UUUUUUUUUGHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh god. I have to write an essay for my Concordia application on the question of why I like history. Why do I like history? Because you don't change horses in midstream, that's why. And I like old photographs and history is fucking cool. What else do I say?
"Man does not so much have a history; he IS his history" -- Ortega y Gasset. This is technically and fundamentally true whether we like it or not, as Alan Schom points out so elegantly : "We may sometimes try to forget history, but it does not forget us."
ReplyDeleteWithout an understanding of its history on at least some level, virtually nothing in the human world is remotely intelligible or explicable. And humans do have a powerful drive to strive towards understanding.
Having a history is precisely what separates man from beast (shoes help too).
Case closed.