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Message 1.Μύ
Posted by Andrew Host (U1683626) on Thursday, 2nd October 2008
You are strolling down the road on a sunny autumn morning when you hear a funny noise coming from a side street. Turning into the darkened alley you are stopped in your tracks by the sight of a monkey in a fez and waistcoat doing a funny dance. The monkey pulls off his head to reveal the flushed countenance of a middle-aged man who shouts "Right lads! We got one!" Suddenly a bag is roughly pulled over your head and the last thing you remember is a dull blow to the back of your head...
You wake up in an office in Whitehall, you strain against your bonds but to no avail. As your vision clears you realise you are surrounded by sweaty chain-smoking civil servants in rumpled suits. The man you recognised as the monkey from the alley steps forward and addresses you.
He tells you that you are in the Department of History. The former Minister, a broken man, his mind sadly unhinged by the strain of promoting History to a disinterested public - has disappeared. MI5 believe he is in Panama working on a 72:1 scale model of the Bismark. His last act was to blow the entire departmental budget on the world's stocks of balsa wood. He was due to make a major policy announcement on the value of history. You must replace him.
Your job is to explain to a nation hooked on news of Jordan's marriage to Peter Andre why they should be interested in history. It a truism that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it - but, the man explains most people aren't in a position to shape the events that define our history.
Is it just for hobbyists? Merely context for those interested in researching their genealogy? Or is there something enduring and enriching for the average person to be gained from exploring History?
You are hustled blinking into the blazing lights of a press room. "What," the assembled hacks cry "is the point of history?" Microphones are shoved into your face as dry mouthed you fumble for something to say... -
Message 2
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Thursday, 2nd October 2008
The point of history is to make sense of the present. But I don't think that is the only function of history. Much of it is enjoyable and interesting for its own sake, and without a knowledge of it, much literature and culture, even popular culture, is hard to understand to any real degree. The English language, and probably other languages too, make much more sense with some idea of the history, etymology, behind them.
The repetition of wars, political intrigues, economic events etc are shown throughout history, and any attempts to change things can hardly happen without a knowledge of what came before. So it is necessary for revolutions and reforms.
Social history allows people to understand cultures of the past and the present, to know what made our ancestors who they are, to follow what made them seek out other lands, emigrate, make discoveries.
A sense of historical events in my country allows us to live in some form of harmony; without that knowledge Maori and Pakeha tend to blame each other for perceived problems and it is only with a better knowledge of what happened in early settlement days that Treaty of Waitangi issues have become more acceptable and rectifiable.
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 3
Posted by Tas (U11050591) on Thursday, 2nd October 2008
Hi Caro,
That is a very good analysis of history.
In my view history is more than just about Kings and Battles, it is also about thought at various periods of time and the culture of that period as well.
Take Care,
Tas -
Message 4
Posted by Backtothedarkplace (U2955180) on Thursday, 2nd October 2008
The point of history is..........? Does it have to have a point? You can say it inspires people to surpass their ancestors you can say that it teaches politicans the mistakes to repeat.
But, mainly I'm into it because its cheaper then Heroin and just as adictive.
There is nothing to beat that moment of blind panic when you realise that theres nothing in you head about an event, you know nothing about it. its like withdrawl. so you crakc out the books and start reading and pretty soon your a thousand miles and a thousand years ago and long dead events are some how a lot more important than the washing up. -
Message 5
Posted by Mike Alexander (U1706714) on Thursday, 2nd October 2008
I think Bob Marley had it nailed:
If you knew your history
Then you would know where you're coming from...Μύ
A lot of people have a shocking lack of curiosity. My reason for wanting to find out about the past is much the same as Mallory's for attempting to climb Everest: "because it's there". -
Message 6
Posted by WarsawPact (U1831709) on Thursday, 2nd October 2008
Surely, these Civil Servants know they're not allowed to smoke inside a public building?
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Message 7
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Thursday, 2nd October 2008
I wouldn't bother to use reason at all. History is of course important because it is experience which is the best teacher of all--and experience teaches me that reason doesn't work on the crowd.
No, I would use what does work. I would start an ad campaign using "cool" celebrities to promote it on purely conventional advertising principles. Have a spot where Paris Hilton gets the hots for the guy who shows his history knowledge while spurning the history igmo. That sort of thing. Use the idiotic psychology of the mob to undermine it's own ignorance. High dollar history game shows. With glitz, like outlandish historical costumes parading across the stage. Throw in some sex. -
Message 8
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Thursday, 2nd October 2008
Why not? It works for Hollywood.
