Huddled Masses Yearning: A Society Set Adrift...

"A society without memory, recollection, and self-knowledge would be set adrift."
- Arthur Marwick

I often had this question posed to me many times while teaching...

"I don't care about History why should I care?"

In all my pleadings that it is important to know where you came from, that one can learn more about the world around them, and that one can live many lives through books and histories, I never thought of the societal answer, or the social function of History. I should have included the aspect that we are a complex race of beings and in that complexity we want to learn just exactly what we are, what we are doing, and how do we manifest those thoughts and emotions in our world. Because without it, we are just like the society postulated above: without memory, recollection and self-knowledge. What a scary thing that is.

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