Many of us, especially schoolchildren and their parents, tirelessly ask ourselves why we need to know history. What is the significance and relevance of studying the events of many years ago? However, there are many diverse reasons that indicate the need to study this subject, which is a combination of many other disciplines. Many arguments have already been given regarding the importance of history, but they still remain relevant today.
Virtual time machine
Studying significant historical events and people is like time travel. History studies the past and the legacy of the past in the present. This is necessary in order to know how our modern world and the peoples of our planet have become the way we see them today, as well as how we evolved.
Many puzzles, frightening and intriguing, cease to be so mysterious as soon as the complex causes and events that led to them become clear. This explains why history is needed. When we understand the general that we share with people from the past, and also recognize the differences in the present, an awareness of our society, its present, past and future, is formed.
Learning from mistakes
At the same time, history offers us something much more than past events that led to the creation of the modern world. Why do we need a story? She offers us a study of the past and present of peoples and foreign countries unknown to us, in which everything is arranged completely differently. Knowing what we share in common with people in the past, and in passing studying how much their life differs from ours in the present, we are able to turn the future for the better. We turn back and see the consequences:
- bloody wars;
- revolutions and coups d'etat;
- thoughtless attitude to nature;
- great discoveries;
- fallacies and illiteracy.
You can step on the same rake many times. What for? It is necessary to study history in order to extract errors from the past and prevent them in the future.
Learning from experience
In addition, history is trying to understand the past life of individuals and society as a whole, exploring all the possible aspects of their reality. The diversity of human experience is studied: how much people differed in their ideas, beliefs and cultural practices, how widely their experience changed depending on time, nationality and social status, how much humanity struggled with each other, inhabiting a planet common to us.
The experience of the past is enormous and invaluable. Its undeniable significance for future generations shows why history is needed. To think over events, analyze them, “digest” the information, and only then, on the basis of past experience, understand the present, draw up an expedient and safe plan for the future.
Overall development
History analyzes the past, evaluating a complex web of reasons that help us understand events and phenomena in the modern world. She teaches analytical skills, critical thinking and logical analysis of situations, which is simply necessary when studying many school disciplines. History trains memory and teaches the correct processing and perception of information, helps to develop the skills so necessary to look behind the headings of the texts, correctly pose questions and express your own opinion.
To educate patriots
A healthy social atmosphere in the country, a full-fledged society and the world is the goal that all people in general and each individual state in particular aspire to. It is impossible to value everything with money and pay for everything. Therefore, the state does not rely on businessmen, but on patrons, altruists and patriots. The whole world rests on them. History remembers them. Those who loved their country, who gave their lives for the happiness of others. These are fearless warriors, and dedicated doctors, and talented scientists, and simply disinterested patriots of their people.
Why do we need a story? Because it popularly tells each next generation what it owes to its ancestors. We learn what ideals great-grandfathers lived, what feats they performed. We understand how their lives affected our present. The development of respect for the past with its reforms, struggle, victories and failures is the task of history.
Why study history?
Today is inseparable from yesterday. All people and nations live in history: we speak languages that have come down to us from the distant past, we live in societies with complex cultures inherited from ancient times, we use technologies developed by our ancestors. ... Thus, the study of the relationship between the past and the present is undeniable the basis for a good understanding of modern human being. This explains why we need history, why and how important it is in our lives.
Acquaintance with the human past is the path to self-knowledge. History helps to understand the origins of modern social and political problems. It is the most important source for studying the characteristic behavior of people in various social conditions. History makes us realize that people in the past were not just “good” or “bad”, but motivated in complex and contradictory relationships, as they are now.
A view of the world of each person is formed thanks to individual experience, as well as the experience of the society in which he lives. If we do not know the modern and historical experience of various cultures, then we cannot even hope to understand how people, societies or nations make decisions in the modern world.
The very essence
Historical knowledge is no more and no less than a carefully and critically constructed collective memory. It is memory that makes us people, and collective memory, that is, history, makes us a society. Why know the story? Yes, because without individual memory, a person will immediately lose his identity, will not know how to act when meeting with other people. The same thing happens with collective memory, although its loss will not be noticeable so instantly.
However, memory cannot freeze in time. Collective memory is gradually acquiring a new meaning. Historians are constantly working on rethinking the past, asking new questions, looking for new sources of information and analyzing old documents in order to acquire new knowledge and experience for a better understanding of the past and what is happening. History is constantly changing and expanding, as is our memory, helping us to acquire new knowledge and skills to improve our lives ....