The Advantages and Disadvantages of Having A National History - Essay Example

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Having a National History Introduction Mans cultural heritage pervades our lives almost from birth. History is the story of what men and women have done, of what they have left for others to enjoy and suffer. People have made fantastic blunders and noble contributions, but regardless of the quality of human activity it has given us a legacy of civilization, not always fine and noble but on the whole there has been progress both material and moral. Mans outlook is basically hopeful and there has been some justification for this. As people look at history, if they are guided in the true spirit of criticism and imbued with the necessity to look for the truth, they cannot help being inspired by the heroic proportions of their ancestors struggle for existence and a better life. Such is the history as it was introduced to the ancient Greek world by Herodotus. After about a million years of human struggle out of the fog and ignorance of primeval antiquity during which time mans history was in the hands of the gods. Herodotus gave the story of humanity back to man; thus rightly being called the "father of history." He did this in a very simple way, in a manner that we sometimes take for granted and therefore overlook; he simply observed people and wrote about what they did and thought. For the first time history was more than a mere symbolic record. Man was made aware of his heritage. He introduced humanism into the chronicles of war, degradation and the mysterious ways of Providence. He endowed men historically with freedom of will to make choices and to mold the course of events in which they were caught up. Herodotus delineated real people, perhaps not "exactly as they were," but in the spirit of inquiry and curiosity that has marked the Greeks as forever ours of the modern world. Every British person is a citizen of the United Kingdom, but he also shares in the heritage of the whole Western world. He must know about it in order to share it knowingly, wisely and patriotically. If people do not learn their history, dire results take place. It is, therefore, tremendously important that people-before they face the possibility of attempted "brainwashing"--learn the fascinating story of their past, that they learn not only about the hopeful outlook of man and his aspiring goodness, about their own particular myths and beliefs, but that they learn also about the degradation, misery and mistakes of the past. History is not one unbroken story of human success; it is the tale of progress which includes retrogression, errors and some meanness of spirit. If we are to survive we must know of our past and we must develop a toughness of moral and mental fiber. This, too, can be augmented through the study of history (Moje, & OBrien, 2001). The eminent historian Sir Michael Howard once confessed that the past, which he appropriately referred to as an "infinite storehouse of proceedings," could be used to "demonstrate anything or its contrary." (1) Howards admission exposes a fundamental difficulty with history that most historians choose not to recognize. The past has certainly served a lot of masters and conflicting principles over time; its storehouse of proceedings has been used to authenticate or discredit almost every major theory, teaching, or principle. While historians are conscious of this, hardly any of them have actually taken the pains to inspect what it is concerning history that permits the past to be used in such opposing ways. Their unwillingness stem, as a minimum in part, from a primary concern that the precise scrutiny essential to arrive at the root of the problem might, all together, reveal the restrictions of history --limits that might in turn weaken the supposed value that history and, therefore, historians bring to education, in particular military education. In spite of everything, professional military education, more than other forms, strives to pass on a certain height of understanding across a wide collection of topics in a comparatively short period of time. Accordingly, history faces rigid competition for course space from other disciplines--the political as well as behavioral sciences, for example--all of which claim (more or less doubtfully) to be more pertinent to the job of preparing leaders to address modern challenges. The issue of significance, for example, while a favorite decisive factor of curriculum developers, is frequently overplayed. On the whole, the greater the significance of any particular information, the shorter its shelf-life. furthermore, the tribulations that plague history and permit it to be abused are fundamentally epistemological in nature, and therefore trouble the political as well as behavioral sciences in addition. On the contrary, regardless of the faults, history has much to present. But not in the way conventionally thought. The customary argument in support of including history is that the vicarious experience it presents is the most effectual means of teaching war during peace. That argument, nonetheless, is indefensible. There is no dependable way to determine whether such experience is rooted in a close estimate of the past, or in a historians own thoughts. People would advantage much more by engaging in a vital study of the past than by absorbing the subjective incidents of history. A corollary to the quest for knowledge in the past is the cultivation of humane values: honesty of mind, loyalty to person and nation, patriotism; not blind obedience to unilateral jingoism, but enlightened, knowledgeable patriotism based on real appreciation of ones culture. An individuals rights are directly proportional to respect for the rights of every other individual, and above all, these rights must be protected continuously. Protection of rights is not necessarily a fight against enemy aggression, although that is always a threat. Rights and privileges must be kept alive despite the selfishness of other contemporaries within the state; they must be improved and used or they will disintegrate. We must work at the problem of knowing ourselves culturally. We must learn and know our history, thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done (Barcan, 1999). We can argue all we want about whether people should first learn the stories of heroic nation-building, democratic institutions, and industrial growth that are the traditional staples of schoolbook history, or whether they are better off learning about the struggles of oppressed peoples and the injustices that are also part of our national heritage. But its a false choice. Any adequate history must surely grapple with all of these things, for they are integral parts of the same past and can hardly be understood in isolation from each other. The more important problem, as any good historian knows, is that abstractions like "heroic nation-building" and "struggles of oppressed peoples" can be pretty dry dead stuff unless people discover windows through which to view them as gritty, complex realities that they themselves might have lived. What liberals and conservatives both sometimes seem to forget is that different people need different windows to discover these past realities. For some, tales of technological progress and democratic nation-building will be more compelling; while for others, tales of oppression and struggles for social justice will bring the past to life more quickly. The real challenge is to make entry somewhere into a past worth caring about for whatever reason. Unaccustomed to reading as a