/lit/ - Literature

History, and by extension, the humanities, are no longer being taught.

By this I mean that History, true history, the study of the truth, historical processes, how and why people did the things they did, etc. is no longer taught. Instead it’s a gigantic mess of contemporary ideology and a near complete lack of understanding of what history actually is on the part of the students learning it. The teacher’s don’t know how to teach it, the students don’t know that there’s more than what they’re currently being taught, and universities at large don’t care. The foundations are simply not there.

The big and obvious issue is that there’s a demand for everything to turn a profit these days, and historical inquiry for historical inquiry’s sake does not produce anything of immediate monetary value. This then means that there’s no real reason to bother having a rigorous historical course because it’s a waste of time and effort. So everything turns into the lecturer’s topic of interest, and you are being taught what they know without understanding the wider point of studying history or why it’s important.

Now, obviously that these subjects are haphazard does not mean that they should not be taught; someone interested in those subjects should be able to study them, if they are interested. But the problem is that that’s all history is nowadays. An examination of areas of interest with little critical thought given to anything else. There’s little more thought put into it other than “I think it’s cool” or “I want to help fight historical oppression of TPLACs and bring about a more inclusive and diverse society”.

>>20970972
We had people claiming that liberalism would be ever triumphant pre-WWI and WWII, we had them claim it during the Enlightenment, we probably had them claim it before that too. History will not and cannot end until humanity itself is wiped out.