[OT] How much of history do we really know?

[ledded]

hehe.
I can't believe an spin-off thread of an off-hand reply has this much legs. It's cool.

ledded, and Tilla the Hun, and angcuru - thanks for the replies. It's nice to hear people with a similar feeling to mine. I'm 33, by the way. Maybe it's a generational thing.

To throw something else out there and see how it sticks:
I think this ignorance/assumptions about the past is only going to increase, since the amount of information that one must learn just to survive (make a living, get a life-partner, keep up with entertainment) is growing at an astronomical rate.

People just simply DON'T HAVE TIME to invest in learning about the past (or trivial details like what the state capitals are anymore). They are more concerned with entertainment and pop culture - there is much more immediate pay-off for spending time on them, and acquiring that knowledge that can be applied in life.

I think the ignorance may increase, just because, mathematically, if the level of apathy stays the same (likely) the amount of history to know will increase as time passes. I think one reason I've always been interested in history is because I grew up with a lot of veterans... guys who were in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc who lived history and didnt mind giving you an earful of it most of the time. Most people in their teens and early twenties right now probably couldnt name 2 people they know that are combat veterans, as (until recently) there have not been that many conflicts on the scale of what we saw from 1940-1973. Plus, us 30-somethings (and our parents) had the cold war that loomed over us during our youth, where it seemed like every small conflict was about to lead to WWIII, and like many I took pains to try and figure out exactly why those crazy ruskies wanted to murder us all in our sleep (note: that's sarcasm, folks). I dunno, I hope it gets better but the cynic in me doubts it.

As far as the "dont have the time" thing, I just dont buy that (though I do understand the tone you were making your statement in there ;^) ). Maybe "dont have the initiative" or "didnt have the proper direction from their parents as children to try and understand the world around them". I think you hit the nail on the proverbial head with the statement about immediate payoff. Of course, since I game, being seen as a history geek is a pretty miniscule in comparison to a game geek, so that has never bothered me.

 

[barsoomcore]

Eh, you guys sound like the bunch of old fogies in every Elvis movie who complain about "kids these days and their darn rock 'n' roll!"

It's not like it was when we were kids. Kids today don't know anything, and they don't even know they don't know anything. The education system's falling apart. Everybody's stupid and lazy and ignorant and it's all going to collapse.

People have been saying this for, at a conservative estimate, 500 years. Martin Luther said this 500 years ago. And you know what? The world hasn't ended, intellectual progress has continued, and we know more about the world than ever before. Martin was wrong. So are you.

It's sure fun to think of the world as populated by morons. It's nice to sit smugly at home, laughing at people on Jay Leno.

The people I meet in my day-to-day life constantly surprise me with their intelligence and knowledge and sensitivity. Sometimes I encounter doofuses, sometimes I come across people of startling ignorance, but for the most part the people I meet are not significantly stupider or less ignorant than I am -- usually far less so, actually.

But maybe I should be on Jay Leno.

...

Sorry, you can go back to your doomsaying now.

 

[ledded]

Eh, you guys sound like the bunch of old fogies in every Elvis movie who complain about "kids these days and their darn rock 'n' roll!"

It's not like it was when we were kids. Kids today don't know anything, and they don't even know they don't know anything. The education system's falling apart. Everybody's stupid and lazy and ignorant and it's all going to collapse.

People have been saying this for, at a conservative estimate, 500 years. Martin Luther said this 500 years ago. And you know what? The world hasn't ended, intellectual progress has continued, and we know more about the world than ever before. Martin was wrong. So are you.

It's sure fun to think of the world as populated by morons. It's nice to sit smugly at home, laughing at people on Jay Leno.

The people I meet in my day-to-day life constantly surprise me with their intelligence and knowledge and sensitivity. Sometimes I encounter doofuses, sometimes I come across people of startling ignorance, but for the most part the people I meet are not significantly stupider or less ignorant than I am -- usually far less so, actually.

But maybe I should be on Jay Leno.

...

Sorry, you can go back to your doomsaying now.

Well, actually, for all my griping I do agree with you. Most of the people I know personally, work with, or pal around with are reasonably intelligent folks, quite a few of which I consider to be waaaaay more intelligent/well read/perceptive than myself. However, I find that I dont hang around with total morons either because I dont have the patience for it.

And people not paying much attention to anything other than the stale microcosm that exists only in their head is not new either, various writers and historians have b*tched about it for as far back as I've read. However, that doesnt make it any less sad ;^)

The saddest thing is that I am often called 'smart' by a lot of people I know, to my annoyance, particularly by family members (my wife's and mine) and I've never considered myself to be of anything greater than above-average intelligence. And average human intelligence is not a very high bar to aspire to ;^). Most of the time someone calls me 'smart' I just say "No, I'm just well-read. 'Smart' implies talent; most knowledge I have I'd had to hammer in with a sledge and tape there with duct tape".

Of course just calling all of us 'wrong' and dismissing the whole thread, you are exhibiting the kind of apathy towards *reading* the actual points that people made in between their opinions, which means that, in my opinion, you missed the whole point of most of the posters because you didnt really read what they had to say; you just glossed it over for the sound bites and went with that impression ;^)

 

[barsoomcore]

Hey, I get my knowledge from Winnie-the-Pooh, remember? You guys use too many big words for me.

