issue221【today is the day】第七次作业 by revealiing

revealingUID: 2507748

TOPIC: ISSUE221 - "The chief benefit of the study of history is to break down the illusion that people in one period of time are significantly different from people who lived at any other time in history."

What can we benefit from history study? Are peoples different in different histories? Obviously, people will find it almost impossible to come to an agreement on the highly controversial issue. In the last analysis, I am more inclined to oppose the title of the statement.

Admittedly, from history study we may find that people in one period of time are similar with people who lived at any other time in history to some extent, which is beneficial. For example, it is unfortunate but true, that there is no flawless individual in this world. Our basic human nature consisting of avarice and jealousness, self-concern and desires, and etc., have remained constant over recorded times. Thus, the illusion that we could establish a utopia in the future might be broke down and we should give more profound understanding of our social problems, which perhaps we could solve through psychology or morality rather than law. These common evil humanities are usually the sources of crime and violence and so on. Besides, just as a famous saying goes, ”History repeats itself”; one of the reasons for recurrence is the similarity and commonness of peoples in different histories, so historians can use the method of analogical deduction for study and research.

Nonetheless, despite all the evidence mentioned above, from the study of history, we are more likely to understand and appreciate significant differences between peoples in different periods, which are more valuable. From the primitive society when people lived in caves and fought against beasts in forest, to the cruel slavery in ancient time when majorities led a tragic living; from the Middle Age when we believed and worshiped religion, to the significant Industry Revolution when we emphasized science and technologies; from the two world wars to the global era today, our attitudes and values are different from time to time in different histories. Karl Marx, the great founder of Marxism, summarized the universal principle of human development from different histories and instructed the direction of the future. As a result, we study history to learn about the progress and try our best to make a better society.

In addition, what is also worth noticing is that the benefit of history study is not simply to find out the differences or similarity among people and there are more important values. For one thing, we can gain creativity and inspiration from history. History, especially the history of science is replete of such examples that scientist were incited from history. For example, Helmholtz, a physicist in Germany, was interested in music history very much. Once, he learned about a musical instrument in Ancient Greece which could damp the loudness of sound and the instrument incited his inspiration to make a similar equipment for damping noises in gas turbine. This is the story of invention of resonator. For another, we can learn experiences as well as lessons from history which avoid us repeating the same mistakes. Francis Bacon, the famous British philosopher once said (and I paragraph) :"histories make men wise." We study the history of Challenger to prevent the disastrous tragedy. From the Prohibition during the 1930s, we learn how to resolve such problems as speech freedom in a more effectual and more efficient way.

To sum up, there are several other aspects relevant to the issue under discussion, which, unfortunately, I have no time to explore in detail here. It is very likely that people will never be able to come to the same conclusion on the complex issue due to their different experiences and conflicting values. Nevertheless, public awareness of the major concerns addressed in the above argument will probably contribute to the thorough understanding of the challenging problem. On all account, we should not place over-emphasis on study the commonness of peoples in histories and should not ignore other benefits of studying history.

woyunUID: 2522051

建附件