Dunno Much ‘Bout History

 

A couple of days ago, I overheard two of my colleagues talking about football.  One of the mentioned the red and yellow uniform of the San Francisco Forty-Niners.  I spoke up:

“The uniform is red and gold, not yellow.”

“Yellow, gold, what’s the difference?”

“It’s gold, because they’re the Forty-Niners.”

“What do you mean.”

“You do know what a ‘Forty-Niner’ is, right?”

“A football player.”

“Yes, but what is the team named after?”

“I don’t know.”

“The ‘Forty-Niners?’  1849?  The California Gold Rush?”

{Blank stare}

Years ago, I was working in a section with two doctors about my age, another, much younger, nurse and a still-younger tech. The docs and I were talking and the name Eva Braun came up. Neither the nurse or the tech had any idea who she was. At first I thought they were kidding, and said “Hitler’s girlfriend.” Nope. Never heard of her.

Now we know why idiotic ideas like “(Insert Republican president here) is worse than Hitler,” “The US today is a dystopia,” or “Donald Trump is a greater president than Abraham Lincoln” gain traction. Our glorious educational system has apparently stopped teaching history.

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  1. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    JosePluma:

    “The ‘Forty-Niners?’ 1849? The California Gold Rush?”

     

    They definitely should have known that one. The problem with team names is when the franchise moves but keeps the same name. Then you have to try to figure out why you have the LA Lakers or the Utah Jazz.

    • #31
  2. Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw Member
    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw
    @MattBalzer

    Jeff Giambrone (View Comment):

    One thing I have noticed is that many young people can’t read or write in cursive because their schools have dropped it from the curriculum. 

    I couldn’t write in cursive even when it was on the curriculum.

     

    • #32
  3. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):

    Jeff Giambrone (View Comment):

    One thing I have noticed is that many young people can’t read or write in cursive because their schools have dropped it from the curriculum.

    I couldn’t write in cursive even when it was on the curriculum.

    There is a difference between capability in general and the capability to write legibly in specific.

    • #33
  4. Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw Member
    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw
    @MattBalzer

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):

    Jeff Giambrone (View Comment):

    One thing I have noticed is that many young people can’t read or write in cursive because their schools have dropped it from the curriculum.

    I couldn’t write in cursive even when it was on the curriculum.

    There is a difference between capability in general and the capability to write legibly in specific.

    Pretty sure they both apply to me anyway.

    • #34
  5. Pony Convertible Inactive
    Pony Convertible
    @PonyConvertible

    Jeff Giambrone (View Comment):
    I don’t know how the schools expect the kids to learn much history if they can’t read original historical documents that are in cursive.

    Your missing the point.  Schools don’t want them to learn what actually happened in history.  They are only to supposed to learn the politically correct history. Whether it actually happened, or not, doesn’t matter.

    • #35
  6. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Jon Gabriel, Ed. (View Comment):

    A huge deficit I notice is Biblical illiteracy. Not talking about the faith, per se, but just being minimally conversant on the cornerstone of all English literature. Drop an idiom like “the patience of Job” and the blank stares are everywhere.

    My brother (1970’s) and my daughter (early 2000’s) each took a “Bible as Literature” class in high school, which I thought was a logical thing to do since culture and literature make so many references to events described in the Bible, and to language used in the Bible (“pillar of salt,” “Sodom and Gomorrah,” “scapegoat,” “wisdom of Solomon,” “divide the baby in half,” any of several plagues, “pillar of fire,” “writing on the wall,” “carry your cross,” “30 pieces of silver,” etc. I suspect now the PC scolds would bar any such course from the curriculum. 

    • #36
  7. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    EJHill (View Comment):
    Now most people believe history began the day they were born. There is no sense of proportion, either. My youngest child has never known life without the Internet or mobile phones, yet two of his four grandparents were born before the advent of network radio and talking pictures. My oldest three never had fewer than 150 television channels. 

    We even had for a few years a President of the United States who repeatedly insisted that anything that happened before his birth (1961) was irrelevant to whatever was going on now.

    • #37
  8. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):
    We even had for a few years a President of the United States who repeatedly insisted that anything that happened before his birth (1961) was irrelevant to whatever was going on now.

    Are we into hyperbole?

