Justify history beyond Santayana

[MarxSchmarx]

I am thinking of writing an essay on the role that the study of history plays in the left.

So you've heard the "those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it" mantra a gazillion times.

What do you see, apart from this cliche, as the merits of considerable historical study, particularly for leftists? and why.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Historical study is immensely important for any serious revolutionary, honestly. No matter what you feel about the present, you cannot fully understand those feelings until you know what caused us to get here.

[A Marxist Historian]

I am thinking of writing an essay on the role that the study of history plays in the left.

So you've heard the "those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it" mantra a gazillion times.

What do you see, apart from this cliche, as the merits of considerable historical study, particularly for leftists? and why.

It's a cliche 'cuz it's true. There are plenty other reasons, but all by itself it is more than enough reason to study history.

If you don't understand history you can't understand the present, and you most certainly shouldn't be messing around with trying to affect the future.

And if you don't want to affect the future, why be a leftist in the first place?

-M.H.-

[Franz Fanonipants]

Marxism rests on historical analysis of class structure and struggle. Received anecdotes about history ate worthless without real primary sources inquiry and application of historical methodology.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Also I seriously doubt A Marxist Historian is really a historian if he's silly enough to believe history repeats itself

[black magick hustla]

Also I seriously doubt A Marxist Historian is really a historian if he's silly enough to believe history repeats itself

theres a lot of white marxist dudes in history so ia ssume a lot of them do imho

[Franz Fanonipants]

physicist has something boring to say about humanities

[black magick hustla]

physicist has something boring to say about humanities

mexican history is dominated by british white dudes with mexican wives

[black magick hustla]

i mix with your kind sometimes so they let me in the juicy stuff

[Franz Fanonipants]

If it isn't American history its intellectual pretense

E: haha yeah Canadian historians

[black magick hustla]

history isnt real humanities. it has a lot of dude bros as opposed to the wimpy kids that study the other bullshit

[Franz Fanonipants]

It has a better methodology than say American Studies or whatever but we sure ain't a solid science

I Am tryin to learn prosopography

[ckaihatsu]

I am thinking of writing an essay on the role that the study of history plays in the left.

So you've heard the "those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it" mantra a gazillion times.

What do you see, apart from this cliche, as the merits of considerable historical study, particularly for leftists? and why.


The cliche, while retaining a *degree* of validity, is also partially misleading as well, since it's vague as to *what kind* of history is worth one's attentions. This plays right into politics, obviously.





Marxism rests on historical analysis of class structure and struggle. Received anecdotes about history ate worthless without real primary sources inquiry and application of historical methodology.


'Class structure and struggle' and 'historical methodology' are *key* here, since one could easily give in to a Homer-Simpson-like mentality of pure empiricism and think the world is "just a bunch of stuff that happens".


philosophical abstractions

http://postimage.org/image/i7hg698j1/


[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

http://postimage.org/image/34mjeutk4/


[22] History, Macro Micro

http://postimage.org/image/35q8b6o84/


universal context

http://postimage.org/image/fn8hqaxrh/

[A Marxist Historian]

Also I seriously doubt A Marxist Historian is really a historian if he's silly enough to believe history repeats itself

You really don't get what Santayana was saying, do you?

No, in the sense you mean, history doesn't "repeat itself." In the sense Santayana meant, that's another story.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Also I seriously doubt A Marxist Historian is really a historian if he's silly enough to believe history repeats itself

Ah, I suppose I should unpack my previous comment, not for the benefit of Fanonipants, who is I get the impression incapable of learning from the past or anything else either, but for others reading this.

What Santayana meant is what he said. That those who don't learn from the past, through serious historical analysis not cheap anecdotes, are doomed to repeat the errors committed by others in the past.

If that's not the supreme mantra for all leftists, I don't know what could be.

As somebody else once said, the past isn't even the past.

And then there's that fine line from Ecclesiastes, that there is nothing new under the sun.

-M.H.-

[Franz Fanonipants]

Ah, I suppose I should unpack my previous comment, not for the benefit of Fanonipants, who is I get the impression incapable of learning from the past or anything else either, but for others reading

Get the fuck out

Anyways fuck Santayana

[Grenzer]

It has a better methodology than say American Studies or whatever but we sure ain't a solid science

lol so many people say that with Marxism, history is a SCIENCE!

We can try to make history more scientific, but it sure as fuck isn't an actual science. People who say that it is just look like an ass.

[ckaihatsu]

lol so many people say that with Marxism, history is a SCIENCE!

We can try to make history more scientific, but it sure as fuck isn't an actual science. People who say that it is just look like an ass.


