Why do most people have such a childish understanding of history?
Thinking studying history is about picking sides, obvious biases when it comes to discussing some historical events (in most cases presentism), not comprehending the context of individual events and thinking they apply to everything else, not caring about historical people or understanding the effect their philosophy had on the modern world. Thinking that because X thing happened once and Y thing now kind of resembles it, it must be the exact same thing.
What are some historically ignorant things you hear people say from time to time?
>>579244
The most common one is how we advanced from the primitive days to the modern world in a timespan of roughly 200/300 years.Like we are a new species, the modern man.
>>579244
History is progressive. Dialecticfags fuck off pls
I find people's knowledge of medieval history the worst. Renaissance and Enlightenment memes about that period still persist in documentaries and general understanding.
>>579244
>studying history is about picking sides
I don't know about studying, but writing it sure do so.
> not caring about historical people or understanding the effect their philosophy had on the modern world.
you have the childish understanding son
>>579244
>why is simplifying things the brain's first attempt to comprenhend something
>why does bias exist
>why does uncertainty exist
>why does prejudice exists
>why does lack of perspective exist
>why do people, sometimes moved by fear, extrapolate on the little information they have
>why is it difficult to realise one's own shortcomings
because it's expensive
All these things are difficult to overcome, some are result of the evolutionary impulse to act on the little information we have, and some are an invariant of any type of information processing and difficult to overcome even in scientific research.
Concepts like bias, and uncertainty take years of hammering for young scietists, and it's still pretty common to see cases of unintended circlejerk in scientific communities that harm the objectivity of their conclusions.
In the same way, it takes years and is an ever incomplete task, to build the mindset that allows you understand history as a complex thing of interactions in contexts you'll never fully understand. It's hard to get your mind around it.
Just think of it this way; One hears thousands of times that "the media lies". And yet, people still find it hard to believe that something repeated a lot might not be true. Critical mindset is the work of a lifetime, I wish I did it right.
