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Dec. 28th, 2011 11:38 amI'm trying to describe my interest in history as an area of serious academic study and -
I have no idea how to do it. "It's shiny!" is not appropriate here, even if I am supposed to be avoiding "academese". I am apparently not supposed to say "exciting" because it's too general. I am also advised to avoid epigrams, which yes. I don't really go all gooey over history because those who don't know their own history will probably repeat it anyway because evidence suggests that knowing history is not exactly a guarantee that you won't just do the same damn stupid thing over again anyway. And then there's the false equivalence problem, which is definitely a big one. So. Yeah. It's not true. Um.
"Why do you want to study history?"
Because it has people in it. And they were real, and important, and had worth in themselves. And they're dead now, but sometimes they wrote things down, or things about them were written down, and you can see that, traces of people left on the world, and I find that really compelling. It's important.
I have no idea how to do it. "It's shiny!" is not appropriate here, even if I am supposed to be avoiding "academese". I am apparently not supposed to say "exciting" because it's too general. I am also advised to avoid epigrams, which yes. I don't really go all gooey over history because those who don't know their own history will probably repeat it anyway because evidence suggests that knowing history is not exactly a guarantee that you won't just do the same damn stupid thing over again anyway. And then there's the false equivalence problem, which is definitely a big one. So. Yeah. It's not true. Um.
"Why do you want to study history?"
Because it has people in it. And they were real, and important, and had worth in themselves. And they're dead now, but sometimes they wrote things down, or things about them were written down, and you can see that, traces of people left on the world, and I find that really compelling. It's important.
