(no subject)
I've recently realized that I know much less than I would like to about history and geography. I keep returning to studying these things because they're important to know, important to people. I, for instance, am always insulted when people confuse Arizona with New Mexico. Imagine how someone must feel when I haven't the faintest clue what their culture or history is like, what it means to their life and their identity.
Long ago in 6th grade Social Studies, I learned to label the countries of the world on blank maps, but by this time I have forgotten almost everything. I couldn't tell you the first thing about so many places, and I feel like this is an insult to the people who live there and are from there. After all, they probably know about America. They probably can't avoid it. Again, I know how that feels a little bit. When I was growing up, the settings of TV shows and books were almost without exception way different from the place I lived. I knew about the joys of snow and winter sports and trees and grass, but many of my friends from other parts of the country had never seen the desert and thought of it as an empty, dead place covered in sand. So I know how important it is that people know where you come from and what it means.
At the same time, I am daunted by how much there is to know. Putting names on a blank map is not true understanding. Looking at pictures helps, but is also not enough. There are so many layers to society, and they all intersect: the social, the economic, the environmental, and on and on. I'm sure if you study these things enough, you can find the patterns. I've already been able to pick out some simple ones from my nominal study of some countries in Europe and Latin America. But to understand the way societies work across the whole world? It blows my mind, personally.
And let's not even get into history. History scares me, quite frankly. I have this sneaking feeling, when I read about it, that what I am reading could be all lies and I would have no way of knowing. The past is inaccessible to me, and I must rely on people who I know very well probably have a huge bias which I am not knowledgeable enough to understand. Of course, I can easily memorize dates, and I should. I can theoretically realize why things happened and what effect they had, broadly. Very broadly. It seems to me that when you start thinking about cause and effect in history you can never be done, you can never truly know.
Maybe other people don't have these sort of problems. It could just be a side effect of my personality. I'm generally bad at predicting people's actions or realizing their motivations. They have to come right out and tell me, and I generally assume they are telling the truth. But society is so much bigger; there are many more reasons to lie, and it is much harder to tell. I don't want to be ignorant, and I will continue to study and learn. I must fight the feeling that I will never know enough, that epistemologically speaking I am doomed.
Long ago in 6th grade Social Studies, I learned to label the countries of the world on blank maps, but by this time I have forgotten almost everything. I couldn't tell you the first thing about so many places, and I feel like this is an insult to the people who live there and are from there. After all, they probably know about America. They probably can't avoid it. Again, I know how that feels a little bit. When I was growing up, the settings of TV shows and books were almost without exception way different from the place I lived. I knew about the joys of snow and winter sports and trees and grass, but many of my friends from other parts of the country had never seen the desert and thought of it as an empty, dead place covered in sand. So I know how important it is that people know where you come from and what it means.
At the same time, I am daunted by how much there is to know. Putting names on a blank map is not true understanding. Looking at pictures helps, but is also not enough. There are so many layers to society, and they all intersect: the social, the economic, the environmental, and on and on. I'm sure if you study these things enough, you can find the patterns. I've already been able to pick out some simple ones from my nominal study of some countries in Europe and Latin America. But to understand the way societies work across the whole world? It blows my mind, personally.
And let's not even get into history. History scares me, quite frankly. I have this sneaking feeling, when I read about it, that what I am reading could be all lies and I would have no way of knowing. The past is inaccessible to me, and I must rely on people who I know very well probably have a huge bias which I am not knowledgeable enough to understand. Of course, I can easily memorize dates, and I should. I can theoretically realize why things happened and what effect they had, broadly. Very broadly. It seems to me that when you start thinking about cause and effect in history you can never be done, you can never truly know.
Maybe other people don't have these sort of problems. It could just be a side effect of my personality. I'm generally bad at predicting people's actions or realizing their motivations. They have to come right out and tell me, and I generally assume they are telling the truth. But society is so much bigger; there are many more reasons to lie, and it is much harder to tell. I don't want to be ignorant, and I will continue to study and learn. I must fight the feeling that I will never know enough, that epistemologically speaking I am doomed.