What do you find interesting about the study of history?
At 21, I read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. I was instantly mesmerized by the prospect of autonomy and the development of a free-will. I had lived for much of my life unaware to the prospects offered through the study of history. I was always aware of the cliche that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it, but I always felt there was a kind of predetermined result for my life that I was unable to effect. This is a belief that I had harbored from my youth days in a Christian church, and despite my repulsion to the idea of institutional religion and mythical explanation, I had deeply internalized that scheme of mind to the extent that I had allowed it to subconsciously dictate my everyday interactions with the world. After finishing Nicomachean Ethics, I instantly felt smaller than I ever had, but at the same time liberated. This feeling of liberation is something that I experience regularly with my readings into the history of various disciplines, such as philosophy, art, biology, politics, and intellectual theory. I suppose the idea of history as a discipline of knowledge that can provide a framework and chart a course for the destination of a society and the individual is an idea that appeals greatly to me. I’d like, if possible, to the live the richest life available fto someone of my birth, and that is something I believe can be realized through the study of this discipline. As the article, Why Study History?, stated, the skills developed through this discipline are incredibly vital and sought for in many practices and occupations all around.
Fascinating. I have not given much thought to the study of history as a framework for autonomous development, but I can certainly see how the history of the expressions of culture (as you note, art, philosophy, theory) could create doorways. There are many who think that exposure to, and study of, the past (and things of the past) can create a richer life through giving us a very large perspective. I can see that as liberating indeed.
I also like to think that the study of history teaches us about human agency. We today have agency to impact the future. That can also be seen as liberating.