    • #38
  9. Jon Gabriel, Ed. Contributor
    Jon Gabriel, Ed.
    @jon

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Jon Gabriel, Ed. (View Comment):
    Yes, we still make fun of her for that at every family gathering. And it’s rather annoying she’s more successful than either of us.

    Depends on how one defines successful.

    Thankfully, she’s great. My brother and I are the types to put our nose to the task at hand and knock it out. Sis has this innate business sense where she can concoct byzantine plans that work like a charm. Very shrewd.

    She also kicked butt in college, but I remind her that my GPA was 0.05 above hers. What a dummy. :)

    • #39
  10. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):
    We even had for a few years a President of the United States who repeatedly insisted that anything that happened before his birth (1961) was irrelevant to whatever was going on now.

    Are we into hyperbole?

    No.

    When Hugo Chavez made negative comments about his perception long-standing American policy, Obama responded with a comment that implied that Obama didn’t think he should have to answer for policies that began when he was an infant.

    My recollection is that as his presidency went on he made more such comments about his date of birth and how he shouldn’t be expected to address or respond to some circumstance or policy that pre-dated his birth.

    https://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2009/04/22/the-obama-doctrine-dont-blame-me-n1304634 

    • #40
  11. Ralphie Inactive
    Ralphie
    @Ralphie

     

    From Marcus Tullius Cicero “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”   

    What is frustrating is when an ignorant person (not meant to be derogatory, but descriptive of their knowledge of history) learns something for the first time and uses today’s measures to judge what they just found out.  Laura Ignalls Wilder’s books are under attack because she used the word “Injuns” in one of them.  It was not controversial when she wrote the book, but you wouldn’t use it today. I was surprised to find out that there are many books aimed at young children and young adults that contain a lot of vulgar language and adult topics, and is defended by “getting with the times, and making it real.”

    • #41
  12. Cow Girl Thatcher
    Cow Girl
    @CowGirl

    The Reticulator (View Comment):
    Our illustrious, high-salaried district superintendent once explained at a public meeting that if people need to know those things, they can look them up. He didn’t explain how they would know there was something to look up, though.

    THIS. If you don’t know anything about anything, then you don’t know you don’t know it….

    I gave up school teaching this year because I was tired of the district mandated BS, and I’m old, but I really miss teaching cool stuff to children. They LOVE learning about how blue jeans came into being (Levi Strauss during the Gold Rush days) or why French, English and Spanish are the three languages spoken in North America, or how we got our state nickname. Or anything at all! They just love learning things.

    • #42
  13. Bill Nelson Inactive
    Bill Nelson
    @BillNelson

    Don’t be too worried. In 1989 I knew nothing about block chain computing and VPNs. Over the last 50 years, the amount of information available for retention has exploded. And it is left to each to determine what is important.

    Now, I am a huge history fan (own well over 300 presidential biographies), and have read and studied for 50 years. And I am also totally clueless on current social trends and who is who in the entertainment world. We each decide what is important.

    As it has been said, when you want someone to get your video setup working, find a 12 year old.

     

    • #43
  14. Ralphie Inactive
    Ralphie
    @Ralphie

    The Reticulator (View Comment):
    Our illustrious, high-salaried district superintendent once explained at a public meeting that if people need to know those things, they can look them up

    My husband was at a state mandated training session, where the young gal leading the class told someone to google the answer to his question. She was snarky about it, and the impression was she didn’t know the answer.

    • #44
  15. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Jeff Giambrone (View Comment):
    I don’t know how the schools expect the kids to learn much history if they can’t read original historical documents that are in cursive.

    You have discovered the Progressive plan. Those who know nothing about history are more compliant to the ideas that, historically, have never worked before.

    I also think there’s a purpose behind all this.We’re turning into the Eloi.

    • #45
  16. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    The other day one of the Fox News Babes was reporting on Colombia, and she pronounced Bogota to rhyme with “Pagoda.” I mean come ON.

    • #46
  17. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Jon Gabriel, Ed. (View Comment):

    I once learned if you hear a famous quote, most of the time it’s either from the Bible or Shakespeare . . .

    Shakespeare? Who’s that? 😜

    The guy who is alleged by some not to be the actual author of his works.  In other words, Shakespeare deniers . . .

