Literature vs. History: Part 2

The following is a continuation of my earlier post Literature vs. History: Part 1...

But what can you really learn from history? The old me would have raised his handsome eyebrows and said, "um...nothing!". There's a good reason for this. History is usually taught (at least in the classroom setting) in a horrid and boring way, reduced to mere names and dates. Why wouldn't you hate history when it's taught on a piece of paper (and nowhere else) like that? And it is taught like that by about 99.9% of teachers (at least at pre-university levels). The number of history teachers out there that shouldn't be in their respected profession is staggering.

But what can it really teach you? Can learning endless things about men who lived hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago teach you anything about our existence today? Does it contain any gateways to a greater understanding of the world around us? It turns out, absolutely.

So can it teach you anything? Can learning something about men and women who lives hundreds (if not thousands) of years ago teach you anything about life today? Does history really contain any gateways to a greater understanding of the world around us? Recently I've discovered that yes, it does.

The first time history taught me something valuable was my Junior year of high school. I had just read a couple of dystopian novels in my British Literature class (Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984). As you can imagine, I had a great deal on my mind about the future and possible ways things could go wrong, and then congress (of course through pressure from President Bush) passed another national security law to "make the country safer". I remember this specific one had something to do with torture, and I started to actually get nervous about America and our safety (not from terrorists but from out own government). Throughout the rest of the year however, I learned about countless times in our history when various president's have urged congress to pass laws restricting various civil liberties during wartime. In fact, the measures passed by congress in the War on Terror this time around were nothing compared to many laws passed by several former presidents. (Alien and Sedition Laws to cite one example. Can you imagine what it would be like if President Bush tried to get congress to pass those today? It could never happen-we'd all be in prison.) I immediately calmed down: I had been relying on the dystopian futures in a couple of novels without knowing any of the history surrounding this kind of issue. This doesn't justify the passing of these laws, but it does calm one down. It's not the end of the world.

(I have to run. Conclusion to follow (soon) in Part 3...)

Chice