【喜洋洋杀G大队】wu-intrepi,第九次作业

wu-intrepidUID: 2659758

103"The study of history has value only to the extent that it is relevant to our daily lives."

For a long time, the study of history has been charged with the mission of finding ‘essences’, to society and to humanity. With such 'essences' we can simply tell the cleavage among the Acient, Medieval, and Modern, and describe the different characteristics of those times. Yet, person was lost in that study expect giants who were considered as the creators of history. In 19th century, this situation was changed because different method which call for the relativity between research and our daily lives was used. The value of this method is immeasurable.

For one thing, acdemic value was provided by this method. Less evidences is a inconvenient truth in our historical research to find the 'essences' of the time, and limits us cannot even close to the past time. We all know China suffered greatly from the Cultural Revoluton. That is a kind of oppressin to humanity  and a distortion to Marxism. It is obvious that official evidences cannot reveal people's miserable lives precisely, because offical literature never record personal affairs and sensation without which we cannot catch the time spirit. For example,  young people were asked to go to conturies and remote sites at that time. Official records show that everybody was so happy for following chairman Mao‘s command. However, different opinions that not favorable to government were suppressed. So if we try to research what were happen in China during the Cultural Revolution, we must investgate people's daily life at that time. Do they have enough food? Do they make the choices by themselves? This is the only path to the truth. So, the historical study that relevant to our daily life supply the gap of the factor of exdrordinary person.

Secondly, people will find their historical position and then reveal our value according this study. Most people maintain that modern sociey is a more free and more rational than past. How do we know that? According exam the political system in hundreds years ago? That seems too absract for understanding the difference between people in this period of time and people lived in other time. So we need the study of history which relavent to our daily life. For instance, cats used to be considered have associated with devil in later Middle Age, so cats were killed because people's fear. By the 17th century, cats were understood to be witches' friends, and therefore be killed. Yet, in our time, we do not kill cats for our untested belief. This difference of people's daily life show that today we are more rational than before and we are surely living in a scientific society.

Admittedly, a comprehensive record of history also should consider more factors such as international political background, a leader's charisma, and so on. Let us take the example mentioned before. To understand the Cultural Revolution in china, we cannot only exam people's daily life, although it is a significant aspect. The leader, Chairman Mao, is another important factor we should test. He had the ambition and enough intelligence to construct a strong country, however, the profoundly influence of radical Marxism cannot be ignored either which gives him a unchangeable faith of socialism. Moreover, his strong power and unbelievably charisma are also  controlled  the whole China. That is to say, we cannot figure out what was really happen in history only with the research which is relevant to our daily life.

To sum up, in one study of history, value comes from comprehensive examination including both research relevant to our daily life and other factors. Holding this opinion, our history not only provide some facts or abstract characteristics of that time but also find the progress an the power of humanity.