So, why is knowing about history important to the person of today?
The bf and I are having a discussion about it.
Context.
Those who refuse to learn from history will be required to take it again in summer session, pass/fail.
Even if you only care about today and not history for its own sake, history is still important to understand why and how things are the way they are. You can’t be an in informed person if you don’t understand the basics of, say, how and why the U.S. Constitutional was written the way it was and how that impacts current government. Today’s international relations issues won’t make much sense unless you know some history of the Middle East and WWII for example. Those are only two examples of many.
Every person I have ever known that claimed they didn’t care about history at all also had some rather extreme gaps in knowledge on many things combined with a distinct lack of curiosity in general. I don’t think you can be ignorant of history basics at least without it impacting knowledge in many other subjects.
I am quoting this for truth, and also for the novelty of my agreeing with Shagnasty. 
If you’re an American citizen puzzled by the apparently-undemocratic nature of the Electoral College and desirous of change, knowing the early history of our noble republic makes it clear why it was a reasonable compromise way back when and why it’s unlikely to change now absent armed insurrection or mind-control gizmos.
Other things than political history are also important. I don’t think it’s possible to understand why applicantions for patents for perpetual motion machines get unceremoniously shredded unless you know some scientific history.
“Those who remember the past are doomed to repeat it…to anyone they can get to listen.”
More seriously, though – we don’t live long enough to learn everything by personal experience. Letting other test ideas for us, and remembering their results, is both safer and faster. All history is is a bunch of folks testing ideas for us.
This is probably better suited to IMHO than General Questions
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
The more you know about history, the less you take for granted about the way things are now: they didn’t use to be this way, and they don’t have to be this way.
Why is any knowledge important?
Do you want to be a well-rounded, thoughtful person who understands the world they live in and who can make informed decisions regarding your future and your role in it? Or do you want to be someone who just lives in the “now” and just sort of takes life as it comes?
Plenty of people are the latter. I mean you could conceivably not know anything about anything. Just spend every day waking up, going off to whatever job you do to support yourself (assuming you have one), do what you are told, come home and watch some reality TV, then off to bed to repeat the process in the morning. Maybe even form some strong opinions about something you heard somewhere.
For example, today is the 71st anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.
Knowing what kinds of shit people have pulled in the past and how they justified it helps you recognize shit they’re trying to pull right now. For example, if you don’t know something about past governments that have tried to print money to pay off their debts, this starts to look like a good idea.
I for one think a $1 trillion platinum coin would be really really cool, and I’d like to have one*.
As a financial gimmick, not so much.
- Practical worth: metal value. Seriously, no one can make change for you.
As above, the value of knowing history is context. Where we’ve been, how we got here, and what we’ve tried and how it worked or failed. Not knowing history is like not knowing your own past.
Because knowing shit makes you smarter. Aside from the “history” part of it, it’s just important to know things. We think in analogies, we compare new knowledge to things we already know, we organize mental information based on the patterns we already have.
I teach, and over the years I have really come to the conclusion that kids that don’t know things–even kids that otherwise seem quite bright–have a lot more trouble processing information. I know for myself that part of the reason I am so good (compared to hoi polli, not Dopers) at processing information is that I can quickly see “Oh, this is like THAT”. People with no THAT are at a huge disadvantage. Now, it’s a chicken-and-egg situation: is it that they can’t process information because they don’t know anything, or they don’t know anything because they can’t process information? I think this sort of invites a Pascal’s wager kind of thing: if it’s all just processing power and nothing helps, well, then, trying to learn shit won’t hurt, but if it really is that learning shit increases processing power, opting not to would carry a huge cost.
Now, if it’s important to know shit, is it important that that shit be history? I think history needs to be on the list, along with most of your classic school subjects. They are all different ways of understanding the world, and if knowing shit helps you process things, I think it’s a good bet that knowing a wide variety of shit helps you process in a wider variety of ways.
“Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.“
You can look at this from a micro or macro level. History is the most basic of learning tools. From baking a cake to starting land wars in Asia.
“Those that don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.”
“History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme” - Mark Twain
Because the wages keep me in cookies. Also, last week I got to wave a stage-quality Roman sword at an unruly class and snarl, ‘If you had but one neck, I’d hack it through.’
love,
Ms Boods, history lecturer
To learn from mistakes. To learn from successes. Plus it is heard to know where you are going when you don’t know where you have been. Also, it is pretty damn interesting!
I understand that the U.S. tank commanders in Desert Storm had studied Rommel, and owe at least some of their success to his tactics.
If the US had paid attention to what the Brits did at the Battle of Taranto, we would not have had our butts handed to us at Pearl Harbor.
Or the Port Arthur attack in 1904.
Channeling Caligula, are you?