I can see the ad now -- Guenivere meets Cleopatra in "Historical Girls Gone Wild." -
Message 9
Posted by JB (U11805502) on Thursday, 2nd October 2008
A govt dept of History would have been useful when it might have pointed out to one former PM the sorry record of foreign interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Palmerstonian principle of foreign policy based on permanent interests rather than permanent allies.
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Message 10
Posted by glen berro (U8860283) on Thursday, 2nd October 2008
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:42 GMT, in reply to Andrew Host in message 1
What happened in 1929?
glen -
Message 11
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Friday, 3rd October 2008
βWhat is the point of historyβ?
History is our story, it is where we came from and who we are. We cannot fully understand who we are without learning our past. It may only be the past of our parents or grandparents or it can be the past of our long dead ancestors, but it is our story.
Like all good stories if told well people will listen, more than that they will crave more and more to learn the stories from the past.
Unfortunately the people telling the story are all too often more concerned with the masses that would rather watch Jordan and Peter Andre, they fall into the trap of chasing the mass audience rather than the simple story telling.
It is like a quality restaurant that is full every night with 100 satisfied customers, but the manager cannot get out of his head the image of 1,000 people going to the fast food burger outlet across the road.
Tell the story to those who want to hear it, get that bit correct and then maybe the junk TV addicts will spend some of their time listening as well.
At the moment the media fail to even tell the story to the converted, by chasing the masses who are not interested they have also managed to lose those who want to listen.
Maybe the people who make history programs and tell the story have lost the ability to do it well, maybe they are burger flippers rather than chefs, and maybe the people who want to listen have lost their trust in the story tellers. -
Message 12
Posted by Scarboro (U2806863) on Friday, 3rd October 2008
I would recommend George Orwell's novel "1984" as being pertinent to this topic. The central character's job is to continually re-write history, for the purpose of controlling history.
The idea was "He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future." -
Message 13
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Friday, 3rd October 2008
The point of history is to make sense of the present.Μύ
In the context of Andrew's 'Minister for History' in Whitehall then that would mean informing schoolchildren, students and the public of how the UK came about in the 17th and 18th centuries and the story of how the UK began to disintegrate in 1922. Irish history (and particularly 20th century Irish history) would be central to this.
And as, in the present, the UK is now coming to an end then an appreciation of how other political unions have been ended would also be important. The depressing story of Yugoslavia in the 1990s would be a case study of how not to do it and there would be obvious parralels drawn with the aforementioned modern history of Ireland.
On a lighter note, however, the history of the Kalmar Union of Scandinavian countries in the 15th Century, for example, would be a valuable study as would be the peaceful transition to Norwegian indepedence in 1905. Also the Velvet Divorce between the Czechs and the Slovaks in 1993 could be be shown a successful example of how an unpopular political union like the UK can nevertheless be brought to an end with dignity all round. -
Message 14
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 3rd October 2008
Or is there something enduring and enriching for the average person to be gained from exploring History?
Μύ
"No" is the short answer to that. The "average person" seems now, as always, to be primarily interested in getting through the daly slog with the minimum of fuss and bother. He and she avoids, rather than encourages, exposure to issues which might make them have to evaluate their worth, their identity and even their morality - all aspects to their personality which history tends to confront them with when studied in any depth (as opposed to being used as a readily understandable context for some form of entertainment).
But society as a whole gains immeasurably from the committment of a minority to "exploring" history. For a start if no one did it then a whole chunk of the entertainment industry as it is currently manifested would disappear! But what the study and advertisement of history as a subject reveals is basically a reassurance that (to quote the cliche) "there is nothing new under the sun". It is a reference point that the present just cannot provide, and one which applies along the complete scale from the individual's own experience up to general social behaviour and wider political trends.
So, a summary of the long answer is therefore a resounding "Yes", even if the majority of people at any given moment are preoccupied with Jordan's marital status and not realising that they, like Jordan, are in the process of making history themselves (albeit a rather sad one). -
Message 15
Posted by MinetteMinor (U13482387) on Friday, 3rd October 2008
Dear Andrew Host,
At some time in your life you have been a journalist or in P.R.! You write very well incidentally...So s.....g true! How to sell History! Well obviously, to the initiated it becomes an obsession but to 12 year olds slapping on make up or texting during a lesson HOW do you sell it to them? Shock and awe perhaps?
The point of history is to not only inform but to enjoy! It really is joyous, we can attempt to make right what went before and make sense of what is happening to us now in real terms.
Jeremy Kyle isn't new! Hogarth was doing Gin-Binging and broken families in the C18th. Visit the ruins of Pompeii and some are for "adults only". The terms heterosexual and homosexual date from the C19th and teen pregnancies were postively encouraged by the well-off during the medieval period. The Church can stil be bought - look at the panic amongst the RCs in the US being sued for peadaphilia by clerics made unnaturally celibate. "The poor will always be with us" because the "Establishment" deems it to be so.
