>History is full of specific lessons that aren’t relevant to most people, and not fully applicable to future events because things rarely repeat exactly as they did in the past. An imperfect rule of thumb is that the more granular the lesson, the less useful it is to the future.
I think this is throwing away something incredibly important. The way things are today is because of events in the past. Things have provenance. It is important to understand why historians have put so much weight on things like the french revolution and the trappings of the Roman Empire. The specifics of the french revolution are what matter when we consider what happens next. People were thinking about the "ideas of 1789" (and other momentous years during that revolution) when they attempted revolutions again in 1830 and 1848.
> It is important to understand why historians have put so much weight on things like the french revolution and the trappings of the Roman Empire.
It's true that things have provenance. However, one of the things you learn as a modern history undergrad is this: be skeptical and critical of the historical record.
The historical record isn't a perfect reflection of the past. It's always coloured. Why is so much emphasis put on the French Revolution? Or the American Revolution? Because both events are re-purposed to support national identities of both modern France and America. Those identities encompass a vast range of cultural and moral values that permeate daily and societal life. It provides an answer to the question "Who are we?"
However, when the Parisians took to the Bastille on the 14th of July or the Bostonians decided to throw British tea overboard, they didn't do so with the decisive notion "Well, this will lead to the establishment of the Republic with all it's modern trappings and entire national mythology." No. They just did that as an expression to their grievances to their legitimate sovereign at that particular time in history, and not much more.
It's the responsibility of historical researchers to undo history of the many layers of meaning and value, and re-tell the story as it unfolded at the time based on established facts.
>History is full of specific lessons that aren’t relevant to most people, and not fully applicable to future events because things rarely repeat exactly as they did in the past. An imperfect rule of thumb is that the more granular the lesson, the less useful it is to the future.
I would say that suprisingly lots of history is relevant today because all history is revisonist history. Historians look at past people and situations through today's lenses and bringing up what resonates with todays problems and dilemas. Also the human nature isn't changeable so political and social and personal dilemas of ancient Athens, Rome or China can resonate with us. It only requires a good author to show us past events in new, interesting light.
> Historians look at past people and situations through today's lenses and bringing up what resonates with todays problems and dilemas.
Historian here. This is bias is among the first things you learn to discern as an undergraduate. Historical research never starts from a premise "We can observe X in current events, is it possible to find similar events and patterns in the past?" Why? Because the trap here is to apply modern concepts, schools of thoughts and ideas in a past context where they absolutely did not exist.
> Also the human nature isn't changeable so political and social and personal dilemas of ancient Athens, Rome or China can resonate with us.
The resonate with us because the past can inspire us and helps us reflect on human nature. But that's about all it does. Transposing societal structures, ideas, thinking and so on from Ancient Rome to the current day is a fallacy because it denies the 2.000 years of history and evolving societal, cultural, religious, economical, political thinking that happened in between.
Another fallacy is in this way of thinking is that history is teleological and ends with today being the end of human evolution and history; that today is the only logical outcome of everything that led up to today. Determinism really doesn't work well when you want to narrate and explain history.
It's also the reason why I'm skeptical of Yuval Harari's work. His re-telling of human history is thought provoking and prompts for reflection and debate. But in no way does it mean that his take on history is the definitive story.
The problem with history is the lessons are long, complicated and easily tainted by the historian's bias.
And, interestingly, in politics people tend to look into history for grievances rather than looking for what works. One of the interesting trends that characterises China's current successes is decades of asking "what are other people doing that is working?". That seems to make them a little unusual.
I dont think this is true. In politics, they often look for great grand past to return to or they look for myth to inspire people from.
It can be social like "more natural living uncorrupted by artificial modernity" or "when the men were real men and women real women". Or it can be ambitious like past grand project or imperium of good to emulate with grand projects now. It can be any kind of claiming to go into own roots, who we really are. It is often mythologization and idealization of past and past figures in order to push for current goals.
Majority of historical figures quotes are out of context, but still used for contemporary politics. Historical figures are painted as flawless greatest, so that we can take their words and use them for ourselves. All that is politics.
Look at how often politicians quote King - as cynical and out of context as most of it is, it literally represents looking into past for what works.
Bad historians, write works showing past events through the new lenses of current cultural/political affairs. Good historians reveal ancient perspectives, their differences to ours, so that the supposition of two different perspectives with their similarities and differences is what we can reflect and learn from.
There is no such thing is single ancient perspective. All past events had multiple players with multiple different perspectives on what is going on and what should happen. And there is no such thing as single modern perspective either.
I think that the big mistake people do when representing past is that they take one representant of "what past people thought" and proceed to ignore opinions and perspectives of everyone else in that period.
The history as field starts with Roman historians who literally felt free to make things up or guess them where it suited them.
If anything, history as field is getting more accurate and more complete. Especially with digitalization and when writing about eras that left tons of written material after them.
where would you put Herodotus or Thucydides or xenophon? the first historians weren't Roman really. there are other works less self consciously historical that predate them too, right?
That said most people, i.e. the non revolutionaries (which is the HN crowd), survive and will survive just fine not knowing anything about revolution or revolutionaries.
My favourite example of such a survivor is Joseph Marie Jacquard inventor of the Jacquard Loom (that which inspired Charles Babbage). Jacquards town would be taken over by revolutionaries on one day, counter revolutionaries on another, local royalty on a third and Napoleans armies on a forth, to the point were the townsfolk had no clue on any given day, who they were fighting with or against.
Jacquard worked to a ripe old age, through all that chaos, seeding the creation of the computer and retiring to a nice beautiful cottage on a beach.
That strategy works until the power-of-the-day decides that your race/class/religion is the Enemy. Good luck being Jewish in 1940s Germany, or a Kulak in 1930s Soviet Union, or a Christian during the Cultural Revolution, etc.
Some guy says well Lavoisier lost his head. Well Legrange didn't.
And here is a quote from him - "I believe that, in general, one of the first principles of every wise man is to conform strictly to the laws of the country in which he is living, even when they are unreasonable"
He lived a pretty good life.
Not everyone is a revolutionary (that should be obvious looking at what modern psychology tells us about human nature)
Nor does everyone care about what revolutionaries care about (which should be obvious if you look at what marketing depts reveal about ppl).
And if you are not interested in psychology or marketing, history will show you thousands of such people, famous people and ordinary people, survived comfortably and happily through every revolution and war and how to do it.
Yeah, young engineer Korolev was purged by Stalinist USSR for no good reason and while he survived the ordeal, his health was compromised. It is possible that his comparatively early death slowed Soviet space program down.
Maybe a more general lesson to learn here is that there are winners and losers in the great events of history. Mask manufacturers are certainly doing well from the current pandemic. Most Australians have only experienced about 2 months of lockdown. While Americans have got pretty much the worst possible pandemic outcome.
In defense of the specifics of history. The french revolution was an incredibly pro-science revolution. Scientists who took advantage of the situation stood to become wealthy and be given the resources to do the science they wanted to.
I think this is throwing away something incredibly important. The way things are today is because of events in the past. Things have provenance. It is important to understand why historians have put so much weight on things like the french revolution and the trappings of the Roman Empire. The specifics of the french revolution are what matter when we consider what happens next. People were thinking about the "ideas of 1789" (and other momentous years during that revolution) when they attempted revolutions again in 1830 and 1848.