The history of all hitherto existing society(2) is the history of class struggles.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm

[Rusty Shackleford]

/charts/
ok i have to be completely honest here, i dont ever really understand your graphs. after all these years there's been times when they've made sense and then times when, most of the time, they seem to explain concepts rather than to make points.

im not trying to be a dick or anything, and please, take it as ambiguous criticism (since i cant really classify this as constructive or negative).

[pluckedflowers]

We can try to make history more scientific, but it sure as fuck isn't an actual science. People who say that it is just look like an ass.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by science. I suppose if by science you mean what are sometimes called the "hard sciences," then, yeah, it's not a science. But that doesn't really tell us a whole lot. I don't think any historian would argue that history is just like physics. So if by declaring that history isn't a science you're merely saying it isn't just like physics, you're pretty much tilting against windmills. The real question is why we should take sciences like physics or biology as the real baseline for what we consider to be science. I certainly don't regard the pursuit of knowledge of human society, whether considered historically or contemporaneously, to be less important than the pursuit of knowledge of the natural world.

In any case, for the OP, I would say studying history is important for the left since the only way to understand how human society changes is to see how human society has changed in the past. Indeed, it is only through history that we even know that capitalism is not some natural fact of human existence, but a specific set of social relations that developed over the past 400-500 years.

If you're interested, you might take a look at Richard Evans' "In Defense of History."

[ckaihatsu]

ok i have to be completely honest here, i dont ever really understand your graphs. after all these years there's been times when they've made sense and then times when, most of the time, they seem to explain concepts rather than to make points.

im not trying to be a dick or anything, and please, take it as ambiguous criticism (since i cant really classify this as constructive or negative).


No prob -- what I'm getting is that you're not *criticizing* the diagrams as much as you're describing a *subjective experience* of them, in general.

I include them in an f.y.i. capacity, and, obviously, I can't use them in a *pointed* way, as with an argument. Feel free to PM me if there's something in particular you want to say.

[ckaihatsu]

I suppose it depends on what you mean by science. I suppose if by science you mean what are sometimes called the "hard sciences," then, yeah, it's not a science. But that doesn't really tell us a whole lot. I don't think any historian would argue that history is just like physics.


Yet all human activity takes place within physical space and may uncontroversially be defined as composed of discrete *events*. I'll argue that various numerous trans-event *factors* contribute to and comprise all meaning for what we call 'history'. If we can't determine hard-scientific conclusions for a given historical question it's not because there is none.

[Rusty Shackleford]

No prob -- what I'm getting is that you're not *criticizing* the diagrams as much as you're describing a *subjective experience* of them, in general.

I include them in an f.y.i. capacity, and, obviously, I can't use them in a *pointed* way, as with an argument. Feel free to PM me if there's something in particular you want to say.
oh ok. i was figuring it was geared more towards that. thank you for taking it well!

[ckaihatsu]

oh ok. i was figuring it was geared more towards that. thank you for taking it well!


No prob -- nothing wrong with talking. Glad to get the feedback.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Given that we are materialists, and therefore do not put our hopes in some moralistic person coming along to rule us to eternal utopia, we must surely have an acutely exacting understanding of history in order to understand where society is heading, and the ways in which society moves, in the economic and political spheres.

If you don't understand history, then your worldview will be based simply upon your personal view of the world, no?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Also, I fucking love History <3

[Franz Fanonipants]

i just got paid - to do history

(REAL MATERIAL REASONING FOR HISTORY)

[Grenzer]

I suppose it depends on what you mean by science. I suppose if by science you mean what are sometimes called the "hard sciences," then, yeah, it's not a science. But that doesn't really tell us a whole lot. I don't think any historian would argue that history is just like physics. So if by declaring that history isn't a science you're merely saying it isn't just like physics, you're pretty much tilting against windmills. The real question is why we should take sciences like physics or biology as the real baseline for what we consider to be science. I certainly don't regard the pursuit of knowledge of human society, whether considered historically or contemporaneously, to be less important than the pursuit of knowledge of the natural world.


Oh, don't get me wrong, I think history is very important or I wouldn't have chosen that as my career path.

History isn't a science unfortunately, that's just the way it is. There is very much that is interpretive about it. A big problem with bourgeois history these days is that they encourage a kind of vulgar materialist approach. However, as others have mentioned a good understanding of history can be critical as revolutionaries.

[ckaihatsu]

History isn't a science unfortunately, that's just the way it is. There is very much that is interpretive about it.


I don't see what's "un-scientific" about Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How.

Also, any part that's "interpretive" is simply due to differing *material interests* in that interpretation.


History, Macro-Micro -- Political (Cognitive) Dissonance

http://postimage.org/image/35rsjgh0k/