I got an argument against history from my friend that there is an opportunity cost to everything we do. The time that we spend in doing something, could be used in doing something else more profitable or more time worthy I suppose. She argued that learning history, going through books and all, were time taken away from other things like academics (I mean getting higher in school and all which is a commendable goal despite what the cynics might have to say about the education system), athletics (being more fit), or having fun with friends (hanging out and having a life in general I suppose).
Anyway, to refute these points one by one, I want to first state that people have different goals in life. Each of the above categories, people give different weightage to depending on their goals. Some might give entirely to academics, some to sports and some to hanging out. So depending on what you want to do, reading etc, will always have an opportunity cost. Since it does occupy time, it will always prevent you from doing something else. But isn’t that true of all activities? Will not every activity have an opportunity cost with this reasoning? However, reading about history I want to argue that its opportunity cost is much lower. History is one way of learning to sift through myth and reality, which is pretty important for any businessman who has to read a multitude of reports. The ability to summarize entire texts within a coherent brief of a couple of pages is very important in today’s world of infinite knowledge. This can be pointed out by the fact that HP’s former CEO Carly Fioriana was a major in Medieval History, and she did relate to this skill when she explained her success as a CEO. In athletics, or physical development, history isn’t all that important, but don’t we always like to know about the sport we play? Wouldn’t we want to about the greats that played the game and how the game evolved over time? Isn’t that a way of enjoying the game itself? Sure, there would be an opportunity cost of not playing the game, but would you be playing 24x7 that there would be no time left during the day? I mean most of the knowledge you pick up by watching tv which you do retain, and I don’t think that this would be major inconvenience of any sort to learning. And then hanging out in general, again it is not a 24x7 job that would force you to not have any time to yourself. There are 24 hours in a day and life is too short to spend it sleeping. I think longer than 7-8 hours a days is indulgence which has a higher opportunity cost than anything else. With average work being around 10 hours a day, that leaves about 8-9 hours a day free which I am sure increasing your general knowledge and a little about history shouldn’t take more than an hour or two. Besides that, we all have history and all taught to us during our school years and if we can relate what we learn in class and retain a part of it, (which also increases your academic knowledge at any rate), that would be quite a knowledge base to begin with. Although there is an opportunity cost attached to this, considering that we use only about a small percentage of our brains at any rate, I don’t think this would cause an overload at any rate. Also, a lot of history can be learnt by just reading the newspaper everyday and relating what you know to what is happening in the world today. A question of relating events more than anything else to understanding foreign policy of various nations, for example the fight in Ossetia in Russia and the Russian response to the insurgency, the blunted American protests in response. Also we can relate more to what’s happening in the world through what we know especially in a world where cross country borders are becoming more lines in the minds of academicians as today’s technologies bring the world much closer to each other.
Personally, I don’t think it was a high opportunity cost in learning history, which is totally unrelated to my field of choice which was engineering. I still did well academically, played sports, hung out with friends and did many more activities. I may not have done too well, but I don’t think I would blame my excessive if not obsessive book reading mania for that. There were probably other reasons for not doing too well, but this was one of my ways to escape the confines of reality and let my imagination take me away…Its like the song, Overkill, “I can’t get to sleep, I think about the implications of diving in too deep, and possible the complications, especially at night, I worry over situations, I know will be alright, perhaps its just imagination. Day after day it reappears, Night after night, my heartbeat shows the fear..Goes to be here and fade away, Come back another day… (This is for my friend that gave this argument than anything else).
2 comments:
I second your point about the world reverting back to the historical days in a way that cross country borders are becoming more and more imaginary well of course except the Gaza strip. But in a way yeah the world is much closer as in there is more goodwill among the nations then ever before. Probably imaginarily we are not far away from Pangea again !!.
But the other thing which would run parallel but in the opposite direction is the identity of a nation. Technology brings nations together, improves the relationships between two nations but it also develops the underdeveloped. This in turn creates an identity for a nation. We can relate the way BRIC nations have developed to this. Once they create an identity for themselves , once they start seeing themselves as a seperate entity I think we would fall back to the ages of cross country borders again. An exmaple being how America faced stiff resistance from India for the N-deal. Turn the clock back to a decade back and India would have been more than happy to immediately sign the N-deal.
A little off topic but had to write this since you mentioned the diminishing presence of the cross country borders.
Yes, I see what you mean about the country borders becoming separate again. In fact I will support you by saying that trade is probably not a civilizing influence either..I mean if you go back to WW2, before Germany attacked France, France was its largest trading partner, and before Germany attacked Russia, that was its largest trading partner. And also, Japan before it launched its Pearl Harbor attack, its largest trading partner was the US. What I meant with diminishing cross country borders was that the technology present today especially the internet helps to cut down those borders. I mean with no passport or visa required to traverse the world of the internet, it really does cut down borders. Sitting at my desktop being able to find out how to make Quechuan tea in two seconds is really a miracle..
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