Friday, July 7, 2017

WIDESPREAD HISTORICAL IGNORANCE

I thought this was an interesting tidbit. From Letterman and his ilk, who went out every so often and asked average LA denizens such depth defying questions as, "can you tell me who is the President of the United States" and got a lot of blank stares, confusions, idiotic giggles and massive ignorance, it's a bit of a reach. They are really really stupid in LA.

I liked this guy, watch and learn, 

Listen to a professor who has reached the status of the "immortals". It's well worth your time.

I'm just about convinced that nobody in our schools bothers to teach history. I don't care about the invincibly ignorant who cannot place a battle into a war but it's concerning when those "highly" educated high school students don't even know about either our Revolution or the Civil War and cannot place either World War in the same century.

I know a lot of people who would place the blame on the teachers. To a hideously large extent, so do I. On the other hand, I blame the students.

Yes, yes, pity the poor students who must learn not just about how to placate and win at Candy Crush but are also being asked to learn about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Aristotle and a host of other dead white men.

On the gripping hand, ignorance is still high up there as a culling tool. We no longer have the draft or world wars requiring millions of youngsters to die in the mud and the rain and have pretty much glided by without for over half a century without putting the unwilling 18 year old man in front of the bullet or bayonet and things are looking pretty good, unless you're some kind of curmudgeon who thinks everybody needs to know about Boiling Springs, PA.

I have always had a fascination with history. Not so much the names and dates, as the path of history. Perhaps if kids were encouraged to walk unescorted through the forest along the path, they might learn something about the nature of the path of history.

I don't know if it worked but my sister took one of those historical path books you used to find and she took it apart and taped the entire path of known history to the walls of one of her houses. You know the books. They put the whole of history, (snort), onto a continuous pull out page from a big book for kids. She was the first I've seen to tear the whole damned thing out of the book and nail it to the wall. Contemporaneous history for all!

I was taught human evolution decades ago. I am fascinated by every find in that realm just as I am when historians find new Viking cultures in North America decades after I was taught that Columbus was the first European on these shores.

History! Bring it On!

2 comments:

OldAFSarge said...

Well, you must know by now my love of history. While it is possible to go through life, and even thrive, without knowing anything about the Peloponnesian War, it does boggle the mind when I meet Americans who, like you say, can't place any of America's wars in their proper time frame.

One problem is the teachers. Many of mine were dreadfully boring and made history painful. All it took was one or two who actually gave a sh*t and taught the subject with passion, but also made it clear why a knowledge of history is important.

Sigh...

(BTW, linkee no workee. I was able to get there using the YouTube "tag" - which looks like this: bRcu-ysocX4 - and actually see it. The chap makes history interesting.)

HMS Defiant said...

Thank you. I'll fix it now.
I remember one of my professors who taught a fascinating course on military history and he almost exploded himself when he quoted a Brit on the damned revolutionaires who used infernal devices to blow up magazines and would stoop to any terror. He was fascinating to both watch and listen to. He was good.