In five months I will be a graduate. In five months I will have a slip of paper that qualifies me as a historian. I know that may mean very little to some. I am not blind to the connotations around humanities, and particularly history. However, that title is one I am nothing but humbled and honored to earn. To me, history is one of the most important subjects one could learn. The people who claim they hate the subject, or see it as boring, useless, a dead-end degree, etc. always come off as so close-minded to me. History is everywhere. History is everything. We are walking history, whether one chooses to acknowledge that or not. I think it is a common mistake to see the subject as an accumulation of names and dates, an ensemble of jumbled facts that will never matter in the present day. That is like holding one puzzle piece and complaining there is no clear picture in it.
History is the study of human nature. It is everything we are because it is everything we ever were. It is war and love and jealousy and reverence. It is power and betrayal and worship and death. The more I learn about what we were, the more I learn about what I am. Of course, there is the age-old saying “history repeats itself.” I think that’s true, but I think the very concept of history is so intangible, so abstract, that it would be more true to say “humans repeat themselves.” and we do. Again and again and again we find new unique ways to do what we have done a thousand times before. Is that not beautiful? Is human nature not art? Is the study of our existence, our small time on this Earth, our unique customs and passions, not important? Every great art that has ever moved you, every song you could not help singing, every laugh you have shared with your friends is a feeling that seems so individual and yet has been felt by practically everyone that has everyone existed. The Ottomans felt the ebullient bubbles of laughter in their throats just as you have. The Romans have been moved to tears watching the great tragedies. The Greeks have gathered in the square, brought together by music just as we all have. The only difference between us is circumstance and advancement.
History is beautiful in that way, but also terrible. Human beings can be terrible just as we can be lovely. Learning about the darkness, the gray matter in everyone that makes us all capable of falling into evil and abhorrent action is where the utility of a historian comes in. The truth is: humans are not good. We are creatures prone to selfishness, ambition, and greed. Humans are not bad either. We are creatures of loyalty, love, and justice. We are a mixture of these two chaoses that make us impossible to define. Our goodness fosters all the warmth and art in the world, but our evils are insidious and infect everything we are. We weave our wickedness into our world, a world that was given to us to shape. For every inequity we create, there must be others willing and able to understand our failings and seek virtue. While I think a lot of human nature is immovable, it is up to historians to seek righteousness in man and sow the seeds of justice in a society made up of the morally gray. In some ways, humans never change, yet in some ways we move in unimaginable ways at an unimaginable rate. I am nothing but grateful to understand that. I truly think everyone should.