Ah-Ha! Another one of my hobby horses. However, I'll spare you my usual venomous rant about the ills of American public education. (I can hear you all sighing with relief). But there are a few things I'd like to point out.
Ignorance of the past is not just a modern "problem." This is a problem that has always been around since the dawn of recorded history. The vast majority of people in all cultures over time have always had a rather flimsy grasp of their past.
Why? Well, illiteracy was a big part of the problem. Only the wealthy and educated had the time, to say nothing of the money, to spend writing and studying their history. To the majority of people it had little practical function in their work. Not to discount the importance of oral history, which was indeed very important to most cultures throughout the world, but much of this oral history tends to fall under the category of myth rather than history. One of the pitfalls of studying history is that you are reading the records of the powerful, and therefore literate, classes. The true opinions and feelings of the vast majority of "common people" are utterly lost to us. With regards to Middle earth, this point was touched on by Tarthang, Nufaciel, Birdland and Laiedheliel.
This is one of the reasons why there is an ongoing movement to place history in the literary arts rather than the social sciences, but this is not the place to open that can o' worms.
Moving on to more modern times (i.e. when reading and writing became more universal) the same, "history is not relevant to my real life" attitude still abounded. People who had to work, hard, for their living did not have time to study their past in depth. Their knowledge of history was pretty much restricted to "popular history" or the way that society remembers the past, whether it is accurate or not. (Usually not.)
With all due respect to Edwardian England, I suspect that by far and away the largest segment of the population had no firmer grasp on history than, "We kicked France's butt at Waterloo! Go us!"
Hmmm, this has come off sounding like more of a defense of us lazy Americans than I had really intended. However, in all fairness I felt that it needed saying that this is not a problem that is exclusive to modern America, or for that matter modern times in general.
Something that I do very much fault modern America for is the fact that the vast majority of the population actually has the opportunity to really learn their history (something that is very rare I can assure you) but most of them do not.
Alas, I guess it's that factor of human stupidity. There have always been dumb people, there always will be. But as far as most people can see there is no reason to learn history. Unfortunately, those of us who do have knowledge of the past can clearly see the dangers.
"How in the world can studying how everybody in the past messed up help me?"
-Actual statement I overheard
Well, for starters "Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it." Except that one thing learned from the past is that humanity never learns from the past.
Another thing is something I have come to believe more firmly the more I learn, and that is, "The more things change the more things stay the same."
Those are two cliches I know, but there is a reason they became cliche. They are true. This is something that ought to fill all thinking people with dread because the one thing that HAS CHANGED is that humanity's toys have gotten more destructive.
Gee, this got rather depressing toward the end, didn't it? I'll have pity on those of you who slogged your way down through this post and stop here.
