Basic Qualities of History Majors

The sense of wonder I’m sharing with you today is a cliché: it’s what a history major like me is actually learning.

The one shared today is very personal, because the history system is very large, different schools have different research and teaching directions, and students have different interests and hobbies. Then I will tell you what I am concerned about in this system from the perspective of my little transparency as a Yanyuan historian.

And many people, including my family, thought I was spending years studying:

what happened?

And what I actually learned is:

How do historians know what happened?

In human practice, there are countless decisions, actions, and human interactions every second. Suppose, however, that 10,000 things happened, 1,000 things were witnessed, 100 things were recorded, 10 things were sorted out, and 1 thing was read by later generations. So in this process, what role did the pen in the hands of historians play in every link?

Too many questions pop up:

• Why do some historians consider the battles of Napoleon Bonaparte more worthy of record than the daily anecdotes of Lyon peasants?
• Why are some historians more interested in sorting out the words and deeds of Cato the Elder and Seneca rather than the carnival parties held by the ladies of Rome?
• Why can't "Food and Merchandise" never be placed before the emperor's current era in the history books?

The historian cannot be value neutral - the moment he decides which to write and which not to write, he already has a subjective judgment. The only sacred professional ethic they can uphold is, after choosing a writing goal, to document that goal truthfully.

These questions will make any young person entering historiography feel hopeless and confused. If it is not professional fetters, it is easy to fall into historical nihilism. This is why many fans outside the history class often use the true and false historical stories in popular historical books and middle school history textbooks as tools for sadness.

In my opinion, most knowledge is ultimately a branch of epistemology, and most of the key issues in liberal arts, science, social science, engineering, and business majors are variants of the question "how do I know?" It's just that a highly basic subject such as history, if you can't face this problem head-on, and study hard for several years, you won't be able to do anything else. This is why, if an eighteen-year-old freshman in the history department did not realize the essence of history as early as possible, he would fall asleep listening to the teachers' PPT reading for four years.

I tell you these words, because I think you can understand me. You don't have to study hard for many years to learn these ways. The more you experience, the more questions you ask and the answers you think are similar to mine. Years ago, I did my best to advocate for the importance of liberal arts education. But in retrospect, "waving the flag and shouting" may not be the best way to popularize humanities and liberal arts. Humanity is reflected in the light of the eyes, and liberal arts is reflected in the temperament of the whole body.

The matter of education and enlightenment is always a matter of transcending oneself before transcending others. The beautiful qualities and delicate emotions that those people should have have been more perceptible to me after years of using ruthless rational torture. And this needs to infiltrate you, who are not arrogant or impatient with me, and I think this is what I want to do.

How did I know this? you guess?

- Captain, April 12, 2021