Jordan and Peter Andre are not NEW - apart from the plastic bits. Look at the women at James I's Court, it was the fashion to be bare breasted like the Minoeans of ancient Crete. Peter Andres have always been with us BUT rather than have a six pack emphasis was on the legs! Thighs and calves mattered so much some padded them and so to the cod piece, not discreet yet so popular. Vulgarity has always been with us. I can think of so many sexual scandals I really don't know which to choose.
How did medieval Kings prevent wars at home due to revolting peasants and over-mighty sunbjects? They started silly wars with foreign countries. Whom shall we hate today? The Turks? The Jews? Saracen Heads? Always the French! When a British PM or a US President is in trouble .... they turn to Foreign Policy and then go to war. It's a fact. Very old news!
It's impossible to teach history without sex and scandal. I've done "the Great Divorce" using overheads projections where I showed Henry VIII age...Together with Katherine of Aragon. Married for nearly 30 years she showed her age poor soul as did he! He crammed his next five wives into his remaining and physically unpleasant last 11 years! Youngsters have gasped in shock when I've showed them what Henry really like when he murdered Anne Boylen.
But he made it quite clear to Thomas Cromwell and poor Anne of Cleves that Anne Boylen was "his type" small "duckies" and long and lean. Anne of C. was too big in the bust departemnet to say nothing of her unstylish clothes. She didn't even realize that the marriage had not been consumated until she had it all explained to her! On their wedding night they played cards and he said "goodnight darling". She believed this to be married life. Pity she never read Chaucer in translation of course!
The point of history is that it's a gossip's delight! Hence the "source material"! It's Forbes Rich List and the sauciest most ridiculous "Heat Magazine" rolled into one. IT's hope and happiness mixed with despair and depression. It's the height of intellectual delight combined with "How could they dare or wish to misinterpret that"? It's about how Cromwell dared to call himself a "reformer" whilest kicking everyone he disapproved of out of Praliament and filling it with his own men AND having killed a King made his own inadequate son Dick Lord Protector!!!
It's about the American Revolt and the Declaratiopn of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident".....For white men of course and most of those who signed this Act of wonderful freedom were Slave Owners. Black men were declared later to be three fifths of a white man. Women don't matter of course unless they are gun slinging, moose eating, Born Again Christain, ex-beauthy queens.
It's all sex and violence and thought and intellectual pusuits. How can you top that? Erasmus was such a scardy cat whilest Luther may have been un-washed but his table talk was fascinating - food and wine courtesy of his ex-nun wife.....How is it possible NOT to sell this?
Soon the most powerful man in the world will be elected due to whether or not the American people can understand history. Will their Puritan, anti-Black and fear of anything "foreign" allow them to elect someone "different" with an intellect OR will they retreat into "better the devil you know" mentallity? We are on the brink of a recurrance of 1929 and the Wall Street Crash - will A New Deal be forged under Obama? Let's face it, we go into polling booths with bits of paper and blunt pencils, the US uses modern button pressing tecnology which has a tendency to fail especially in the Southern States. How do I know this? History!!!!!
Do we HAVE to sell this product? "I understand somethings to be self-evident...Don't you? -
Message 16
Posted by MinetteMinor (U13482387) on Friday, 3rd October 2008
Dear Nordmann,
What a sad view you have of human nature. I would not like to hold your opinons. For example not accepting apologies freely and truly given. There is impirical evidence that an unburied hatchet is a frightful thing.
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Message 17
Posted by Caro (U1691443) on Saturday, 4th October 2008
When we were in Britain in 2004 Jordan was all over the papers and media then and we watched some awful, but riveting programme. What was it: I"m a Celebrity - get me out of here. I think.
And we had never heard of Jordan. Four years later, you are all still talking about Jordan, and she is still virtually unknown here. Not sure why - Paris Hilton is known (though I personally wouldn't recognise her face in a magazine) and lots of other people who don't seem very important to me or relevant to New Zealand.
It's a little odd who gets international coverage and how doesn't.
Cheers, Caro. -
Message 18
Posted by SusanDoris (U2850104) on Saturday, 4th October 2008
Andrew Host
Being an incurable optimist, I have this morning (thinking while walking in the sunshine) been trying to look at the question with hope!
The vast majority of the public, who are the least interested, or would profess to be totally uninterested (not, may I very politely add, 'disinterested' as you say in: << ...to a disinterested public...>>
in History, would be able to say a lot about events in the past of, for instance, their favourite sporting teams, TV characters, the way modern technology has developed, etc. Time lines and periods might well not be of interest, but there are always plenty of people who do know and on whom we can rely - well, mostly anyway! - to keep us informed.
