Mid-chapter nine in Postman's, Amusing Ourselves to Death he points out how the discourse of today's media is working against the learning of world history, books, and typographic knowledge all together. History requires consistency and context, something our modern discourse heavily lacks. As well as the pure disinterest of history, due to the change of discourse, that is expanding and has been pushing typography to the periphery of society since the turn of the nineteenth century. "The historian Carl Schorske has, in my opinion, circled closer to the truth by noting that the modern mind has grown indifferent to history because history has become useless to it...a sense of irrelevance that leads to the diminution of history" (Postman 137).
Will this sad truth have more dramatic results in the future? Whole generations disinterested in learning about the past that shaped their world into what it is in their life time? Or can we effectively educate our society about the patterns, mistakes, and events of the past? So we can learn from the generations before us, and try to grasp a deeper context from it. By looking at our past, it will give us better guidance to what obstacles lay ahead in the future. It seems that we are losing history to the ever changing discourse of television and social media.
Even now, I hear many students saying that they don't understand why we have to learn history and they show an overall disinterest for history. I personally have always enjoyed history and also understand the benefits it has regarding decisions being made today. It is very dangerous for so many people to not find importance in history when it is necessary so that we do not repeat mistakes of the past. History has shaped our society as we see it today and if we disregard it, we are bound to repeat the same mistakes our ancestors did. I agree that looking at our past does help give us guidance with the issues we face today. Perhaps technology is to blame because it makes history look "outdated" and "irrelevant" but technology also helps you read deeper into history.
ReplyDelete