0:01 hello and welcome back to yet another
0:04 episode of the quirky inquiry it's a new
0:06 beginning of a new year so we're gonna
0:08 begin this year by talking about a topic
0:10 that I'd never ever touched upon before
0:12 so I've been meaning to make a video
0:13 about history for a long long time now
0:16 because history is one of the areas of
0:18 study that really fascinates me not just
0:21 because its history but history really
0:23 is the context and the backbone of all
0:25 the other things that have interested
0:27 I'm interested in literature interested
0:29 in Oh science interested in philosophy
0:32 and interesting poetry all that kind of
0:35 stuff they all are connected together by
0:38 the sort of historical context and by
0:40 the sort of historical backbone
0:42 so whatever literature whatever poetry
0:43 on whatever philosophy that you read
0:47 there are not inventions that comes out
0:50 of a vat in an empty vacuum they're not
0:52 just the brain sitting in the vat and
0:54 then I think therefore I am
0:56 they cards sitting in his room alone
1:00 they didn't come in isolation it's not
1:03 invented out of a vacuum as rationalists
1:06 would like to assume but instead it is
1:10 really history is a product or rather
1:12 the fields of studies that we coming to
1:14 contact today are all products of
1:17 historical contexts philosophers dealt
1:20 with different problems in the past to a
1:23 specific history historical contexts
1:26 scientific theories are invented in
1:29 response to a certain paradigm of
1:32 viewing the world and an ideas changed
1:34 throughout time the definition of
1:36 madness have morphed dramatically
1:38 throughout the centuries which is the
1:40 title of the book math and civilization
1:41 by Michel Foucault which have been
1:44 reading for the past week or so so
1:45 nevertheless that is the importance of
1:47 studying history because it is what
1:49 brings everything together and it is
1:51 what gives context to every other fields
1:53 of studies out there so studying history
1:55 comes in to supreme importance if you
1:58 care about being a renaissance person if
2:00 you care about understanding what are
2:01 human beings doing here on earth and
2:03 then what is our purpose what is the
2:06 meaning of all this if you want to truly
2:07 understand that history is the way to go
2:11 down but the prom' here comes how do you
2:13 probably study history
2:15 how do you probably interpret historical
2:18 events how do you relate the events to
2:19 the significance of the events and how
2:22 do you make sense of it all because if
2:24 you miss read history if you read
2:26 history in a very shoddy fashion what's
2:27 gonna start to happen is that all you're
2:29 gonna have is a bunch of scattered
2:32 events in your brain you can recall
2:34 dates you can recall events you can know
2:36 what exactly happened but there's no
2:40 real cohesion happening history for you
2:42 if you study it in a wrong way are just
2:43 gonna be a collection of scattered
2:46 events collection of quotes collection
2:48 of people and collection of people's
2:50 ideas there's no real cohesion that
2:53 gives you this ah the sense of odd that
2:55 it gives you there's no real passion or
2:58 Rijn or genuine interest if you approach
3:01 history in the wrong manner so in this
3:03 video let me correct that paradigm of
3:05 viewing history let me introduce a new
3:07 way of doing history that's gonna
3:10 drastically increase two things increase
3:12 your level of accurate understanding of
3:14 history your level of interpretation and
3:17 also increase your interest in this area
3:19 of study because history is sort of a
3:21 lengthy journey and to study history
3:24 state is to investing a lot of time and
3:25 then the amount of reading that you have
3:29 to do it's truly paramount there's a lot
3:31 of reading that you have to do to make
3:33 sense of history okay so it's gonna
3:35 increase two things your interesting
3:38 history and also the righteous accurate
3:41 understanding there's a bad habit if
3:43 we've picked up from school and this is
3:45 the bad habit that I sort of disagree
3:47 with or this is the sort of doing things
3:49 that I disagree with within the
3:51 educational system which is that there's
3:54 a heavy emphasis on memorization instead
3:56 of application let me repeat that
3:58 there's a heavy emphasis on memorization
4:02 instead of application of specific facts
4:04 specific dates and specific concepts
4:07 throughout history so when a history
4:10 student when history student cracks open
4:12 a history textbook for example at the
4:14 American Revolution history textbook
4:16 when they crack open that book there's
4:20 this knee-jerk reaction for students to
4:24 memorize things to knee-jerk Lee focus
4:26 on every little detail as possible to
4:27 capture every
4:29 detail as possible to try to attempt to
4:32 memorize all these technical details to
4:35 try to really dig deep into the dates
4:38 when exactly did something happen who
4:40 was involved in it and who wrote this
4:43 thing that came to contribute to what
4:45 influence so there's a knee-jerk ration
4:47 for people when they approach historical
4:50 studies to find this memorization to be
4:52 the supreme importance to put
4:55 memorization above understanding so
4:57 therefore you have people constructing
5:00 all sorts of fancy flashcards you have
5:03 people summarizing notes as they're
5:05 reading you have people highlighting
5:06 every aspects of the history textbook
5:08 but at the end of the study you ask him
5:12 Oh what is the significance of XYZ all
5:13 that they can do is to regurgitate the
5:16 facts without actually offering any
5:19 critical thinking behind that history so
5:21 that's the knee-jerk reaction that we've
5:23 been there only toe that's the way to do
5:25 things and that's the knee-jerk reaction
5:28 that we all have when we do subjects
5:30 such as literature when we do subjects
5:32 such as philosophy or such as history at
5:34 school now there's benefits to
5:37 memorization but let's not put the horse
5:39 I mean let's not put the card in front
5:41 of a horse here there's a different
5:44 orders of magnitude to memorization but
5:46 we shouldn't get the order wrong ask
5:48 yourself why are you studying history in
5:51 the first place are you now studying
5:52 history because you want to know the
