Feringer notes
Last edited: 12-98
Contents
Lecture 1
1. “…history is all that which explains why education has to keep changing. History is those events which make it dangerous, which make it intolerable that people should live as though they lived from time immemorial.” (p.2)
2.There are many unimportant events that should not influence tomorrow. So history is dualistic, sitting in judgment of things that should not come back (like slavery), or of events about which we should make new decisions so that they can be carried on. In this sense, then, “…the past is still ahead of us.” (p.3)
3.Great events are brought about by people who do things, “regardless of the consequences.” And this is an admonition for all of us, for our future, if it is to be fruitful. The community must be directed by this attitude of having to decide what must be forgotten and what must be carried on (regardless of personal consequences).
The fecundity of the human race is based on the white heat of decision and the good conscience that we are in harmony with past action, and for this reason, have a future. (p.5)
Freedom cannot be achieved if you ask, “What will be the result for me?” Results are always uncertain. One must therefore act without regard to pressures of the moment.
4.People from the past who deserve to be remembered either changed conditions or met new conditions in the right fashion. Because we are free agents, we are free to change.
5.Things never stay the same. Thus, our actions and behaviors must not be the same as they were in the past. “In other words, past and future are both alive….nothing which has been bought by real human investment of heart and courage must vanish from this earth.” (p.7)
6.Time is not homogeneous; historical epochs occur in fits and starts. “In great moments, there is condensed the resolution and the decision of man to enter a new day, or to end an old day.” (p.11)
7.Today, an event in one part of the world has repercussions everywhere else in the world. The human race is now indivisible, and if we cannot find world peace, we will tear ourselves apart.
8.Real history contains only what once was new. “History then is the story of those things which have to be told because at one time they appeared to be impossible.” (p.9)
History Must be Told – 1955 – Review
Today an event in one part of the world has repercussions everywhere. The human race is now indivisible, and if we cannot find world peace, we will tear ourselves apart. How can we find such peace? Of course, by learning lessons from the past. People from the past who deserve to be remembered either changed conditions or met new conditions in the right fashion. “History then is the story of those things which have to be told because at one time they appeared to be impossible.”