"george, go and fight those terrorists"
I love conversations with my mother. It's like we're both going through college at the same time.
CJ: So, I've been on this big history kick lately... I'd always associated history with old conservative farts who talk about the Civil War until they fall asleep and leak through their adult diapers...
Mom: Yeah, history's fascinating! And it's taught as a bunch of facts, and not a more holistic view...
CJ: Yeah, we've been learning about it in class in the way I'd always wanted history to be taught to me, except it's this newfangled thing called historiography, which is the study of the study of history.
Mom: Ha! Leave it to academ... aca.. academic..
CJ: Academicians.
Mom: Right.
CJ: Right, so it's about studying history at the meta-level, studying who writes history and for what purpose, studying points of view left out of the textbooks to form a more complete picture of history (of course everything is relative because once someone writes something down it automatically becomes only one interpretation because there is always something left out. there is no external reality to study in history.), and it's about studying all the multiple lenses through which you can view history (economic, social, political, personal, etc.), and understanding how all these factors (social forces, political forces, economic forces etc.) combine to create a historical event. Once we recognize these social forces, we can look for them in the present to predict the future, based on the past.
Mom: Right, right- but we can change the future! We all have the power as a human race to make change...
CJ: (squirms when she starts talking like this)
Mom: ...We all have free will.
CJ: Some of us have free will. Some of us have divine intent.
CJ: So, I've been on this big history kick lately... I'd always associated history with old conservative farts who talk about the Civil War until they fall asleep and leak through their adult diapers...
Mom: Yeah, history's fascinating! And it's taught as a bunch of facts, and not a more holistic view...
CJ: Yeah, we've been learning about it in class in the way I'd always wanted history to be taught to me, except it's this newfangled thing called historiography, which is the study of the study of history.
Mom: Ha! Leave it to academ... aca.. academic..
CJ: Academicians.
Mom: Right.
CJ: Right, so it's about studying history at the meta-level, studying who writes history and for what purpose, studying points of view left out of the textbooks to form a more complete picture of history (of course everything is relative because once someone writes something down it automatically becomes only one interpretation because there is always something left out. there is no external reality to study in history.), and it's about studying all the multiple lenses through which you can view history (economic, social, political, personal, etc.), and understanding how all these factors (social forces, political forces, economic forces etc.) combine to create a historical event. Once we recognize these social forces, we can look for them in the present to predict the future, based on the past.
Mom: Right, right- but we can change the future! We all have the power as a human race to make change...
CJ: (squirms when she starts talking like this)
Mom: ...We all have free will.
CJ: Some of us have free will. Some of us have divine intent.