One of the major movements of the Enlightenment was the study of history. The philosophes found themselves questioning veritability and the difference between good and evil. Prominent was the question, "How did we get here?"
Dr. Bjornstad made mention that current day politicians touch up on their history in hopes of applying processes from the past to current day situations. Apparantly Barack Obama is "touching up on his Lincoln". So, what if he does? What if he becomes an expert on Abraham Lincoln's presidential term? How will that help us today?
I pose this question merely because of our study in S.I. Hayakawa's Language in Thought and Action. According to the author, no two contexts are ever identical. How, then, can an event that occured during Lincoln's term in the nineteenth century possibly assist the president in his current duty in the twenty-first century? Due to my background in semantics, I would feel uncomfortable to say that history "repeats" itself. I understand that aspects may correlate, but I don't believe that they could ever be identical. This is an obvious point, it seems. Why haven't the politicians caught on? I'm just curious.
(Sam Maliha)
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Most of the things we learn in school are not for direct application. The knowledge we gain through our classes is supposed to be applied to different situations. The purpose of learning about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War is not so that the President can respond in the same way if there is another Civil War, but rather to understand what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how it was handled. Obama would look to see what Lincoln did successfully in his term and may consider using some of Lincoln's tactics and ideas in his own term. That is how Obama "touching up on his Lincoln" can help us today.
(Arvind Kalidindi)
I'm pretty sure politicians know a lot more about history than we do (or at least they should), so I'm pretty sure they know better than we do that history has never and will never repeat itself. But I think the term is merely used to describe strong correlations. No two contexts are exactly the same, but contexts can be strikingly similar. History is used as a tool so that when we come upon a familiar circumstance we can learn from past mistakes. Unfortunately, this does not always happen, and history "repeats" itself. I think when it comes to politics there is so much wrong semantically with what is said that we have to carefully choose what we want to make an issue about. In this case, I don't think the word "repeat", as opposed to "correlate", is a very big deal. It serves to communicate the idea, and I think the general American public gets that idea.
Emily T.
I agree that two situations can never be exactly similar, but some concepts from a past situation can still apply to a present situation. Take for example the Revolutionary War (it's not very good, but it's the one that was at the top of my head). You can take a basic lesson from that: respect human rights, or pay attention to how the people react to certain rights (or else you will be tarred and feathered). Even though it occurred in the past, it's still a lesson that you can apply to today.
Hey, it's Jenn
What is the purpose of learning history? I think the answer is not to repeat the same(or similar) mistakes that happened before and learn from them.
Obviously since no two situation can be the same, nothing repeats itself. However, the main idea or the theme of of an event can reappear.
Also, I don't think that the politicians 'never caught on'. The phrase 'history repeats itself' may be a popular misconception from our point of view (especially regarding semantics), but I don't think that studying history is useless for it teaches people important lessons. I would encourage the politicians to study history and know what is the best solution for current situation.
Personally, I feel like Barack Obama's 'touching up on Lincoln' is some sort of self-advertising or symbol making to create strong impressions. I think he is suggesting something other than the fact that he is studying history-just a sidenote.
(Jennifer Park)
I don't believe that Obama's "touching up on his Lincoln" has anything to do with replicating the Civil War era. If, however, you look at his appointments for his Cabinet and economic team, you can see that Obama's knowledge of Lincoln has and may continue to have a substantial impact on the future of the US.
Former opponent? (Lincoln picked Chase and Seward etc. (and it worked. Team of Rivals anyone?) and Obama picked Hillary) Check.
Clashing opinions? (Lincoln had the various heads of Republican factions and Obama has about sixty gazillion different opinions on foreign policy) Check.
Perhaps history does not repeat itself exactly, I would argue that history repeats itself in a roundabout way. Saying that history just doesn't repeat itself is, while seemingly supported by Hayakawa, an absolute.
Humans are creatures of repetition and tradition, which in turn makes their history repetitive. How many depressions did we learn about in APUSH alone that were all caused by overspeculation of land? (1837 vs 2007-8? the basic principles were and are the same)
Besides, is there anything inherently wrong with politicians using history? It establishes a warrant between the politician and the audience. If the politician were to argue his platform strictly on the basis of the economic principles, most people would not understand. (i.e. government spending is needed to prevent further shift in the aggregate demand curve as we have been experiencing a negative growth in our GDP since last December. thus, government spending on infrastructure is the best option (but some critics would argue that large infrastructure projects such as the Great Depression's alphabet agencies and the 1990s Japanese government's attempt at infrastructure/fiscal policy to prop up its economy do not work unless a massive amount of money is involved) would have the large direct multiplier effect on the economy. meanwhile, stimulus packages and bailouts, while having a smaller multiplier effect, are necessary for boosting consumer confidence. etcetc)
Why say all of that when the politician can effectively make his/her constituency understand that, like the Great Depression, the government needs to spend money to help its citizens?
I'm sure that all of us have heard before that the point of learning history is to "avoid making the same mistakes again." Clearly, due to our study of semantics, the same exact mistakes cannot be made multiple times because each situation is unique from all other situations before it and all that will occur in the future. However, if people were to maintain this belief to a certain extent, history wouldn't even be taught in schools.
The point of learning history isn't to prevent the same exact events from happening again, but similar events. Obviously Hitler cannot attempt to take control over Europe again, but it isn't too farfetched to imagine that an equally evil dictator would rise to power and attempt to obtain as much power as possible.
The accumulation of experiences leads to wisdom. Although no one alive today is able to claim that they have experienced everything that has happened since the beginning of time, this is why we learn history. It is the responsibility of our government to learn from its previous mistakes in order to prevent similar ones from happening in the future. It would be frightening to imagine Barack Obama living in blissful ignorance of America's past...very similar to a female republican from Alaska, who shall remain nameless.
(Paige Schlesinger)
Ironically enough, my French class was discussing the morals embodied by epic poems such as "La Chanson de Roland" (Roland's Song). The protagonists represent chivalry, honor, bravery, loyalty, etc.. According to Mrs. Shourds, these poems symbolized the many human traits which we admire, the ones which cause us to marvel at the many wonders of the human race.
She proceeded to mention "Honest Abe". We remember him as such because of his perserverance and dedication to his causes. Despite having failed at his attempt to become the Senator of Illinois, he overcame criticism and became the President of our nation. Maybe this is why Obama is touching up on his Lincoln history.
Just thought I'd include this since it related to this discussion in a way. I absolutely love when I make connections between different classes.
(Sam Maliha)
Of course history never repeats itself exactly. However, we can still draw overall lessons and principles from the situations of the past, ones that may be applied to the problems of today and the future. Huxley probably stated it best when said that in history, "nothing changes and yet everything is completely different."
Contexts will always be different, but we look back on history for the recurring trends and similarities. As I said in a previous quotes, as human beings, we are inevitably drawn to comparisons. We use examples from the past to compare ourselves with today, to give us a frame of reference. Interesting enough, one reason Barack Obama's victory is such a triumph because there are no prior examples or comparisons we can make in US history. His success truly is history-making.
Although we try to learn from history by emulating successes (ex: Obama learning from Lincoln), we also look back at history to observe our mistakes. However, one danger we have is oversimplifying. Some of us love to call Iraq another "Vietnam," while others say that giving in now would be like "Chamberlain's appeasement policies." In comparisons like those, we have remember that while history contains similarities, it only repeats itself in entirely different contexts. Thus, making overly broad generalizations such as those can be a misuse of history.
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