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History refers to the past or at least the study of the past. While perhaps interesting to those with an innate interest in how the modern day came to be, it is not particularly interesting when establishing a consensus on how the modern day should be. There seem to be a few misconceptions about history that I will try to get straight here.
But history is important!
It has happened to me several times in the past that, during conversations about history I found myself under attack for not caring about history too much. One argumentation is that you need to learn from history to avoid making the same mistakes. And while, sure, the past can be a good tool for getting a feel for mistakes that have already been made, it is not a necessity. It doesn't take a war to know a war. War is bad, whether it happened before or not. Antisemitism is bad, it didn't need World War 2 to find that out. In the same vein, climate change inaction is bad, we already know this even without already having ruined a planet.
Moral imperatives can be deduced from the status quo, history plays no role in this.
Some context on 'Mistakes'
See the main article on Parenting
Some mistakes just need to be made. Well, not all mistakes, but mistakes like being dumb as a kid. Many parents are overly protective of their children, never allowing them to do anything bad and restricting them to the tee to prevent them from ever making the same mistakes that they (the parents) made in their childhood. This never works and prevents the children from making crucial life experience (it's why THEY did it despite THEIR parents probably trying the same with THEM). Without ever burning their fingers these children tend to grow up with significant problems, unable to do most or almost all things on their own.
The goal here is to let them make mistakes in a safe and guided setting where life experience can be gathered but a safety net is provided so that the child can be confident and always has a safe space to retreat to.
Anyway, the point is that many mistakes cannot realistically be prevented and those that could be prevented don't need history to do so. For example, if only the people in 1933 had some history to draw from to make their decisions, because then World War 2 would never have happened… Wait, there was World War 1?
How history affects the present
Just keep in mind that, yes, Antisemitism has already happened. Homophobia has already happened. Slavery has already happened. War and terror is deeply rooted in human history and the modern times rise of these old things with currently the rise of Antisemitism (the 2023 Israel war on Gaza is happening as I am writing this), the LGBTQIA+ moral panic triggered by conservative pundits etc., history has little to say about these things that I couldn't already deduce from just the application of ethics. History may be able to give context and that is good, but in terms of “how much can I learn from history that allows me to make better decisions today?”, history is, unfortunately, not the gold mine it is made out to be.
Although...
This is not to say that learning about history is completely useless or that it shouldn't be done. History can be a great tool for personal development. Above all, history is the greatest tool to explain the status quo. However bad, history is usually the best way to explain why things are currently the way they are - especially when things are BAD the way they are, like rules and regulations. History is why we still have pseudo-monarchies in the world, why religions still have such a strong grasp on society and the views of individuals (homophobia, etc.) and so much more. So, while history can explain how it came to how things are, deliberation of how things should be and how to get there is better left to other fields of study.
Meaning of History to me
Ultimately, I am focused on the present (continue to write here)