welcome form of recreation, raised on the virtual reality of videos and computer games, and perhaps even doubtful that their own generation faces any issues momentous enough that they too might be capable of "making history," today’s generation can perhaps be forgiven for having more trouble than their parents or grandparents in viewing the past as "real." What History teaches us? People learn what is not at all obvious to them: that people now long dead were once profoundly and passionately alive. They learn that the past is the place from which we came, each of us arriving in the present via different pathways even as we and our ancestors eventually found ourselves sharing the common ground we now inhabit together. They learn that the past is a foreign country, a land whose inhabitants made livings and spoke languages and held ideas far different from our own - indeed, so very different that only a great act of historical imagination can help us see the distance we have traveled in our journey away from their time. Conflicts caused due to the National History There are a lot of things in History, to which a few portion of the population may favor while the other may go against. Due to such things, a conflict is easily caused as the National History may cause differences to arise between people and may oppose people’s belief and perspective over a certain thing. It can cause conflicts between people related to their culture, thus causing cultural differences. A small argument over this then may become big enough to cause big fights. The basic reason for this is History has never been written as a plain fact. In fact, history has been the opinion and perception of those who have viewed it, and observed it. Popper concludes that "history in the sense in which most people speak of it simply does not exist; and this is one reason why I say that it has no meaning". This is reinforced by Actons point that "the facts of history never come to us "pure", since they do not and cannot exist in pure form: they are always refracted through the mind of the recorder".  Another "philosopher of history", Oakeshott, threw further light on the problem of facts and knowledge by associating an historians facts with a "world" of ideas.  "Each separate "fact" remains a hypothesis until the whole world of facts is established in which it is involved. And no single fact may be taken as historically true, and beyond the possibility of transformation, until the whole world of facts has achieved a condition of stable coherence."  http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/cite/staff/philosopher/guyver.htm Below I have given small examples of the different views of people on a particular topic and how it may result in conflict. Social Issues Abortion and homosexuality are condemned. The coverage of abortion begins in elementary school materials and increases in both detail and vehemence through the grades. Language such as "innocent babies," "grisly procedure," "legalized murder," and "slaughter of unborn babies" is common. Eleventh-graders studying history are told that, according to many conservatives, President Clintons most reprehensible act was his repeated veto of the Partial Birth Abortion Act. After presenting some factual material, the text goes on to state, Clintons assertion that this type of abortion is necessary to protect the health of the mother is simply not true. In many instances, pro-life arguments are linked to criticism of the Supreme Courts decision in Roe v. Wade. Bob Jones civics text includes a highlighted text box describing various abortion procedures in considerable detail (Burton, 1962). Abortion is not only specifically condemned but explicitly linked to other sinful conduct, including homosexuality, which, in turn, is linked to egregious criminal conduct. Because homosexuals engage in vile affections, their claim to legal protection is unwarranted. These people have no more claim to special rights than child molesters or rapists. By contrast, issues related to race and the civil rights movement are discussed in a more straightforward and objective fashion, although the tone is generally somewhat cool. Very rarely do the authors editorialize. When they do so, the inferences that can be drawn from their statements can be startling. A history text subtly implies that Martin Luther King was partially to blame for his own assassination. On a visit to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968, [King] was assassinated by James Earl Ray, a gunman who used the violent atmosphere to justify his own racism. More emphasis is placed on the enslavement of African Americans as a problem, an ugly situation, and a cause of civil unrest and radicalism than on the inhumanity and cruelty of the institution. A Bekas senior high school history book contains a somewhat contrived - at least to the secular reader - example of providentialism. To help them endure the difficulties of slavery, God gave Christian slaves the ability to combine the African heritage of song with the dignity and power of Christian praise. Through the Negro spiritual, the slaves developed the patience to wait on the Lord and discovered that the truest freedom is freedom from the bondage of sin. By first giving them spiritual freedom, God prepared the slaves for their coming physical freedom. Conclusion The idea of using the past to explain the present, while often implicit in earlier discussions of history as a school subject, rarely received explicit emphasis until the latter part of the nineteenth century. History is basically called upon to furnish recreation and entertainment, to illuminate the classics, to set up examples of conduct, good and bad, to supply vicarious experience, to offer practice in reading the human heart, to serve as a mirror in which the people might see themselves, to support religion, to inculcate patriotism, and, in general, to build up predetermined ideals and stimulate predetermined kinds of behavior. In all these ways what passed for history could minister to immediate needs without explaining either the past or the present. The use of the past in explaining the present obviously implies an understanding of the past. If the past is not understood, the past can obviously contribute little toward an understanding of the present. This condition was recognized in nineties and led to the conclusion (reached by Karl Müller in 1835) that learning history is must, so far as it goes, be in harmony with historical scholarship. But historical scholarship was scientific. Its purpose, in Rankes classic phrase, was merely to portray the past "as it actually was." 1 It was history for historys sake and, as such, subject to rigid scrutiny in planning history for immediate educational ends. That scrutiny has persisted and, guided always by the old principle that what to teach about the past should be determined by present needs, has so limited the selection of facts as sometimes to suggest that the past can be used in explaining the present without taking the trouble to make the past itself intelligible. Reference: http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/cite/staff/philosopher/guyver.htm Barcan, Alan, 1999. History in Decay. (Teaching history in universities) Quadrant. Elizabeth B. Moje, David G. OBrien, 2001.Constructions of Literacy: Studies of Teaching and Learning in and out of Secondary Schools, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. William H. Burton, 1962. The Guidance of Learning Activities: A Summary of the Principles of Teaching Based on the Growth of the Learner. Appleton-Century-Crofts. Read More