"We study the past to understand the present; we understand the present to guide the future." -- William Lund
Is history even relevant? Why is what happened way back then even necessary or significant? Have you ever asked yourself these questions? Wondered why it even matters?
I may not be much of a "keeper" (as those of you who have been to our home or who have read my Saturday Stuff-It Chronicles involving our household's lack of "stuff" well know) but certain meaningful items from the past hold predominant spots in our home. Jeff's great uncle Eldon's rock-hard, egg-shaped baby rattle with its tarnished sterling handle; my father's first armoire (which, sadly, lacks the car sticker my father placed there as a teen - a small circular "scar" remains as proof of my overzealous and impetuous removal); my grandmother's roasting pan, dented and blackened and still in use; the heavy gold locket with my mother's father's portrait inside that I wore at our wedding.
But why do I keep these things? Why is history even important?
Today at the archives President Kate Rowley opinionated her two reasons for the importance of history. First, knowledge of what has happened hopefully allows us to avoid making such mistakes over and over again. Remind you of George Santayana's quote 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'? (The first time I came across this was when, in my high school exchange to Germany, we visited the Dachau concentration camp.)
Secondly, that historical times are often "gone"...in artifacts, photographs, and books we uncover what remains of times gone by. A completely different era.
What has gone before us is a part of us. We behave, as individuals and as societies, in certain ways reflective of our past. "History provides identity". www.historians.org/pubs/free/WhyStudyHistory.htm
An extremely simplified, personal example: The Laundry Basket Experiment
Have you ever left something somewhere, in a perfectly unavoidable location, in order to encourage someone else, such as your significant other, to embrace "movement"? You know...left the recycling box right in front of the entrance to your home to encourage its movement to the curb? Or what about the laundry basket? When I observe a laundry basket full of dirty clothing sitting precariously near the edge of the stairs leading to the downstairs laundry room, I assume, "Hey! Dirty Laundry! Better grasp that full bucket and drag it to the machine!"
However, my spouse is unlikely to make that same keen observation and will hurdle in Olympic proportions to continue on a trek to the basement without having to move said laundry basket.
How does this have anything to do with history, you may ask? (Yes, yes, I AM coming to some sort of historical conclusion.)
Well, if I continue to do this same action which is followed by the same avoidance reaction, nothing changes. A friend once shared with me Einstein's quote "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". If I continue to do what historically I have always done, nothing will change. In scrutinizing what has NOT worked I am able to introduce and attempt something different that MAY work. (In circular fashion, right back to Kate's comment on repeating history and George's quote that 'those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it').
Why else is history important? Beauty.
I love how Peter N. Stearns states that "History should be studied because it is essential to individuals and to society, and because it harbors beauty."
Physically there's an allure to artifacts: a delicate hand-crocheted doily so minuscule you wonder how adult hands formed it; the brilliant shades in old dresses or doll quilts...but more important is the allure of the relationships...the handwritten love notes displaying great affection and admiration, stories demonstrating the depth and enormity of remaining with your marriage partner through losses of children and homes and land and safety, the beauty found in what history has kept alive...
Is history even relevant? Why is what happened way back then even necessary or significant? Why does it even matter?
You tell me. (And in the meantime I will be devising a unique way to get laundry from basket to machine without my personal intervention...)
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