California lawmakers pass bill to teach gay history

[Camerus]

My experience taking Canadian history in Ontario schools in the nineties, and briefly, the aughties, was more or less exactly the way Malthus described it. The themes and types of stories were all mostly the same, with the same messages wedged into each unit, regardless of its overall importance in that particular narrative.  To take just one particularly ridiculous example, in our grade 9 Canadian history unit on WW2 (which was basically an into to WW2), we devoted roughly 50% of the time to studying Japanese internment camps.  To the extent there was any unifying narrative at all to Canadian history, I would say it was that there once existed a dark ages of racism which gradually became to be slowly redeemed beginning in the early 60s with the baby boomers' counter-cultural movement and an increasing embrace of multiculturalism.

All this of course made for a snooze fest, so in high school I stopped taking Canadian history courses as early as I could, and took all the available other history courses, which fortunately my school had a good selection of.*  These other history courses had some of these same biases as well, but they were much less ham-fisted and ubiquitous.  For years after, even though I majored in history at university, and constantly read history in my spare time, the thought of ever studying Canadian history again seemed exceptionally dull.

*Ancient civlilizations, American history, modern western history since 1500, 20th century world history, and another course focusing specifically on Greece & Rome.

[Oexmelin]

Well for one thing it's a science that is building a body of understanding that is based on a scientific method, a body which therefore tends to grow and only experience minor rewriting. Physics is an example of a mature science.

History today is roughly where physics was in the Middle Ages. You have a bunch of people who have opinions, but you have no working scientific procedure in place for establishing which opinions belong in the body of understanding and which do not.

You think it is at all a possibility for history to even function this way?

[garbon]

I think you vastly over-estimate the historical knowledge of most americans.  And I consider myself a history buff and I've never heard of the Tariff of Abominations.

I'm guessing you didn't spend multiple years studying US history in school, either. The tariff was a very big deal at the time--and was a major factor in the election of Jackson and the major issue behind the eventual secession crisis of the early 1830s. I would be disappointed if college bound students were unaware of the tariff. It was not only a pivotal economic event but also a critical moment in the increasing sectionalism of American politics.

Just looked it up and that rings no bells.

Although I do remember the Nullification Crisis, so I must have heard about it at some point.

[The Brain]

Well for one thing it's a science that is building a body of understanding that is based on a scientific method, a body which therefore tends to grow and only experience minor rewriting. Physics is an example of a mature science.

History today is roughly where physics was in the Middle Ages. You have a bunch of people who have opinions, but you have no working scientific procedure in place for establishing which opinions belong in the body of understanding and which do not.

You think it is at all a possibility for history to even function this way?

Yes I do, absolutely. But I think it's unlikely that it will happen this century.

[Agelastus]

Well for one thing it's a science that is building a body of understanding that is based on a scientific method, a body which therefore tends to grow and only experience minor rewriting. Physics is an example of a mature science.

History today is roughly where physics was in the Middle Ages. You have a bunch of people who have opinions, but you have no working scientific procedure in place for establishing which opinions belong in the body of understanding and which do not.

You think it is at all a possibility for history to even function this way?

Yes I do, absolutely. But I think it's unlikely that it will happen this century.

I'm puzzled...are you deliberately trolling us or not?

[The Brain]

Well for one thing it's a science that is building a body of understanding that is based on a scientific method, a body which therefore tends to grow and only experience minor rewriting. Physics is an example of a mature science.

History today is roughly where physics was in the Middle Ages. You have a bunch of people who have opinions, but you have no working scientific procedure in place for establishing which opinions belong in the body of understanding and which do not.

You think it is at all a possibility for history to even function this way?

Yes I do, absolutely. But I think it's unlikely that it will happen this century.

I'm puzzled...are you deliberately trolling us or not?

FWIW I am not trolling.

[Agelastus]

Well for one thing it's a science that is building a body of understanding that is based on a scientific method, a body which therefore tends to grow and only experience minor rewriting. Physics is an example of a mature science.

History today is roughly where physics was in the Middle Ages. You have a bunch of people who have opinions, but you have no working scientific procedure in place for establishing which opinions belong in the body of understanding and which do not.

You think it is at all a possibility for history to even function this way?

Yes I do, absolutely. But I think it's unlikely that it will happen this century.

I'm puzzled...are you deliberately trolling us or not?

FWIW I am not trolling.

I was unaware that historians had developed, or had the possibility to develop, time travel or other such reset buttons; sciences, after all, do tend to be defined by the capacity to perform repeatable experiments in controlled conditions.

How do you envision a "working scientific procedure in place for establishing which opinions belong in the body of understanding and which do not" working?

[The Brain]

I was unaware that historians had developed, or had the possibility to develop, time travel or other such reset buttons; sciences, after all, do tend to be defined by the capacity to perform repeatable experiments in controlled conditions.

They haven't, AFAIK. I am using "science" here in a broad sense that also includes stuff like paleontology and astrophysics.

How do you envision a "working scientific procedure in place for establishing which opinions belong in the body of understanding and which do not" working?

Step 1 will have to be the emergence of a collective will among historians to advance our historical understanding in a scientific way. This didn't happen in physics until fairly recently, and I don't think it was inevitable. For a number of reasons I think it is less likely to happen in history.

