University of North Carolina at Greensboro Perspectives On The Past Discussion

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GYP19

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University of North Carolina at Greensboro

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min 150 words each

First Classmate. AS

Before watching Fea's video, it did not occur to me that the past cannot be "usable". From my personal understanding, past was always something that was intriguing and useful and often inspirational. Fea mentions that past is indeed usable, but he also mentions that not all of it is. From the beginning Fea mentions why the past can be useful to people and these reasons are: Inspiration, Escape from modernism, and understanding of one self and thy roots. I have came to conclusion that all of the mentioned reasons were there with me as I was going through this course and this semester, but also I realized that this might not be the case for every person. Different people, pick and choose different lessons from the studied events and people, thus making me believe that "past" is both usable and useful. Although not many people enjoy studying the past, everything that is happening in the modern world is an effect of the past. Fea also talks about past as a "foreign country", with this idea he brings up the fact that not all past useful and can dangerous in different aspects. One idea that he mentions that is so relevant in today's world is "Presentism". This term describes abuse of history and the past to manipulate the future. This is very relevant because, this kind of ideas are always used in present day debates which could be misleading and at times dangerous.

Coming to an end of this semester, I have so much knowledge then what I started with. In my first discussion, I did not really understand what history was and did not understand the difference between the "past" and "history". Throughout this course, I learned the difference through listening to lectures and only after exploring through different primary sources from that period of time. I think this is exactly what made this course so educational for me. Reading through primary sources such as speeches, diaries, letters helped me understand past on a individual level and how it affected the history we know today. This course definitely was a catalyst of a change for myself. I definitely found myself enjoying going through primary sources and interpreting it, seeing how it related to what I know, seeing how it affected the events, seeing how it changed my opinions.

Second Classmate:

In some ways the past is not always important to Americans. Americans are fascinated with the past. People find the past to be very useful. It can be used three different ways: 1. the past can be inspiration, 2. form of escape, and 3. a sense of who we are and a sense of identity. They draw from the past to make sense of the future. We look at the past to find out who we are. The past and the present can be used in a irresponsible way. The past is a foreign country. Sometimes we often think of the past as usable and that's often how we perceive it and how we can use it in the present. Sometimes the past is simply not that usable in the present. Historians call this understanding of the past Histoicism. These worlds that we are studying are very different than the worlds that we live in today, and somethings from that world may not be particularly be useful in the present. The opposite of Historcism is Presentism which is super imposing our own ideas back onto the past. People are engaged in the presentism when they use the past to make political points in the present without looking at the fullest of the past, When we think about the past as a foreign country that may not have an immediate relevance to the present it creates two things, two virtual within us. One is the virtual of empathy the idea of walking in the shoes of somebody else, understanding their life as they understood. Understand the fact that these people are different. Another virtual is Humility as part of a larger story. We de-center ourselves, we begin trying to see life from the view of everybody else. We think of the plights of others. So I totally agree with Fea on the fact that the past can be usable and useful.

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Running head: CLASSMATES RESPONSES

Classmates Responses
Student’s Name
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1

CLASSMATES RESPONSES

2
Classmates Responses

Response 1
I concur with you that Fea’s videos provided significant insights into the past as both a useable
element and a foreign country. Thus, his explanations allow the viewer to decide on using ...


Anonymous
Excellent! Definitely coming back for more study materials.

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