Issue120 历史的作用

aefiterUID: 2134740

Issue120 历史的作用

120"So much is new and complex today that looking back for an understanding of the past provides little guidance for living in the present."

1 让步赞成
2历史的作用（社会领域）
3历史在环境保护的作用


In this statement, the speaker draw a conclusion that looking back for an understanding of the past can provide little guidance for the present. Although the conclusion is based on a reasonable condition that our modern society is new and complex, the speaker make a tenure extention from a incomplete condtion. For the aspects that have changed or developed so as to be quite different from the past, the statement holds. However, for more aspects in which our society cannot change a little, the conclusion to downplay the function of study of history is unfounded.

To begin with, I concede the reasoning in this statement is right. Our society are being confronted with a great deal of newly emerged social phenomena and innovations incident to the highly advanced science and technology. Both of these two aspects are unique and perticular to modern society. Attempts to turn to our past and predecessor for answers are bound to fail. One compelling instance invloves the legislation of euthanasia. As a advanced method of ending a dying person's life, the sphere of medicine propounds it from the consideration of the feeling of their patients. But conventional ethics of the majority of us recognize this medication as a disguised murder. Faced with this acute problem, historians, not like the experts in the realm of jurisprudence and politics, can propose no beneficial advice on this problem for the reason that ancient people cannot ever be faced with problems like this due to the underdevelopment of medical care.

However, if we jump out of the region designated by the speaker, we find the study of history are constructive to our society as it has existed in our society for thousands of years. As a subject of inquiry among many human inquiries, the study of history reveals many ancient but everlasting phenomena and problems inherent to the existence of our society. Put it another way, the history of our society just mirrors the impalpable but constant roles behind the complex and inconstant state of our society. The emergence of war, which is a principle question in the study of history, turn out to be a disaster to all the human beings in the world. Though warmonguers will make various arguments for waging a war against other countries, the history are confidently tell us the truth through a higher altitude by the overview of wars from thousands of years ago. THe conflits among different peoples, different countries are the decelarator of the development and properity of our society.

Another constant matter is the relation of the human beings and nature. From the ecological view, people are just an ordinary member of nature. But people living in modern society are demanding much more from nature than other creatures who equally existing on the earth. Likewise, the observation in history provides a great amount of historical truth to collaborate the conclusion developed from ecology. The destruction of ancient Babylon, which is well substantiated by history to disappear for the reason of the destruction of the balance between human and nature. The history, combined with many other disiplines, are striving to tell people the proper position where we should place ourselves.

To sum up, history will do nothing helpful to our society in the area completely changed and developed, thus quite different from the ancient society, the object of the research of history. Nevertheless, in a larger number of aspects that have the features inherent to the existence of the society, history still play a crucial and unique role to lead modern society away from the mistakes made by our ancestors.