Lets start with a question: What do you think about history? I have asked some of my friends what do they think about it. Some of them think it as worthless because in contrast, science is the thing that we need to improve human civilization. Others think history is not helpful to their lives because of difficulty in finding jobs. I confess, have to agree some parts of them, indeed, history does not seem as helpful as science and technology for human development, it is also true that history didn’t fit so much as a high-salary job. Even at the table, when my elders asked me about what I want to learn in the future, and I said history, I can hear their unapproving “ah”s. And later they said to my parents, “persuade her to be a lawyer or doctor, history is hopeless.”
History is a carrier of culture, technology, and ideas. Without history, culture will disappear, human civilization will backslide hundreds of years. Back in the dark ages, because of lacking the record of history, we can’t know what happened then, it’s like human civilization stopped for few hundreds of years. From the different languages we speak now, to books that we read, are all being carried by history. Even now, Chinese medicine is still being found in old medicine books, and people are still studying Plato’s book and debating about meanings of life. Holidays like thanksgiving, spring festivals are all created to celebrate certain historical events. From that, we can see the influence of history on every one of us.
“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” Martin Luther King Jr. said that. History made us in to what we are today. Why can we humans transform from paleolithic time to the high tech world that we live in now? It is because of history. People make mistakes, and they learn from them, and try to fix it until they can do it correctly. This is how our ancestors learn how to make fire, raise livestocks, cultivate lands. Tang Tai Zong hanged Sui Yang Di’s picture in front of his bed to remind him-self to avoid the mistakes that Sui Yang Di once made. After the horrid of WWII, countries like Britan, USA, Soviet Union signed the NPT to prevent nuclear war.
Some of you may believe in certain religions, and religion is tightly bond to history as well. Religion is often used as crutch for country stability. For example, Egyptian kings depicted themselves as gods to stable Egyptians’ loyalty. Also, religion is based on true history, Jesus from Christianity, TangSeng from Fo, Muhammed from Islam are all real characters in history.
In addition, history shape who we are. It makes a clearer view on self -identity, what is our goal, who are we, what is our responsibilities, where do we come from. When people read history, they learn from it, absorb the intelligence that thousands of years of people had gained. It transforms them, make them more civilized, have the ability to draw inferences, more rational on making decisions.
Whenever we met difficulties, reading about history is always an away to sort out problems. there’s an old Chinese phrase that we should remember: take history as a mirror. With that, from every individuals to the who society, human civilization with grew more and more advanced and complete.
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