Use and abuse of history summary. The Use and Abuse of History, or, How the Past is Taught 2023-01-04
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History is a powerful tool that can be used to understand the past, inform the present, and shape the future. It allows us to learn from the successes and failures of those who came before us, and to gain a deeper appreciation for the cultural, social, and political forces that have shaped our world. However, history can also be abused, either intentionally or unintentionally, in ways that distort the truth, perpetuate myths and stereotypes, or serve narrow political or ideological agendas.
One way that history can be abused is through the selective use of evidence. This can involve cherry-picking facts or sources to support a particular argument, while ignoring or downplaying evidence that contradicts it. This type of abuse is particularly insidious because it can be difficult for the average person to spot, especially if they are not familiar with the subject matter. It is therefore important for historians to be transparent about their sources and to consider a wide range of evidence when interpreting the past.
Another way that history can be abused is through the use of propaganda. This can involve using history as a means of manipulating public opinion or justifying certain actions or policies. Governments, political parties, and other powerful organizations have often used history in this way, either by presenting a distorted or biased view of the past or by promoting certain historical figures or events while downplaying or ignoring others. This type of abuse can be particularly harmful because it can lead to misunderstandings about the past, and can even be used to justify violence or oppression.
A third way that history can be abused is through the misuse of historical analogies. This can involve drawing comparisons between events or situations from different time periods or contexts in a way that oversimplifies or distorts the complexity of the past. This type of abuse is often used to support a particular argument or to appeal to emotions, but it can be misleading and may not accurately reflect the reality of the past.
It is therefore important to be aware of the ways in which history can be abused, and to be critical of the sources and arguments that are presented to us. By being vigilant and questioning the assumptions and biases of those who use history, we can ensure that it is used for the benefit of all, rather than for the narrow interests of a few.
The Use and Abuse of History: Or How the Past is Taught to Children
So now the lazy fellow lives under French conventions that are actually incorrect: his manner of walking shows it, his conversation and dress, his general way of life. Even if a man brought up in this school will show himself openly offended, one is just as pleased, knowing it is only meant in the artistic sense of ira et studium though it is really sine ira et studio. What the intelligence services had forgotten was that Kennedy had backed down on his initial demand that the Soviets remove all Russian troops from the island. It is exactly the same crazy method as that which leads our young painters into picture-galleries instead of into the workshop of a master and before all into the unique workshop of the unique master, nature. Monumental history is the masquerade costume in which their hatred of the great and powerful of their own age is disguised as satiated admiration for the great and powerful of past ages, and muflled in which they invert the real meaning of that mode of regarding history into its opposite; whether they are aware of it or not, they act as though their motto were: let the dead bury the living. The danger here, though, is that we will be unfair to the past. It is not such true life, and promises much less for the future than the life that used to be guided not by science, but by instincts and powerful illusions.
The moralist, the artist, the saint and the statesman, may well be troubled, when they see that all foundations are breaking up in mad unconscious ruin, and resolving themselves into the ever flowing stream of becoming; that all creation is being tirelessly spun into webs of history by the modern man, the great spider in the mesh of the world-net. Any healthy organism requires strong plastic powers and an optimal horizon. Whenever he could, he would take the train to Lucerne to visit Wagner, who at the time was composing his four-opera Ring Cycle. . As it is not possible to blend these metals, according to Plato, so there could never be any confusion between the classes: the belief in the æterna veritas of this arrangement was the basis of the new education and the new state. Use and Abuse of History 51 If this bias is always present is there really a right and wrong way to see two sides given in history? In fact, the nineteenth century prided itself on being more historically informed than any previous age.
The Uses and Abuses of History by Margaret MacMillan
Or, is there another explanation? But man is always resisting the great and continually increasing weight of the past; it presses him down, and bows his shoulders; he travels with a dark invisible burden that he can plausibly disown, and is only too glad to disown in converse with his fellows—in order to excite their envy. His desire to experience something himself and to feel evolving within him a coherent living complex of experiences of his own — such a desire is confused and as it were made drunk by the illusory promise that it is possible to sum up in oneself the highest and most noteworthy experiences of former ages, and precisely the greatest of former ages, in a few years. In the following statements Dr. He must bring the past to the bar of judgment, interrogate it remorselessly, and finally condemn It. It is ironic because there is such a great disparity between the knowledgeable interiors and the impotent exteriors. Whatever else it might be, Marxism is a theology of redemption and hope.
