corporations who owe no allegiance to ANY country, but rather to themselves. Even the idea of the nation state is becoming less and less pertinent to our current experiences. With the advent of the EU, and the free trade conducted here on our own continent as well as the continual influx of immigration to prosperous countries, the boundaries that were such important factors even during the cold war now no longer hold the same meaning. What can we possibly learn from history that we don't already know from our everyday experiences here and now? Obviously we've learned nothing despite the importance placed on history in the educational systems around the world. Despite the genocides conducted in medieval Romania, the early 20th century in Armenia, and the mid 20th century massacres of Jews and Russians, we still see genocidal acts committed in Africa and the Balkan peninsula. Despite study of the inquisition and the Crusades, we still see ethnic cleansing take place along with so-called holy wars which never solve anything. In fact, it could be argued that without the knowledge of these prior acts of discriminating violence towards our fellow man, we'd be less likely to commit them again. It is often said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. However, could we not argue that those who DO learn from history decided to recreate it in these ways?

God, that hurt me to write that.....

Those who ignore the past have a good DVR.

Sounds like a butthurt history teacher trying to validate there crappy career.

scotchyscotch wrote: Sounds like a butthurt history teacher trying to validate there crappy career.

Agreed. I hope that teacher gives your friend an automatic A for the class if he can win that debate.

Well, your "friend" (obligatory DYOH/we all know it's you :P) could argue that it is not important to study or know what person did this on that date, but rather it is the cause/effect relationship between ideas and actions that is important. Just as law students don't study the history of law in the US, but rather they study important cases in order to better practice law, it is not important to study what happened in history, but rather how certain events precipitated others and what can be learned from them.

Make sense? I'm having trouble articulating the idea.

Rofl_Mao wrote: mod98commando wrote: scotchyscotch wrote: Sounds like a butthurt history teacher trying to validate there crappy career. Agreed. I hope that teacher gives your friend an automatic A for the class if he can win that debate. No, I think he is trying to teach the students how to debate even though its a tough topic. My friend has to debate with his partner against two other students. I think the teacher is teaching them some of critical thinking. Also, it really isn't me. I wouldn't be afraid to say it was me.

You could just TELL us that you're "girlfriend" already bosses you around to make you do her homework.

I was invited to join the high school's Model UN at the end of my 8th grade year, along with my friend Matt Hasling.  He joined, I didn't, but they were the top team in the nation for either three or four years while I was in high school.  Missed the boat on that one, in retrospect.  I didn't join because I thought they had a serious "cool" issue, I joke not.  Legitimately, they were probably the geekiest people I had met at that point.

But now I'm an engineer, and I kinda wish I'd actually done something with it.

/thread jack


Edited by ParielIsBack - 21 April 2010 at 4:06pm