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parrhesia  1yr ago (parrhesia.substack.com)   3001 thread views

History Classes Are Mostly Useless

parrhesia.substack.com

SS: Americans are rather ignorant about history. Moral reasoning by historical analogy is bad. Historical examples can be misleading for making predictions. These facts suggest that the utility of history courses is overestimated. In fact, they are mostly useless.

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Ideologically motivate curriculum creators can also make narratives. I did not learn that picnic is a slur, but if that was a popular opinion, it wouldn't be surprising to see this belief inserted into education.

Those interested parties can gain control over what is taught. If you want to defend the idea that we should teach history in a non-ideological and rigorous way so as to prevent manipulation by politicians, then yes. That's a great idea. But I still accept the viewpoint that history classes as they stand today in USA, are mostly useless.

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