I have to admit that I am one of those people who never really appreciated history classes when I was in high school or the university.
Because the teachers didn’t present it properly and the focus was mostly on memorizing names and dates, which we all know is the lowest form of intelligence, I thought of it as a boring and useless subject.
But as I grew older, I started appreciate history more. I guess it comes with aging, and it also helps if you have nerd friends who introduce you to some history podcasters who make the topics they discuss so much more interesting.
During that part of recent but pre-COVID history when I was still jogging a few kilometers a couple of times a week, my playlist did not include music, but instead I listened to 3-4 episode history podcasts that ran about 3 hours per episode. Since my runs lasted only about an hour, I’d just pause the podcast and continue again on my next run. If the run ended whilst the episode was at an interesting part, I’d listen to it a bit more while cooling down.
I remember listening to podcasts on World War I and II, the Roman Empire, Spartans, the Persian Empire, and even one about a historical Japanese warrior monk. My preferred podcasts were Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History and Daniele Bolelli’s History on Fire. It was so nerdy, but how can one go wrong with taking history lessons while on a run? It was exercising both my brain and body at the same time.
Anyway, I suddenly remembered my history podcast listening days because of the viral comments of actress Ella Cruz when she likened history to gossip or rumor-mongering during an interview on her upcoming film that suspiciously and ironically looks like part of the orchestrated and well-funded attempts to revise history by certain figures from our recent history.
During this age influencers and vloggers peddling all kinds of “news” on YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram and for the “oldies”…Facebook; it is easy to see how history can be compared to gossip. They probably think that if anyone can make content packaged as “news” or “informative,” then any rumor monger can make history.
The biggest difference between history and gossip is that the former is evidence-based while the latter doesn’t even try to separate truth from fiction or opinion. History is a social science that is learned in universities while modern rumor mongers learn their trade in the gutter while doing it for the clicks, views and subscribers.
History may have biases because it is written by a human being. But if it is written and peer reviewed by proper historians, that narration is still based on facts and not wild cherry-picked opinions or unconfirmed reports from questionable sources.
Historians value and seek primary sources while rumor-mongers often think they are the primary source despite sharing the “latest” which has undoubtedly already been cycled through multiple iterations, unnecessary flowery details and maybe even garnished with lies. The difference between the two vocations is vast, which makes the comments of Ms. Cruz deeply troubling because in all likelihood she simply articulated what people think of history and historians these days.
While history is important to any society, the problem with it as a topic since time immemorial is that it has a bad reputation for being boring AF. There are very few people who can make it interesting for commoners while staying true to the source material. And most of the time, just to make it interesting, some people add too much flavor to the point that they stray from history and wander into the realm of gossip.
So, aside from bashing Ella Cruz for thinking of history as merely gossip and defending the historians and history teachers who are currently being attacked by trolls for their defense of the social science, we also need to demand more from them if we are going to make history relevant and actually worth defending for common folk who have bigger problems hanging over their heads right now, such as runaway inflation, a historical pandemic and war, and the rising prices of everything in this world.
If we are going to defend history, we will need to see its importance first. Take the time to learn about a historical event by watching a documentary, reading a book, or listening to a podcast one of these days. We all need to do that to appreciate the difference between history and chismaxx.*
