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Is history an art or a science?

Posted by penandspindle • 12/21/07 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Tags: history, penandspindle

Many people believe that science is objective and history subjective. What do you think?

User Comments

12/21/07

jacksparrow

History is one of the worst things which happened to us... history should be always studied at an advanced age as a specialty and with proper guidance. History shapes our mind and fills it with lots of unwanted things. If you put two kids one jew and another arab in a same school and never mention history they will grow up like two beautiful flowers - one appreciating the other - once you teach history - they will behave like two dogs...

History like religion is the cause off much misery than anything which also divides people and makes one kill another !

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1. 12/21/07
  
  DOUGGOFFdotCOM
  
  Couldn't have been said better!
2. 12/21/07
  
  ghostytwofish
  
  History is truth. Anything else is propaganda.
  
  So, these children should be taught thier history. Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
  
  There is quite enough ignorance in the world without ignorance of history adding fuel to it. People deserve to be taught what has happened in the past, so that they can learn from it.
3. 12/21/07
  
  ghostytwofish
  
  Oh, and in answer to your question, it's a science. Duh.
4. 12/22/07
  
  zawadi
  
  They should be taught they came from the same Father,Abraham... Maybe they will see each other like one family?
5. 12/22/07
  
  medilogy
  
  How deeply have you studied history? I totally disagree with you. You teach someone of the way humans fought over things such as religion and they may not repeat it, if they never know then it shall happen again.
  
  I don't feel like going deeply into this topic but that is just one very very small example.
12/21/07

jacksparrow

Thnaks :0 at least someone is in sync with me

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12/21/07

kevingoodman

Yes but with out history there is nothing.

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12/21/07

kevingoodman

History is an observation - if it is an art it is a liberal art and that is not the same as art. It is certainly not a science in it's own but is important to certain sciences.

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12/22/07

jacksparrow

Hi ghostytwofish ...
I value your opinion - i have seen some of your comments also. I only say that history should be studied under proper guidance and at a later age - a child is like a flower - waiting to bloom - how can we expect it to flourish in the shadow of hate and mis-trust...

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1. 12/22/07
  
  ghostytwofish
  
  If all you see in history is hate and mistrust, you're not a very good student of history.
12/22/07

djunaedird

For me that is both other. Sorry if my English no good. I can speak English little little.

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12/22/07

brigid

History is written by the winners. It involves facts, but it also involves interpretations of facts. Not to mention conjecture and occasionally nutty assumptions.

It's a science, but it's one of the soft sciences.

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1. 12/22/07
  
  IanThal
  
  History is written by historians-- though the victors may decide which history texts get used in the school curriculum.
2. 12/22/07
  
  brigid
  
  The people in charge can also dictate what parts the historians write. I think it's still official policy in Japan to leave out some of the more unsavory things the Japanese did during WWII.
3. 12/22/07
  
  IanThal
  
  Last I checked, the Japanese militarists lost WWII, but they still get to select text books. So history isn't always written by the victors.
  
  I find the Japanese example interesting because it, like the example of the Turkish government's policy on the Armenian Genocide, an example of genocide denial being made into an official policy.
12/22/07

Wawaron

La science cherche. L'histoire, c'est la relation du passé. Et par conséquent, elle est sujette à l'interprétation. L'histoire véritable n'existe pas plus que la vérité exacte n'existe. L'histoire et la vérité sont choses subjectives.

Science seeks. The history is the relation of the past. And therefore it is subject to interpretation. The history is no longer true that the truth is accurate. The history and truth are subjective things.

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12/22/07

xtremer

it's both....The science of learning the past is called history......the art of expressing the past is called history.....

wats-ur-opinion.blogspot.com

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12/22/07

IanThal

Actually, history leads to understanding.

It is pseudo-history, propagandistic accounts of the past written to sync up with some ideology, that leads to strife.

Real history teaches that the past is complex and is often terribly inconvenient to those of us in the present.

[reply]
1. 12/22/07
  
  ghostytwofish
  
  Agreed!
12/26/07

JournalWriter

To my old, demented, alcoholic, diabetic, uncle history is an art - it changes with whatever mood he's in that hour. It's fun to listen to him sometimes because the characters in his stories change even when the story line stays the same.

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12/26/07

thesparrow

Thats it - history is a subject too important to be distributed to kids in the form of text-books. Its a research subject for the mature mind which can filter fact from emotions

Just imagine maybe in another 100,000 years or so we will also be in the same primitive group by which we define stone age now ! and maybe when people excavate past ruins - they will term americans as bush-men and afghan people as cave men fighting with primitive nuclear toys - who knows

Please read this interesting post :
www.writtenvoice.com/how-soon-we-will-fade-into-history/

Thanks.

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12/26/07

kdawg68

What one must do when reading history is not assume that the latest book you have read, article viewed, or movie seen is the "definitive source" of information. You must always keep your critical thinking cap on, as just when you think you know something, the opposite turns out to be true.

The real struggle is against revisionist history, as there are folks that want to alter and skew the way things happened in the past to fit their own agendas in the present.

I got into an exchange with filmmaker Ken Burns about this at Gettysburg during the unveiling of the monument to the 1st Delaware regiment of volunteers. He christened them as "freedom fighters" - which bothered me considering Delaware was a slave state during the Civil War and the men in the 1st Delaware were largely from slave holding families in slave holding counties.

WHy not recognize them for what truly made them great rather than try to wash away whatever sins they might have. Applying science to history, we must always be after the truth and not what we wish the truth were. Celebrate that they were patriots who even though they disagreed on one of the central issues of the war, remained in defense of the Federal govt and risked their lives saving it. You could go a step farther and talk about the high percentage of them that were 1st generation imigrants, essentially not even from this land yet willing to defend it to the death.

But calling them "freedom fighters?" Oliver O. Howard they most certainly were not.

[reply]
1. 12/27/07
  
  thesparrow
  
  Hi kdawg68,
  Your are so right in your first lines ... but for a child to keep the thinking cap on is difficult as it is the formatting years for the mind - so its best to keep history as a research subject for the mature students.
12/26/07

sarae67

The sad thing about history is that few people really know a lot of it. The other sad thing about history is that we still haven't learned anything from our screw ups.

Sara
www.saraeast.com

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