Why Study History? Part II

Cognosce Teipsum --- Know Thyself

By Christopher Zehnder

General Editor, Catholic Textbook Project

Imagine waking one morning to discover that, except for the previous five years, you had forgotten all your past. You can recall your name; you know the identities of your spouse and children. You can identify your place of employment and possess the knowledge of your trade or profession. But you have forgotten who your parents are, where you came from, the experiences of your childhood and youth, how you met your spouse, and even how you learned your profession.

Historia, by Nikolaos Gysis

            Anyone finding himself in such a position would suffer from more than a mere amnesia of events; he would, to a great extent, have forgotten his very self. Our self understanding draws not only from a consciousness of who and what we are in the immediate here and now; it depends on our memory of our past. We know the world around us through our experience of it, and we know ourselves through our experience of ourselves, from the earliest events we can remember to the present. Why do we act the way we do? Why are our thoughts so formed? What are the sources of our peculiar affections? It is on memory that we must draw to answer such questions. Memory, too, helps us in regulating our personal behavior. To whom should we show honor, and why? What situations should we avoid, and which ought we to exploit for our betterment? Memory is indeed the repository of the knowledge of our very selves. It is the indispensable instrument for the ought regulation of one's life.

            History is analogous to personal memory; it stands to a people or culture as personal memory stands to the individual. A people with a knowledge of its own history is a people that knows itself. It has often been said that “those who do no know history are doomed to repeat it.” A true enough statement, but it fails to plumb the depths. It is rather, those who know no history are doomed to be ignorant of themselves.

            Nations, like individuals, possess a tendency to self-deception. We think our people invariably just, generous, noble-hearted, gentle, kind, and brave. It is history that disabuses us of such hubris. Through history, a people sees not only when it has acted nobly, but when it has behaved disgracefully. It recognizes, not only its ideals, but how it has measured up to those ideals. History thus serves as a kind of examination of conscience and indispensable aid to corporate amendment and reform.

            History, too, helps individuals understand themselves. Each of us is born into a culture, and every culture is the fruit of an historical process. It is the “personality” of a people, long-developed over centuries. In turn, culture influences and molds the personalities of those who belong to it. Culture is second nature. One's habits, even the way each of us thinks about and considers the world around him, are born of culture. To be ignorant of history, then, is not only to fail in one's understanding of his culture and people; it is to fail in the very understanding of himself.
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