All I know is surrounding myself with smart people makes my life more fun. So yeah, I avoid hanging out with morons, myself.

Exhibit apathy? Me? Sir, you wound me.

You describe me pretty accurately, but you wound me. A thousand curses on your head.

 

[reapersaurus]

Of course just calling all of us 'wrong' and dismissing the whole thread, you are exhibiting the kind of apathy towards *reading* the actual points that people made in between their opinions, which means that, in my opinion, you missed the whole point of most of the posters because you didnt really read what they had to say; you just glossed it over for the sound bites and went with that impression ;^)

That's funny, and a good point.

barsoom, my post said nothing like "people are idiots today."
And you mention that something similar has been said for 500 years.

Well, the world has changed. DRASTICALLY.
Just because it wasn't appropriate 500 years ago to say that people are learning less history, etc than before, _doesn't_ mean that it's not the case today.

What you are confusing is the common human habit of wrongly concluding that "kids these days aren't as smart as we were" and what MY point is:
I'm saying that American culture has changed so much to emphasize pop culture and entertainment that there is almost no way that the average kid nowadays can possibly know as much about the past than generations previous.
This is further exacerbated by the simple mathematical FACT that there is more history now to know.

To ignore these logical points, and flat-out state that "eh, people always say this thru the centuries" or say "you sound like an old fuddy-duddy and therefore what you're saying is wrong" is being ignorantly dismissive, simplistic, and incomplete.

 

[Mark]

I'm saying that American culture has changed so much to emphasize pop culture and entertainment that there is almost no way that the average kid nowadays can possibly know as much about the past than generations previous.

I'm not sure that the education level of people is declining and being replaced by pop culture trivia, as you seem to imply. In fact, I'd contend that the education level of people today is generally on the rise but that it is less well-rounded and more specialized. If anything, folks aren't getting as much history in their acedemic diet due to the increasing demand to focus an education so specifically in a given field as to lose time in others by default. We are becoming a society of isolated experts in order to compete for the highest wage in the area of our focus.

 

[ledded]

Hey, I get my knowledge from Winnie-the-Pooh, remember? You guys use too many big words for me.

All I know is surrounding myself with smart people makes my life more fun. So yeah, I avoid hanging out with morons, myself.

Exhibit apathy? Me? Sir, you wound me.

You describe me pretty accurately, but you wound me. A thousand curses on your head.

And to be honest, I too generally hang around with people who are as smart or smarter than me, because it at least give me some kind of bar for my self to rise to, or else I would sink down into watching reality TV while drooling and drinking Milwaukee's best in my stained underwear, scratching and chuckling stupidly to myself, but only when the commercials were on.

Wound? Ah, I meant not to wound, only to rebutt. And apathy is one thing all of us are guilty of in at least some aspects. I have a couple friends who think I am a complete idiot because I dont do my own taxes; I only skim the business section of most news to keep generally abreast of whats going on; playing the stock market should come easy to me, but it bores me so much that I pretty much let someone else do it for me, and he has to keep it simple enough in my Roth IRA's so I can understand it without having to have it explained to me lest I lapse into a state of semi-consciousness and wander off drooling in search of cola and doughnuts.

So if it makes you feel any better, in certain points of view, what I said to ya could be interrpreted thusly:

<ring ring>

Hello, Pot?

This is kettle.

You're black.


;^)

(oh, and please remove at least a few of those curses from my head, as the large amount already placed there by ex-girlfriends, student loan officers, conversation boors with poor senses of timing, and family members who I refuse to loan money to have accumulated enough there already to make me look like some kind of 1930's Himalayan Sherpa.)

 

[Kichwas]

Once I was ranting about it, and my wife looked over and said "Wow. You must think you are really smart to be calling those people out as so stupid" and I replied "No, the reason I'm so pissed is that I *don't* think I'm very smart".

Yeah...

The bar for 'Average Joe' seemed to be dropping faster than the value of a dot-com...

Jay Leno doesn't ask the smart questions either, he asks the sort of stuff anyone who's head wasn't up someone's rear would have no ability to not know.

 

[Imperialus]

Hey, I get my knowledge from Winnie-the-Pooh, remember? You guys use too many big words for me.

Hey, don't knock pooh. Great wisdom is often found in the small.

 

[Dispater]

In a way knowing what really happened and seeking out "the universal truth" (the exact nr. Jews in the Holocaust, for instance) in history is only built up on the historian's point of view, meaning he will not ignore the facts but present the facts in the way he percieves history, maybe ignore some details and add some here. In the end will have a semi-fictional version of what we want to believe is truth. History is at most storytelling and mythmaking merged with actual events. And the further away we get from it, the more it becomes a tale, almost fantastical (as with Alexander the Great for instance).

I really dont think most of us know or care that much about history unless it is something that has happened in out lifetime: and most humans are basically not very interested, it seems useless, it doesnt make you any money, etc.

But the fact is: we read history every day. We read newspapers, we witness actual events that are going to be passed on into our memories and into the records. We are also a result of our history, our long line of ancestors, our culture, from everything down to our clothes and mannerisms.

So even though most people care, we still live it, every day.