by Richard A. Cheatham, Press Media Group, LLC

What good is history? Why shouldn’t history be abandoned in favor of useful subjects like science and language arts? What value could history possibly have for us today anyway?

Cultural amnesia is the inevitable consequence of not teaching history. You’re witnessing the consequences of cultural amnesia in America now. Almost all of the guiding principles in the founding of this country are now little more than comforting platitudes today. Are there consequences of that? You be the judge.

Everyone makes decisions based upon their past experience, their own remembered history. That’s natural! If a person could alter your memory of some experiences in your past, couldn’t they then manipulate your future choices and actions? The very same thing works with regard to society. Political “leaders” have a vested interest in what you know of the past and how you remember it.

History really is a social and political battlefield and is extremely politically sensitive. That’s precisely why government “education” should never be the arbiter of what is or is not history and how it’s taught. “Education by the state inevitably tends to be education for the state.”

Government leaders would rather you think what they want you to think than for you to know how to think, especially when it comes to history. You might come to the “wrong conclusions.”

The more one studies history, the more one comes to realize that human nature has not changed one iota throughout recorded history. An ignorance of history allows one to be lured into a contemporary condescension. “We are wise and virtuous and they were ignorant and evil.” It ain’t so. Classic human flaws and weaknesses (as well as the virtues and strengths) are still with us. One can discern patterns of success and failure and draw conclusions about systems that are better and worse. One can witness classic consequences from classic actions.

History does have its inherent limitations. Even the best historians don’t know all history. They weren’t there. Not even the people who were there creating it experienced everything going on around them. In addition, historians couldn’t tell, write or teach all history even if they could know it. They must decide what little they have time and/or space to talk about, and they do that using their subjective judgment -- what they think most important for you to know and based upon their personal values.

The danger of all this for some people, the ones who need you to see them as experts, authorities and leaders, is that, with knowledge of history and human nature you might generate your own high level of intellectual independence and that would be deadly to their self interest. That’s all about control and power. That’s why history is important.

©2006 by Richard A. Cheatham. All rights reserved. Mr.Cheatham is a professional speaker/writer and is syndicated through Press Media Group, LLC. Contact him through, Living History Assoc., Ltd., at www.LHALtd.com or DrawBackVeil@aol.com.