The UTM Engage the Times Civic Initiative had its eighth meeting of the spring semester Friday, March 26.
Earlier in the year, panelists had touched on topics as diverse and timely as the deteriorating social climate and public discourse, prison and police reform, emerging genetic technologies and the role of the arts in society. The March 26 meeting was entitled “Why Should We Care About the Past?” and was focused on the role of studying, producing, and being literate in history in our current social context.
The panel was moderated by Merry Brown, Lecturer of Philosophy at UTM, and was staffed by Dr. Alice-Catherine Carls, Professor of History, Dr. Nathan Howard, Professor of History, and Dr. Margaret Lewis, Associate Professor of History, the latter of whom filling in for Dr. Richard Garlitz, Associate Professor of History.
In responding to the central question of the panel, Carls spoke first. She argued that history is both an indelible part of human life and integrally important in understanding the lessons that the past can teach us.
“We’re not historians to learn something and do nothing about it,” Carls said in her closing remarks, “we’re historians to preserve the past because preserving the past protects the future.”
Howard outlined very succinctly four different uses for history, which he deemed to be utility, empathy, identity and beauty. History can be put to useful ends, as in the classic notion of learning history so one is not “doomed to repeat it,” but it can also be used as a means of gaining empathy and understanding with past peoples and cultures. Dr. Howard also noted that history is a powerful force for shaping identity, both in the personal and societal sense. Finally, he noted that for its triumphs and tragedies and what they reveal, the historical record can be a source of great beauty.
“The past is not just mechanical,” suggested Howard, “it’s about the human experience, and there’s so much greatness that…precedes us, whether that’s the great art, the great music….the noble deeds, the great sacrifices… Certainly, we see the ugly, but that’s one way the past, I think, informs us. We can learn to be discriminatory in a positive way in looking at the past and deciphering, delineating between the noble, the beautiful, and the good, and the ugly, the hateful.”
Lewis centered on, to a greater extent, perhaps, than Carls and Howard, the notion of what history can teach us about living in a complicated and diverse social moment.
“Studying the full breadth and depth of history is also really important for understanding…the world we are in today and how beautiful and diverse it is,” Lewis suggested. “How do you navigate through such a complex, diverse world? You study your history.”
The panelists fielded several questions after their talks, mostly on the intersection of historiography and journalism where the panelists showed varying degrees of comfort with the kind of “pop history” that especially TV personalities are known for writing.
The second-to-last Engage the Times session will be held after spring break on April 16 on the topic of “pandemic fatigue.” Information on how to participate in Engage the Times can be found at its UTM webpage here.
