Why History Matters
My first memorable experience with history came when I was around six years old, when I was first introduced to the musical Les Miserables. Like any young kid, I subconsciously patterned my behavior after my childhood heroes; my heroes were the convict-turned-hero Jean Valjean, the idealistic revolutionary Enjolras, and the generous priest Father Myriel, who gave away his church’s silver to the former thief Jean Valjean with the condition that Valjean use the silver “to become an honest man.” I grew fascinated by 19th-century France just by coming to know characters from a very different society and time from my own, from hearing the ensemble sing about the struggles of average people in 1830s Paris, and to wondering why privileged college students would throw away their lives in a futile rebellion which they believed would take root as a revolution and change the world.
What does any of this have to do with history? Our understanding of history, like the popular culture we consume as children, shapes our behavior, our understanding of the world, and even our very personalities. In our modern “post-truth society”, it is becoming more popular for average people, history buffs and everyday rat-racers alike, to live by a code of morals or truths which they learned from their culture, their politics, or their convenience. When truth is a casualty, history always follows; the reverse is just as true. In 2021, a year into the world’s largest ever activist movement, namely the “Black Lives Matter” movement, it is just as common to see police and protesters butt heads as it is to see “histories” lock swords in a battle for our national narrative. Whether one subscribes to the neo-Confederate “Lost Cause” narrative or to the intersectional “1619 Project” narrative, one — perhaps without intention — is resurrecting the ghosts of the past and patterning their behavior after the history they attempt to know and propagate. Just as I — as a young boy — fantasized about climbing the barricades of Revolutionary France because of my fascination with Les Miserables, “Lost Causers” today may fantasize about taking up arms for “noble” causes such as “states’ rights” and “order”, and racial justice activists may feel a sense of fulfillment when their longing for a time when they could have marched for civil rights as in the 1960s can now be possible as the nation once again faces a reckoning with its troubled, racist past.
History is more than the study of dusty, old books; stale, patriotic tales; and “dead white men”; it constitutes our understanding of our past and our present, and informs every value and view we hold; every action we may take. As I continue to publish on Medium, I intend not to merely create an echo chamber for like-minded history buffs, a drawer for me to stuff my historical writings into, or a partisan propaganda machine. It will be my goal, as a lifelong history lover and student, to share important pieces of world history with as many readers as possible in order to share my own educational experiences and findings with others who are interested. Our grades are not all that are at stake when we read about history; our very values are. To best conclude my brief thesis, I will recall the wise and immortal words of Bob Marley: “If you know your history/Then you would know where you coming from.”