So I think that I would say, if placed in the position you propose, 'Find me someone who knows no history, and I will provide a cash reward.' Would that work, I wonder?!
Susan -
Message 19
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Saturday, 4th October 2008
Re: Message 18.
Susan,
"would that work, I wonder?"
I, too.
Warm regards and happy to see you once back on the boards,
Paul. -
Message 20
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Thursday, 9th October 2008
Andrew, as this will be the last entry on last week's non quiz entry from you, I venture to suggest that the only way to generate History is to ban it.
Delaring all material, books, films and plays and collections pre year 2000 to be outlawed by next Wednesday may well stir up a reaction.
It would also chivvy up the law no end if presidence pre2000 was unuseable. Other records could only be viewed after a hefty fee and supervised research.
I could marshall an overall plan to that end if you so wish. I also suggest that your bar be used for the resistance and underground movement.
Regards, P. -
Message 21
Posted by Andrew Host (U1683626) on Thursday, 9th October 2008
Hi Priscilla,
A bold move certainly. I'd probably surrender my Eric Hobsbawn to the authorities without too much fuss - but as for my Asterix collection...
Couldn't we just give it a height restriction or something?
Cheers
Andrew -
Message 22
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 9th October 2008
Asterix uses the hystery clause to escape being classed as a common or garden "history book" but publications intended primarily to be humorous and with no real foundation in fact - along with 1066 And All That, the Horrible Histories series, and Churchill's memoirs.
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Message 23
Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Friday, 10th October 2008
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Message 24
Posted by vera1950 (U9920163) on Saturday, 11th October 2008
history is usefull as the world as limped along making a mess and mistakes since time began and surely at some point someone will look back and learn the lessons it portrays-not this government
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Message 25
Posted by DL (U1683040) on Monday, 13th October 2008
An interesting idea Andrew, and a worthy topic! My, how things have changed since I last popped in.
To go back to your topic - firstly, history is incredibly relevant to present day life, although the lessons learned from it are sadly forgotten by many.
History can be viewed in so many ways. For instance, if you look at the last century, the 20th Century can quite easily be summed up by calling it "The Century of Hate". The century is punctuated by massive conflict, upheaval and change, with mankind pushing technology to unheard of heights, driven mainly (yes I know it's a huge generalisation) by the search to find more efficient ways of killing other humans. A prime example would be aircraft - from a fragile mesh of rope, fabric and wood capable of carrying one man a few feet off the ground to the B29, pressurised, fast, mass produced and capable of levelling a city with one bomb, all in the space of 42 years. An incredible achievement, but driven by the need to destroy.
Why is history relevant today? This really is a simple question. If we ignore the lessons of history, we will repeat the mistakes made in the past, and as we rumble into another period of economic chaos (again - 1929 repeating?), will its results be the same as in the 20s?
History has a lot to offer in terms of grabbing attention away from the vacuous "celebrities" of today, and comparisons between previous societies and the present day are everywhere. Similarities between the modern-day USA and the Roman Republic in its later years are so obvious as to be cliche, even down to the obsessions with fashion, scandal and even celebrity chefs.
Why do we need to know our history? Firstly, our history makes us who we are today, and secondly, we must heed the warnings of the past to prevent them being repeated. The fact that our idiot bankers have destroyed the world's financial systems by NOT knowing their past is a huge reminder. The 20th Century alone is littered with mistakes, and these mistakes cost tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of lives. If this is forgotten, we will do it all over again. -
Message 26
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Sunday, 16th January 2011
He tells you that you are in the Department of History. The former Minister, a broken man, his mind sadly unhinged by the strain of promoting History to a disinterested public - has disappeared. MI5 believe he is in Panama working on a 72:1 scale model of the Bismark. His last act was to blow the entire departmental budget on the world's stocks of balsa wood.Μύ
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Andrew - you'll be greatly missed. Thank you for the splendid hosting you provided over the last 5 years. Always even-handed, fair and also with great humour (as above).
thanks again and all the best!
Vizzer -
Message 27
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Sunday, 16th January 2011
As Vizzer says:
Andrew - you'll be greatly missed. Μύ
You gave us enough (freedom of speech) rope to hang ourselves; many times.
Thanks mate, you had a fondness for serious debate over intervention.
Best regards,
U32 -
Message 28
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Monday, 17th January 2011
unhinged by the strain of promoting History to a disinterested publicΜύ
This has been such an interesting thread, but I am going to be a real pedant and point out the you mean "an INDIFFERENT public"
"Disinterested" means 'impartial, even-handed' -
Message 29
Posted by OUNUPA (U2078829) on Monday, 17th January 2011
A Historian is the one who knows how things happen and even how to make 'em happen. They really know there those 'landmines' are situated.
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