[Malthus]

My experience taking Canadian history in Ontario schools in the nineties, and briefly, the aughties, was more or less exactly the way Malthus described it. The themes and types of stories were all mostly the same, with the same messages wedged into each unit, regardless of its overall importance in that particular narrative.  To take just one particularly ridiculous example, in our grade 9 Canadian history unit on WW2 (which was basically an into to WW2), we devoted roughly 50% of the time to studying Japanese internment camps.  To the extent there was any unifying narrative at all to Canadian history, I would say it was that there once existed a dark ages of racism which gradually became to be slowly redeemed beginning in the early 60s with the baby boomers' counter-cultural movement and an increasing embrace of multiculturalism.

All this of course made for a snooze fest, so in high school I stopped taking Canadian history courses as early as I could, and took all the available other history courses, which fortunately my school had a good selection of.*  These other history courses had some of these same biases as well, but they were much less ham-fisted and ubiquitous.  For years after, even though I majored in history at university, and constantly read history in my spare time, the thought of ever studying Canadian history again seemed exceptionally dull.

*Ancient civlilizations, American history, modern western history since 1500, 20th century world history, and another course focusing specifically on Greece & Rome.

Perhaps if we were not limited by our biases, we would have found it all kinds of interesting. 

It took me a long time to overcome the dislike of Canadian history implanted by our ham-fisted educational system and to realize that, in point of fact, Canadian history has all sorts of interest. None of which was developed in school, of course.

Some of the local stuff overlooked has a distinctly ironic tinge to it - for example, near my own family's cottage is one of the communities that marked the end of the Underground Railway. You would think that such a thing (highlighting the heroic efforts of Blacks to free themselves from slavery) would have been perfect grist for the school history mill, but no - never mentioned. I can only assume it is because it feeds into a narrative (Ontario as haven) which ran counter to the ideology of those presenting the curriculum - our past as a nightmare of racism and repression, from which the '60s ideologues are in the process of saving us.

Indeed, the fate of the runaway slave communities would have been an excellent way of exploring many themes - the fact that they were both accepted and discriminated against; their struggles with an uncaring government; some, the original united empire loyalists, volunteering to fight in the war of 1812. None of this was done. 

[Oexmelin]

Perhaps if we were not limited by our biases, we would have found it all kinds of interesting. 

This is not what I wrote at all. But you probably know that.

[alfred russel]

I think you vastly over-estimate the historical knowledge of most americans.  And I consider myself a history buff and I've never heard of the Tariff of Abominations.

I'm guessing you didn't spend multiple years studying US history in school, either. The tariff was a very big deal at the time--and was a major factor in the election of Jackson and the major issue behind the eventual secession crisis of the early 1830s. I would be disappointed if college bound students were unaware of the tariff. It was not only a pivotal economic event but also a critical moment in the increasing sectionalism of American politics.

Just looked it up and that rings no bells.

Although I do remember the Nullification Crisis, so I must have heard about it at some point.

Forgetting is one thing, not being taught is another. Perhaps grumbler could shed light on the curriculum regarding the tariff.

[Agelastus]

They haven't, AFAIK. I am using "science" here in a broad sense that also includes stuff like paleontology and astrophysics.

Astrophysics doesn't rely on repeatable and checkable observations?

Paleontologists don't have continual access to the actual physical specimens they are basing their theories on?

Explain where history can match this? Even period writings are often biased, incomplete and innaccurate (consider battle casualty reports if you doubt the last one.)

You are either trolling or insane.

[The Brain]

They haven't, AFAIK. I am using "science" here in a broad sense that also includes stuff like paleontology and astrophysics.

Astrophysics doesn't rely on repeatable and checkable observations?

Paleontologists don't have continual access to the actual physical specimens they are basing their theories on?

Explain where history can match this? Even period writings are often biased, incomplete and innaccurate (consider battle casualty reports if you doubt the last one.)

You are either trolling or insane.

I don't follow. Are you saying that you can't get meaningful understanding from history?

[MadImmortalMan]

Forgetting is one thing, not being taught is another. Perhaps grumbler could shed light on the curriculum regarding the tariff.

Maybe you went to one of those New School places that would never criticize any tax in any form? 

[Agelastus]

They haven't, AFAIK. I am using "science" here in a broad sense that also includes stuff like paleontology and astrophysics.

Astrophysics doesn't rely on repeatable and checkable observations?

Paleontologists don't have continual access to the actual physical specimens they are basing their theories on?

Explain where history can match this? Even period writings are often biased, incomplete and innaccurate (consider battle casualty reports if you doubt the last one.)

You are either trolling or insane.

I don't follow. Are you saying that you can't get meaningful understanding from history?

I am saying that history can never be reduced to the simple "if A, then B" that an absolutely rigorous science demands because one is reliant on what evidence is available; one cannot recheck data in the way ordinary sciences can by simply performing an experiment or measurement again. Take paleontology, for example; new fossils are always being found. It is vanishingly rare in history for a new period document to be found for anything past the last couple of centuries, yet we have six thousand years of recorded history.

Let's have an example; the Bayeux tapestry has a line saying that "King Harold is killed". yet historians cannot agree whether the figure with an arrow in his eye or the figure being cut down by an axe is Harold. They can't even agree if the tapestry was altered or not when it was restored. Where is the new evidence going to come from to resolve this issue "scientifically"?