Margaret McMillan’s compelling speech on “using history to understand the present” deciphers several major points that construct her idea on how History is used to understand the present. I feel that her points have helped me to understand more about how history can be used responsibly and irresponsibly. Encompassing her ideas on the validity of history and how it is irresponsibly conveyed to the public. McMillan’s lecture on the uses and abuses of history described the ways in which history can be employed to motivate people towards a common goal, or tear them away. This could lead to what McMillan described as a deprivation of willingness to learn. I feel as though this deprivation can cause major problems as demonstrated through our modern
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Her argument made me think on how what we are taught as children helps dictate how we think as young adults, for example, in politics and religion. Children are born to trust their parents because they are the ones that have raised them, and thus children like me attain the same views in politics, religion, and do the same things because of genetics. History is used to demonstrate things about the past and the future and provide us with the guidelines necessary for us to learn from the past. I learned to understand that what we think of as normal, isn’t always the same in other societies or cultures, and if we choose to not understand these cultures. What I thought was extremely important was this proposal that history can also help us to formulate ideas about the future, because we can base the future, of what has happened in the past and study the patterns behind it. McMillan’s lecture on “using history to understand the present” has given me a greater understanding of how history has no national boundaries, how it’s a product of our “experiences and societies” and how it is used to demonstrate things about the past and the future. This lecture has helped me to understand without history, we are depriving ourselves of a very important tool to understand how we
Her argument made me think on how what we are taught as children helps dictate how we think as young adults, for example, in politics and religion. Children are born to trust their parents because they are the ones that have raised them, and thus children like me attain the same views in politics, religion, and do the same things because of genetics. History is used to demonstrate things about the past and the future and provide us with the guidelines necessary for us to learn from the past. I learned to understand that what we think of as normal, isn’t always the same in other societies or cultures, and if we choose to not understand these cultures. What I thought was extremely important was this proposal that history can also help us to formulate ideas about the future, because we can base the future, of what has happened in the past and study the patterns behind it. McMillan’s lecture on “using history to understand the present” has given me a greater understanding of how history has no national boundaries, how it’s a product of our “experiences and societies” and how it is used to demonstrate things about the past and the future. This lecture has helped me to understand without history, we are depriving ourselves of a very important tool to understand how we