As avid watchers of the History Channel we think we have stumbled upon something. It’s a concept really, an idea. It could be possibly a revolutionary idea…
We should stop teaching history. I know, I know; I can hear you all right now. Possibly, some of you are butchering the quote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". It is a valid point. This quote came from the philosopher George Santayana, and he is quite correct. There are two problems with this. One, we scarcely pay attention in school and by all accounts there are around 10,000 years of human history we need to study. Two, human memory and recollection is inherently faulty. Any police officer and death row inmate will tell you that eye witness accounts are the least reliable source. Historian’s standard of proof is the source is not reliable if it was not first hand. In Egypt, there have been arguments for the last 20 years about the age of certain monuments. Geologists are saying that certain rocks are older than we thought based on weathering patterns and environmental conditions. Historians are saying someone wrote on the wall that the monument is this old and that trumps science.
I say why worry about it. Seriously look at Earth History. Much of the world does not study history now. They have no global consciousness of what history is or means. The history most Americans are familiar with is mainly centered on European dominated geo-political adventures. There are other cultures ancient and just as large as anything the Romans had. Thanks to the movie 300 some of you have heard about the Persian Empire. No, this was not a great Muslim Empire as one youth suggested to me.
It went like this:
Stupid Youth: See, people are all upset about how Muslims are influencing the world but they have been around a lot longer than Christians!
Me knowing that Islam was formulated as a prescribed set of beliefs around 600 AD: What?
SY: The Muslims attacked Greece and were a much greater society than anything in Europe at the time!
Me knowing that the Persian Empire’s, also known as Media, religious affiliation was known as Zoroastrian and the Priests were call Magi and it was more or less a cult of Fire: …………….
So there you have it. Now if I didn’t have a background in ancient history I would not have been bothered by his inane diatribe. It wasn’t his fault, it was mine. Really who is to say I am right? I wasn’t there.
Back to my point, there were great ancient empires in Africa and China that most people do not know about. And what does it matter? We not only ignore ancient history we ignore recent history and we ignore our own personal history. And we keep pounding away at the world making a little progress here and there and yes repeating mistakes. If we spend little to no time studying history we can devote our effects to science and language. We can stop worrying about who was better and who was right. People do not have to carry on their shoulders the weight of atrocities conducted hundreds of years ago.
When our children are born we should take every effort not to tell them about the past and only focus on the now and training for the future. Motivations and actions of people will no longer be held to a standard of who came before but just jugged on their own merits. Another reason to abolish teaching history is intellectuals study the disastrous policies of the past and think that they are smarter than the people who came before and with their superior intellect they can make Fascism, communism, and ism work where others have failed.
So stop teaching history, the history channel stopped showing it. And if not showing historical shows on the History Channel can work (like not showing music on Mtv) I think we can ignore it all together.
