Why Do We Bother to Study History? (Part One)

(Editor's note: This is the first segment in a three part series.) 


More than a few people have told me they hated history, until they came to relate its relevance to events in their own lives.  Why is the subject of history emphasized as extensively as it is in our K-12 secondary schools?  Why is it maintained as a core discipline in many of the nation’s public universities and most, if not all, of the nation’s elite liberal arts institutions of higher learning?

Why, on the other hand, is history taught so poorly, with an excruciating emphasis on the memorization of reams of facts and figures, absent any particular context or personal relevance?  More simply stated, why do we bother to study history?  What exactly is the point?

Let’s begin with human nature.  I am too young to remember Harry Truman, but the discussion should begin here.  My first connection to the name was as a young boy.  My dad used to refer to my maternal grandfather simply as “Harry S,” because, I was told, grandpa looked like Harry S. Truman.  It seemed that both men were rather short, appeared physically frail, sported closely cropped, gray haircuts, and also wore funny looking top hats.  No matter that my grandfather was of Italian descent, and had come to this country along with millions of other immigrants similarly situated in the early part of the 20^th century.

When my grandfather received this greeting, he just smiled.  For all I knew, my grandfather may have had no idea of who Harry S. Truman was.  Fine, I thought, but just exactly who was Harry S?  My young curiosity was piqued.

My next encounter with Harry Truman was when Chicago, the popular band, recorded a song on one of its albums which was simply called “Harry Truman.”  The song began, “America needs you, Harry Truman / Harry could you please come home.”  Okay, so here was another clue about this guy.

Although I did not understand its meaning then, perhaps it was just a coincidence that the Watergate scandal was about to break, forcing then-President Richard Nixon to resign the presidency in shame.  This was the same Nixon who grew up in the shadow of the infamous Joseph McCarthy, US Senator, R-WI, one of the key proponents of the communist “Red Scare.”  This was the same Nixon who, as Vice President to then-President Dwight Eisenhower, had attempted to label Harry Truman as soft on communism.  As it turned out, it was a futile effort simply to advance Nixon’s own personal cause.

Some may be surprised to learn that Harry Truman was the last American President who did not attend college.  Nor did my grandfather, for that matter.  But, Truman did have some good teachers along the way, perhaps the finest of whom was his mother.  Mattie Truman’s philosophy had been simple.  "You knew right from wrong, you always tried to do right, and you did your best.  That’s all there was to it."

One of Truman’s many biographers described the little farming town of Independence, Missouri, where Truman had grown up, as a town where people live a long time and have long memories.  Moreover, the people there all seemed to have something in common with Truman.  They had character.  Can we say that about the community in which we live?

(The second segment highlights Harry Truman’s self-education and how he came to concentrate on the workings, the continuity and the consistency of human nature.)

-Michael D'Angelo

He Gave Expectations

Should lawmakers be permitted to confer merely expectations? ...

The news brings a familiar story of another corporate bankruptcy, this time of Hostess Brands, the maker of the iconic Twinkies, Sno Balls and Wonder Bread.  The company is hoping to cut costs, working to reach a voluntary agreement with its unions to modify collective bargaining agreements.

In a simplistic view, many ordinary citizens say “It’s all the union’s fault.”  Period.  End of conversation.  The feelings of these ordinary citizens seem to develop on the basis of quick sound bites and talking points picked up on morning television.

How many ordinary citizens understand just how bad things were for industrial workers in America in the days before unions?  Do we know why unions are even necessary, or all the good they have done, and do?  While this is not the time to consider the pros and cons of unions, enough to safely say there are mostly pros.

This ordinary citizen is reminded of a story about the early life of Benjamin Franklin.  Pennsylvania’s governor had promised to lend young Ben money to open his own printing shop.  He was 18 at the time.  The governor further suggested that young Ben travel to London to buy printing materials and arrange for supplies on letters of credit also promised by the governor.

On the strength of these promises, Franklin set off for London, a sea voyage which would take a full 50 days.  But arriving in London, Franklin quickly learned that he had been duped by the governor, who had no credit to give, and summed up the situation thus:

But what shall we think of a Governor’s playing such pitiful Tricks, and imposing so grossly on a poor ignorant Boy!  It was a Habit he had acquired.  He wish’d to please every body; and having little to give, he gave expectations.

Here was a young man who, even at such a tender age, had an extraordinary awareness of the tendencies of human nature.  He would require every morsel to survive in a foreign land.  But not only did Franklin survive, he flourished.  He quickly found work in his field as a printer, working in London for two years.  He knew that it would improve him such that, upon returning to America, he would be able to set up to greater advantage.

His instinct had been correct, and his career subsequently took off.  By age 24, he was named the official printer for Pennsylvania.  And at age 26 came the first publication of his popular Poor Richard’s Almanac, which he considered “a proper Vehicle for conveying Instruction among the common People, who bought scarce any other book.”

Unions obtain their benefits from corporate boardrooms.  After upper management takes a healthy cut up front, it then cares little for the long term.  Give the unions whatever they want.  There’ll never be money to pay down the road anyway.  It is illusory.  On closer inspection, hasn’t management conveyed just expectations?  The same with legislatures and the perks given to so called public sector unions.  Sadly, nothing more than expectations given.

Perhaps unions are but a symptom of the larger problem.  Both corporate boards and legislatures seek increasingly to abdicate responsibility for their own inept conduct.  They look elsewhere other than upon themselves, to unions in this instance, for a ready scapegoat.  It is another familiar lesson of human nature.

Perhaps corporate boards need public governance and legislatures insulation from special interests which tend to corrupt them at plain cost to ordinary citizens.  Should it be unlawful that neither be permitted to give merely expectations?

-Michael D’Angelo