The importance of History

ABD EL HAMID HELWANI

37574272

Critical Thinking II

Johan Claasen

The Importance of History

(2523 words)

        The necessity to study what is known as history lingers as self-evident. A ranging perspective to this subject matter acknowledges the statement proclaiming that being aware of the mistakes made in the past avoids us from replicating them. There are therefore lessons to be grasped from history. Moreover, a nation needs to know its background, where it comes from seeing as it lives on ideologies that solidly contrive mentalities. The reason for which this is as is, need to however be explored and examined. Wars are recurrent; the passions maintaining them lack sensitivity towards lessons that could be drawn from the past, and the eccentricity of historical time is to produce new situations. It is hence legitimate to question the validity of a study of history. What is its importance? What is its interest, if it has one?

         The interest we hold towards something varies on account of the importance we contribute it with. We commonly agree that making an effort is essential for knowledge acquirement. Education is an intellectual work. It demands that we develop analytical skills in order to penetrate the mentality of past centuries and avoid anachronisms. Moreover, it is for the big part the work of historians, of those who have worked to understand the meaning of documents. Historical knowledge is less about knowing facts by heart. It implies a work of interpretation, of making a relation, based on an apprenticeship of the sense of the set terms. French historian Marc Bloch indicates this by taking the word “villa” as an example basis. What did this word mean to the men of the high Middle Ages? What did they mean by “war”, by “honor”? It is compulsory to patiently analyze the texts to understand it.

The knowledge of history is generally considered to be essential. Therefore, the reason for which should find an interest. This study would give us indispensable lessons. Machiavel justifies the reading of historians by reason of it allowing us to make enlightening connections for our present. Their analyses provide us with lessons of conduct, predominantly related to political and military matters. This thesis presupposes that the diversity of historical situations is less important than the permanence of certain passions. It must be believed, just as Hume did in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, in the existence of a human nature that does not change over time.

The study of history is thus the laboratory of the science of mankind. No matter the era, we notice the presence of hatred and love, courage and cowardice, generosity and selfishness. Human actions are only the combination of these passions and it seems possible to find the principles connecting them to one another. Therefore, it is legitimate to reason by saying that the same motives always produce the same actions. This is akin to the idea of Thucydides at the beginning of his History of the Peloponnesian War: he states his work as a “treasure forever” because the causes of this war are not specific to this event. Thus, their knowledge could help avoid new tragedies by allowing the appropriate measures to be taken in time.

The importance and interest of the study of history thus has a philosophical foundation. Do we have to accept it without restriction?

         Hume’s thesis has deterministic emphasis’ even though his position is subtler. If he writes that most of the observations that were made on the French of today are somewhat applicable to the Romans, he maintains his idea that “human nature remains the same in its principles and its operations”. This thesis underestimates the importance of historical evolution. To say that the Romans had the same passions as we did, is not historical knowledge. It will lead us to conclude, following Machiavelli, that there are typical situations which a leader must have knowledge of in order to govern well. Though there are no two identical situations because the actions of mankind are free of their will and undoubtedly create something new. Contingency, that is indeterminacy, is inscribed in human history. The study of history can precisely teach us the importance of chance in the details of human affairs. What would have happened if Bonaparte had died before becoming Napoleon? The combination of circumstances is not an invention of the mind but a reality. The complex interweaving of opposing actions forms singular and moving situations whose resolution is always to be invented.

This idea is developed by Hegel who rejects the idea of the lessons of history. No example is missing. Two close wars with Germany did not prevent the horror of the Second World War. In the same sense, if the size of certain figures is undeniable, it can’t teach us anything decisive for our present. Thus, to transpose the behavior of the Roman Republicans, or the French of 1789, in a world that is no longer theirs, would be to want to apply a recipe without taking into account the singularity of each situation. Hegel mocks those who go on repeating to the rulers and the people that they must learn from the lessons of the past without seeing that these are only general maxims that do not say what to do precisely here and now. The uniqueness of each situation makes that the reconciliations with what took place are never decisive.

The starting point is reversed. The interest of the study of history is precisely to teach us that people have never learned from them because they simply could not learn from them. Generalities are powerless in the face of the novelty of the present.

This puts mankind in a problematic situation. Is it still sensible to think that the study of history is of real interest?

         The opposition of the first two parts is centered on the status of historical time. Hume understates its significance by asserting that the changes are the result of a human nature with invariable principles. Variety would come from the way in which these principles are combined according to the eras. Hegel argues that historical time is a power of change and that differences matter more than similarities. It is true that recourse to the past sometimes seems enlightening but quickly reveals its limits. It is useful to relate the current French situation closer to the one of the 1930s, which experienced nationalistic and hateful surges. However, France today is not the same as the France of eighty years ago. Can we not reconcile the two positions by saying that Hume places himself on a theoretical ground by considering history as a laboratory for defining mankind whereas Hegel considers it from the point of view of action and thus of the present? The study of history can’t have the same interest in both cases. What is true for theory is not valid for practice.

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