Knowing about the past cannot help people to make important decisions today.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.

A major argument in modern society is that knowing about the past is pointless because it cannot help people to make important decisions in the present. This claim, while not entirely false, is greatly oversimplified and ignores the fact that studying the past can indeed help people to make important choices in the present

The idea that knowing about the past cannot help people make important decisions in the present is, at best, debatable. Studying the past does not necessarily lead to knowledge of the present, but to knowledge of what has gone before; knowledge that can inform current decisions. For example, the U.S. Civil War was fought over whether slavery should be legal or illegal. Although the war was fought in the 1860s, its legacy still affects how Americans view other conflicts today such as the war in Iraq. The Civil War not only affected the outcome of the war, but also caused lasting divisions among Americans that persist to this day. Many of the issues that led to the Civil War, including slavery, still exist today, but the war itself has faded into history. The enduring legacy of the Civil War demonstrates that studying the past can help people make decisions in the present

The modern idea that knowing about the past cannot help people make important decisions in the present rests on a flawed premise, the erroneous assumption that the past is static. However, the past is not static. It is comprised of people, events, and ideas that are constantly being shaped and redefined by historical events. For example, the United States was not always a country. When Europeans first landed in North America they encountered the indigenous peoples, whose ways of life were different from those of the European settlers. The encounter between the indigenous peoples and the Europeans led to a series of battles over land ownership, eventually resulting in the decimation of the indigenous population. The indigenous peoples’ demise drove the European settlers westward, eventually resulting in the establishment of the United States. The events that led to the decimation of the indigenous people, and ultimately to the founding of the United States, were critical to the formation of the country. The events of the past are in constant flux, and studying them can help people make informed decisions in the present

The idea that knowing about the past cannot help people make important decisions in the present fails to take into account that the past is, for the most part, irrelevant to contemporary events. The events of yesterday are, for the most part, irrelevant to the events of today. To cite an example of this, the Ottoman Turks owned western Armenia and eastern Anatolia for centuries. In 1915, however, the Armenians rose up in revolt, resulting in massacres and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Despite the atrocity committed by the Ottoman Turks, the Armenian revolt had little bearing on the contemporary events of the past century. Today, the Turks and Armenians are at peace. The Ottoman Turks’ role in the Armenian genocide has faded into history, and Armenians and Turks, for the most part, do not care about what happened in the past. The events of the past are, for the most part, irrelevant to contemporary events

Many events are so far removed from our own that we cannot even begin to understand them. There are others, however, that have had a direct impact on our own lives. Events such as the sinking of the Titanic, the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill were global in scope, and their impact is still being felt today. These events were, in some cases, the direct results of decisions made by people in the past. The decisions of people who lived hundreds of years ago, even thousands of years ago, continue to have an impact today. For example, the decision to drill for oil in the deep waters beyond Florida’s eastern coastline was the direct result of decisions made a century ago. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which killed eleven people and spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, was the result of the faulty decisions made by BP and other oil companies to drill for oil in deep waters using outdated technology. Studying the past can help people make important choices in the present by helping them to understand the mistakes made by the past

The idea that knowing about the past cannot help people make important decisions in the present is flawed. Studying the past gives people a deeper understanding of the world around them, and this understanding can have profound consequences.

Total
0
Shares
Total
0
Share