The only realistic posture is one of perpetual condemnation. Political and other leaders too often get away with misusing or abusing history for their own ends because the rest of us do not know enough to challenge them. Instead they are out there but they are not brought to students in silver platters and shoved down their throats. They stand there on the other side of the road and make sweeping generalisations and racist assumptions and they gather round them smaller boys and tell them nationalist myths. Howard Zinn had many opinions of the American Revolution. But to listen to this, pure Christianity speaking its mind about the earlier impure Christianity, the uninitiated hearer would often get the impression that the talk was not of Christianity at all but of. As if it were the task of every time to be just to everything before it! Past failure is a sort of falsification of experience: an incentive to try a different approach.
Howard zinn: use and abuse of history summary Essay Example
Historians received emails which said "The veterans have done more for our country and way of life than you ever will. But there is another constitutive capacity responsible for the plastic powers: synthesis. All that is small and limited, mouldy and obsolete, gains a worth and inviolability of its own from the conservative and reverent soul of the antiquary migrating into it, and building a secret nest there. It is the task of history to be the mediator between them and thus, again and again, to inspire and lend the strength for the production of the great man. . Instead they are out there but they are not brought to students in silver platters and shoved down their throats. .
Then do some great and mighty deed: the place may be prepared for you then, even though you do come last. They do not know how unhistorical their thoughts and actions are in spite of all their history, and how their preoccupation with it is for the sake of life rather than mere science. How can we reach that end? Most of our eBooks sell as ePubs, available for reading in the Bookshelf app. The horizon is a barrier to block out crippling knowledge. As well, this work began as a series of lectures, and I think that accounts for repeated use and explanation of the same phrasing, such as mentioning more than once that Churchill had quipped that the Balkans had more history than they could swallow. Even if this degeneration do not take place, and the foundation be not withered on which antiquarian history can alone take root with profit to life: yet there are dangers enough, if it become too powerful and invade the territories of the other methods.
The Use and Abuse of History, or, How the Past is Taught
But now men hate to become ripe, for they honour history above life. There is a lot of focus on war and how leaders have twisted history to support wars, especially in later chapters, so this may be of interest to people who are interested in anti-war activism. When we view these past figures as inspirational, we may distort history by overlooking the unique circumstances that gave rise to them. One-sided history is used by ideologues — nationalists, religious fundamentalists, fascists and communists — to promote their cause or theory at the expense of another. So it might say to itself, in the old Spanish phrase, "Defienda me Dios de my," God keep me from myself, from the character, that is, which has been put into me.
The Use and Abuse of History Theme in Reflections on the Revolution in France
Fukuyama brought the term back to the forefront with his essay The End of History? Empirically, all of this was nonsense; emotionally, it was powerful stuff. Every one has noticed that a man's historical knowledge and range of feeling may be very limited, his horizon as narrow as that of an Alpine valley, his judgments incorrect and his experience falsely supposed original, and yet in spite of all the incorrectness and falsity he may stand forth in unconquerable health and vigour, to the joy of all who see him; whereas another man with far more judgment and learning will fail in comparison, because the lines of his horizon are continually changing and shifting, and he cannot shake himself free from the delicate network of his truth and righteousness for a downright act of will or desire. It is omission or deemphasis of important data. If we don't have accurate historical review, can we avoid making the same mistakes in the future? And of course I can surely subscribe to the final conclusion: " If the study of history does nothing more than teach us humility, scepticism and awa A collection of lectures given in 2007. They angrily exclaim against the special injustice done to our culture, when such men as Mozart and Beethoven are beginning to be spattered with the learned mud of the biographers and forced to answer a thousand searching questions on the rack of historical criticism. While I am nowhere near done her entire collection, it was nice to see this bridging, especially for a history buff such as myself.
