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Are you saying that history is in all cases harmful for practical purposes? Or are you saying that it is harmful for most people, who are dilettantes who read

Are you saying that history is in all cases harmful for practical purposes? Or are you saying that it is harmful for most people, who are dilettantes who read a few pop-histories and think they understand the time period? If you are arguing the latter, I agree. True ignorance is preferable to false knowledge. But for the serious student, history can be very informative and useful. True knowledge takes a lot of time. One must find good sources, learn the context of various writers and how their biases might color their writings, learn how to separate the creditable writers from the propagandists, and read both primary sources and the finest secondary sources, And finally you must be willing to recognize the limits of knowledge, at some points you must admit that you do not know what happened and never will. But if that is all done, I think history can be extremely valuable for understanding the present and making good decisions going forward.

bcoates 14y ago
I'm saying it's harmful for most people who are dilettantes. I'm also attempting to say that it's somewhat unique in this, at least among the core knowledge subjects that most people are expected to know. The only other subjects with such a high "what you know that isn't true will hurt you" level are things like medicine, law, and chemistry, but in those everyone is made aware of the danger and there are entire industries worth of safety precautions because of it. Convince someone that they have a sufficient level of historical aptitude to apply it and they can obtain and use falsehoods at a stunning rate.
- agwa 14y ago
  I think this is a much more reasonable argument than what your original comment seems to say, and I agree with you that an insufficient knowledge of history is harmful, and this should really be made clear in high school-level history. But isn't this true somewhat of most subjects? Consider, for example, the deplorable state of software security, or the harm caused by people who misunderstand probability. (One caveat: no subject can be compared in this regard to law and medicine, where other people need to be able to trust practitioners with their lives.) Also, why should this mean the historical society shouldn't encourage more people to study history? When I studied history I felt that I was imbued with the importance of approaching history carefully.

bcoates 14y ago

I'm saying it's harmful for most people who are dilettantes. I'm also attempting to say that it's somewhat unique in this, at least among the core knowledge subjects that most people are expected to know. The only other subjects with such a high "what you know that isn't true will hurt you" level are things like medicine, law, and chemistry, but in those everyone is made aware of the danger and there are entire industries worth of safety precautions because of it. Convince someone that they have a sufficient level of historical aptitude to apply it and they can obtain and use falsehoods at a stunning rate.

agwa 14y ago
I think this is a much more reasonable argument than what your original comment seems to say, and I agree with you that an insufficient knowledge of history is harmful, and this should really be made clear in high school-level history. But isn't this true somewhat of most subjects? Consider, for example, the deplorable state of software security, or the harm caused by people who misunderstand probability. (One caveat: no subject can be compared in this regard to law and medicine, where other people need to be able to trust practitioners with their lives.) Also, why should this mean the historical society shouldn't encourage more people to study history? When I studied history I felt that I was imbued with the importance of approaching history carefully.