    FYI:  I’m not one of the deniers.

     

    • #47
  18. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Kephalithos (View Comment):

    I was grading an architectural-history research paper last semester, and it contained a line like this:

    The house was built by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1868.

    Evidently, this student had done some property research, discovered that a John Marshall owned the lot around the time of the house’s construction, googled the name “John Marshall,” and assumed that the first search result — an article about that John Marshall — was about her John Marshall.

    There is a wonderful sci fi story out in which a library enthusiast takes out the book “Kidnapped” by Robert Louis Stevenson. he reads the book, but unfortunately does not return it, and the book title and borrower’s name get sent off, via computer,  to the local PD as a stolen book.

    Later that year, a man named Robert Louis Stevenson is kidnapped, and guess  how the police decide to solve this crime.

    • #48
  19. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Kephalithos (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment): You have discovered the Progressive plan. Those who know nothing about history are more compliant to the ideas that, historically, have never worked before.

    It’s worse than that.

    University history programs being what they are (technocratic, bureaucratic, dry as dust, and infatuated with critical theory), I think it’s time to revise Santayana’s quote:

    Everyone is doomed to repeat history, even if they learn it.

    Take that Santayana – take that!

    Arahant has outdone you.

    • #49
  20. Slow on the uptake Coolidge
    Slow on the uptake
    @Chuckles

    Cow Girl (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):
    Our illustrious, high-salaried district superintendent once explained at a public meeting that if people need to know those things, they can look them up. He didn’t explain how they would know there was something to look up, though.

    THIS. If you don’t know anything about anything, then you don’t know you don’t know it….

    I gave up school teaching this year because I was tired of the district mandated BS, and I’m old, but I really miss teaching cool stuff to children. They LOVE learning about how blue jeans came into being (Levi Strauss during the Gold Rush days) or why French, English and Spanish are the three languages spoken in North America, or how we got our state nickname. Or anything at all! They just love learning things.

    The teacher gets lots of the credit for that – excitement, interest, is contagious.

    But I started to mention several relatives that had quit for the same reason you gave, and realized that if I included friends, the number spread across three states and was sizeable.  Most of ’em would also say with you that they miss it.  

    • #50
  21. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Jon Gabriel, Ed. (View Comment):

    A huge deficit I notice is Biblical illiteracy. Not talking about the faith, per se, but just being minimally conversant on the cornerstone of all English literature. Drop an idiom like “the patience of Job” and the blank stares are everywhere.

    It’s less that the knowledge is missing than it is a sort of deliberate occlusion. 

    • #51
  22. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    We each have our horror stories, I’m sure.

    I know a bright, charming young professional woman, thirty-something, who graduated from the University of Michigan — and had no idea what I was talking about when, one day, I mentioned the “tragic record of collectivism in the 20th century.” She knew someone named “Stalin” existed, and someone named “Mao.” But she knew nothing of wholesale executions, gulags and work camps, or mass starvation.

    Well, that’s nothing compared to the horrors of Capitalism, I mean some people are underpaid. What is the opposite of jingoism, btw? 

    • #52
  23. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Suspira (View Comment):

    Along the frontier of non-historical ignorance, one day I discovered a sales rep at the newspaper I worked for had no idea that a dictionary could tell you how to pronounce a word. This woman was a college graduate and had been raised in the most affluent Zip code in the state.

    I was dumbfounded.

    Ah, but the googlewebs allow you to press a button and hear a speech synthesizer kind of pronounce it right. 

    • #53
  24. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Kephalithos (View Comment):

    Jeff Giambrone (View Comment): One thing I have noticed is that many young people can’t read or write in cursive because their schools have dropped it from the curriculum. A few years ago I took my daughter and her friends to a “Mystery Room” where you had to find a number of clues to solve a mystery. I had to read all of the clues to these teenagers because none of them could make heads or tails of the cursive letters needed to solve the puzzles. I don’t know how the schools expect the kids to learn much history if they can’t read original historical documents that are in cursive. It probably won’t be long before colleges have to have remedial courses in cursive writing for history majors.

    Something similar, albeit more dramatic, happened in Turkey when Atatürk jettisoned the Arabic alphabet.

    That said, I’m not sure that most history majors (if there are any left) will miss cursive. The average history major spends his time combing through printed sources, not written ones.

