Debate:Does History Matter?

Henry Ford said, "I don't know much about history, and I wouldn't give a nickel for all the history in the world. History is more or less bunk. It is tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's [darn] is the history we make today." George Santayana said "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Who was closer to being right?

Henry Ford: "history is bunk"

If "...the only history that is worth a tinker's [darn] is the history we make today", than who's to say the history we make today will be cared about by our children? ;-). If we don't care about history now, than none of our descendants will care about us. Of course even if we do care about history, there's still a huge chance they still won't care about their past. --Ymmotrojam 18:22, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

George Santayana: "condemned to repeat"

The perfect example of this is the nation of Israel. Fortunately though, we've got a good God. Even when Israel was disobeying God and repenting again... over and over again, God was still faithful to His promises. And if we repent and put our trust in Him alone, we can avoid repeating those bad things in history. --Ymmotrojam 18:35, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

Napoleon Bonaparte: "a lie agreed upon"

While this is the classic Wikipedia model, I hope Conservapedia can avoid being condemned to repeat this bunk. RobS 16:36, 14 April 2007 (EDT)

Other Perspectives

If history doesn't matter, why don't we just make it so this wiki no longer stores the history of the pages that are created and edited ;-). --Ymmotrojam 18:30, 12 April 2007 (EDT)

Nobody cares about history

Hell, look at Afghanistan. You can go back to the 1700s or 1980s to see that nobody can win there. Or, re Iraq, you can go back to the 1970s and Vietnam and see that you can't "liberate" a country that (with substantial justification in both cases) sees you simply as a self-interested neo-colonial oppressor.

Or you can just go to the local library, fire up the microfiche machine and look at the past 50 years of gun crime in the US. At least Australian Prime Minister John Howard outlawed assault rifles after Martin Bryant massacred all those people in Port Arthur in 1996.

What's the next blast from the past we can look forward to from the US? Witch burnings, perhaps, or simply some good, old-fashioned lynchings (though they'd be Mexican illegal immigrants this time, no doubt). Perhaps California, Oregon and New York should secede. --AppalledBystander 06:29, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

What does it mean to "win" in Afghanistan? RobS 11:48, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

I think he means essentially "conquer". Obviously, if no outside country can "win", the Afghanis must be "winning" the wars of invasion/colonization/conquest etc. Human 13:27, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

If that's the meaning, then the basic premise is flawed. The US and NATO are not trying ot "conquer" Afghanistan. RobS 15:15, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

Afghan history shows that any try from outside to conquer the country by military finally failed completely. Some success can definitely be reported regarding humanitarian support and building up basic infra structure, which surely needs protection through police forces and sometimes even military forces. Surely no perfect story and still much left to be done. The economy, i.e. farming is still mainly based on opium poppy. But even when slow, some progress has definitely been achieved. The number of children going to school sky rocketed, the number of girls in particular. So, history can teach you a lesson, but it cannot replace your own thinking. --schifra 07:40, 24 May 2007 (EDT)

Everything matters

How will you know where your going unless you know where you've been. Archaeological history, the history of the sun, moon, earth, ...etc. How else could people plan for the future unless they knew the history of the past. Which is why any historian worth their salt will get their information from multiple sources, archaeological artifacts and/or sites, and anthropological studies. History most definitely doesn't mean anything to those who try to rewrite it for selfish reasons. Such as political or assorted ideological purposes and used as propaganda to further their own agendas. Of which you will no doubt denote many examples of on this debate subject.--Roopilots6 20:10, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Yes

We can learn from it.

Only from America could this question arise.

  - of course context matters
  - and of course we can learn from those who have gone before us

Mate...I totally agree!! In America, history is important too. Example: If someone had bothered to look at the history of Mnt. St. Helens' eruption, they would've realised that it will blow sideways. If they had but checked this, then many more lives would've been saved. I can't believe that apparently nobody cares about their history, about the sacrifices people made so that we could be alive today. Just less than 100 years ago and again in 1939, thousands of brave men risked it all, laid down their lives so that we may speak English that we would retain our cultures, our pride, even so that we may live today and I'm sure they didn't do all this so that some idiot could say that they didn't care about history. Whoever that was is an ignorant pig and no I don't think that this view about the person is without evidence. I truly can not believe that someone thinks it appropriate to not recognise the importance of history, as history has shaped us, shaped whole cultures, whole countries, shaped the entire world.

History *does* matter.

There are things in history that should NEVER EVER be forgotten. If "history does not matter", this technically would encompass things such as the second world war, or the reasons that lead to it; also forgotten would be the sacrifices millions of people made during that war, and all the inhumane atrocities carried out by people of those times: Nazi Germany´s horrifying human experiments, the Japanese-carried out atrocities in China, Soviet Russia and all the "good" their communist ideals did to the world, or the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Actually, "history" would technically encompass even the events of the Bible.

Still some of you dare say "History does not matter?" FreakyM 07:22, 24 May 2007 (EDT)