    (I graduated with a history degree in 2018. Only once did I encounter a lexical roadblock — and that’s because I wanted to use a Latin-language source which hadn’t been translated into English since the time of Chaucer (!).)

    Tasty! I can understand just enough of the words to know that I’m in way over my head. 

    • #54
  25. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Jeff Giambrone (View Comment):
    I don’t know how the schools expect the kids to learn much history if they can’t read original historical documents that are in cursive.

    You have discovered the Progressive plan. Those who know nothing about history are more compliant to the ideas that, historically, have never worked before.

    No need for a memory hole if you don’t know anything in the first place. 

    • #55
  26. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Ralphie (View Comment):

     

    From Marcus Tullius Cicero “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”

    What is frustrating is when an ignorant person (not meant to be derogatory, but descriptive of their knowledge of history) learns something for the first time and uses today’s measures to judge what they just found out. Laura Ignalls Wilder’s books are under attack because she used the word “Injuns” in one of them. It was not controversial when she wrote the book, but you wouldn’t use it today. I was surprised to find out that there are many books aimed at young children and young adults that contain a lot of vulgar language and adult topics, and is defended by “getting with the times, and making it real.”

    Is ‘Injuns” anything other than a rendering of an old time white dialect? 

    • #56
  27. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Jeff Giambrone (View Comment):
    I don’t know how the schools expect the kids to learn much history if they can’t read original historical documents that are in cursive.

    You have discovered the Progressive plan. Those who know nothing about history are more compliant to the ideas that, historically, have never worked before.

    I also think there’s a purpose behind all this.We’re turning into the Eloi.

    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret (View Comment):

    Kephalithos (View Comment):

    I was grading an architectural-history research paper last semester, and it contained a line like this:

    The house was built by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1868.

    Evidently, this student had done some property research, discovered that a John Marshall owned the lot around the time of the house’s construction, googled the name “John Marshall,” and assumed that the first search result — an article about that John Marshall — was about her John Marshall.

    There is a wonderful sci fi story out in which a library enthusiast takes out the book “Kidnapped” by Robert Louis Stevenson. he reads the book, but unfortunately does not return it, and the book title and borrower’s name get sent off, via computer, to the local PD as a stolen book.

    Later that year, a man named Robert Louis Stevenson is kidnapped, and guess how the police decide to solve this crime.

    Computers Don’t Argue by Gordon R. Dickson. 

    I read it back when but had to look it up sidewise. 

    • #57
  28. cirby Inactive
    cirby
    @cirby

    Of course, a lot of people could make up for their education deficit if they ever read books (yes, even Kindle) – but they don’t.

    One day at work, we were talking about some subject or another, and after I mentioned some little bit of history, one of the guys got mad at me. Not just a little annoyed, but angry to the point his face turned red.

    “How do you know all of that stuff?”

    I just looked at him, and said, “I read. A lot.”

    “Oh yeah, how many books have you read?” This with a sneer, of course.

    I thought about it, and said, “Well, the last time I made an estimate, I figured I’d read somewhere over ten thousand books in my life, but that was a few years ago.”

    He stared at me. “Nobody can read that many books.”

     

    • #58
  29. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    cirby (View Comment):

    “Oh yeah, how many books have you read?” This with a sneer, of course.

    I thought about it, and said, “Well, the last time I made an estimate, I figured I’d read somewhere over ten thousand books in my life, but that was a few years ago.”

    He stared at me. “Nobody can read that many books.”

    @seawriter‘s goal is to write that many. 😁

    • #59
  30. cirby Inactive
    cirby
    @cirby

    Arahant (View Comment):

    cirby (View Comment):

    “Oh yeah, how many books have you read?” This with a sneer, of course.

    I thought about it, and said, “Well, the last time I made an estimate, I figured I’d read somewhere over ten thousand books in my life, but that was a few years ago.”

    He stared at me. “Nobody can read that many books.”

    @seawriter‘s goal is to write that many. 😁

    A couple of decades back, I met a woman who was a ghostwriter for multiple romance novel publishers. She was writing a book every two to four weeks, and had been doing so for years. She said she’d passed the two hundred book mark the year before, and had probably passed Nora Roberts in total number of books written.

     

    • #60
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