5:55 general progression of history at least
5:57 based on a structuralist definition you
6:01 are spotting a general trend of what is
6:04 happening throughout time you're
6:07 outlining what the humans are doing
6:09 through that specific era of time for
6:12 example the the American Revolution why
6:15 did it come to the land and why is it
6:16 the case that they start to rebel
6:18 against the British you want to note
6:20 that general trend line and you want to
6:23 understand the motives the motivations
6:26 and all sorts of historical packages
6:27 that comes with this sort of
6:29 revolutionary sentiment you want to
6:31 understand that that's the core thing
6:35 that you need to understand so now what
6:37 most people do is that they put the card
6:39 in front of a horse when they study
6:40 history they worry about
6:43 Oh some guy died died of a lightning
6:45 strike in seventy eighty three because
6:47 he rebelled against the British garv
6:48 government or something like that
6:51 they go jumping to the specific little
6:53 details first they worry about the trees
6:56 before actually getting a holistic view
6:59 of the entire forest now what is turning
7:01 to is them collecting random facts from
7:03 the history textbook oh okay
7:05 there's a guy by the name of something
7:07 and he died in the tide in a Boston
7:10 Massacre and then in fact he was a man
7:13 of color so yeah that's a random fact
7:15 that I should document down or there's
7:18 another guy by the name of there's this
7:20 French guy from France by the name of
7:22 the Lafayette and he came to America
7:25 when he was 19 years old and then oh
7:27 that guy okay let me document that fact
7:29 right that fact hour right there along
7:31 with the dates so then this turns into
7:33 this sort of scavenger hunt of random
7:36 information and this also contributes
7:38 back to the lack of cohesion later on
7:41 when you face your analysis tasks or
7:43 source analysis or essay tasks in the
7:47 future so instead of collecting random
7:49 facts which is a laborious process and
7:51 instead of collecting all these quotes
7:52 that you couldn't really memorize
7:54 without much context so that's the
7:56 problem with collecting random
7:57 information it's because there's no real
7:59 context to brown all of these these
8:02 information your mind is not functioning
8:04 as a map that maps all of these things
8:06 together to make you understand it in a
8:08 cohesive manner but instead you're just
8:12 collecting random pieces of tree barks
8:14 you're not exactly seeing the entire
8:15 forest bathing set you're worrying about
8:17 the little tree that's in front of you
8:20 right so there's no real context for you
8:23 to brown any of your facts in there's no
8:26 real context for you to ground pieces of
8:28 information in so therefore those
8:30 there's no cohesion in your historical
8:34 studies instead what you want to do is
8:36 to gain a holistic view of the entire
8:39 picture first lay out the backbone first
8:42 instead of putting a card in front of a
8:44 horse so to speak so instead of reading
8:47 every little details of it you want to
8:50 gain a very broad overview of what
8:52 exactly is happening you want to gain a
8:54 very broad
8:57 inspection of the entire scenery okay
9:03 from maybe 70-54 the Seven Years War
9:05 okay let me let me take a look at that
9:08 okay the L pity Congress or something
9:09 like that and you just start from that
9:11 point okay start from the Albany
9:13 Congress all the way to the Declaration
9:14 of Independence
9:16 let me just rethread adding a linear
9:17 progression without worrying about the
9:19 details and I what's gonna start to
9:21 happen is that as you assemble these
9:24 informations on a trend line as you aim
9:26 to gain a holistic understanding instead
9:28 of getting bogged down in the details
9:32 once the backbone is laid out then you
9:35 go back to your my new shot then you go
9:37 back to your little facts then the facts
9:40 will be effortlessly for you to memorize
9:42 because once you have the backbone you
9:44 can just simply attach different facts
9:47 upon this backbone without much fuss the
9:48 problem with the conventional way of
9:50 picking everything up is that it is
9:53 analogous to if you want to build your
9:55 Prometheus in Frankenstein for example
9:57 of dr. Frankenstein wants to build he's
10:00 permit us the wrong approach is to build
10:01 the Prometheus from the toe to the head
10:04 to start from every little nerve from
10:06 the front from the toe and to build this
10:07 thing from the ground up without a
10:09 skeleton so that's the wrong approach
10:11 that's gonna take a lot longer you're
10:15 not gonna know what goes where and all
10:17 you have is this collection of scattered
10:20 information with how much cohesion but
10:22 instead dr. Frankenstein has a layout
10:25 that stays the skeletal structures first
10:27 dr. Frankenstein has to get the skeleton
10:29 right before he can attach the nurse
10:32 attach to organs and finally attach to
10:35 finer details of the skin of the muscle
10:37 groups and finally construct the
10:39 Prometheus right
10:41 similarly with history you need a
10:43 backbone before you can put put up all
10:46 of my new shop first you need the
10:49 skeleton the skeletal structure first
10:51 before you can put in all to random
10:54 little details so how can we apply this
10:56 practically so practically if you would
10:58 to read history the first time that you
11:01 read a historic history textbook you
11:04 read it like a novel okay read a history
11:06 textbook like a novel the first time
11:07 that you were approached
11:09 so this is the importance of pre reading
11:11 before classes pre read through the
11:13 entire chapter without taking notes
11:16 without worrying about the little
11:18 details without worrying about the dates
11:21 but instead pick up pick up a general
11:23 trend line pick up this entire school
11:25 Edo structure that you're in that you're
11:28 gonna later gonna use so when you go to
11:30 class when you listen to your teachers
11:32 lectures now you can begin the process
11:34 of attaching organs to your prometheus
11:36 you can begin the process of attaching
11:39 little information to your backbone
11:41 structure which you've already laid out
11:44 in your pre reading so after the lecture
11:45 then you can start to construct your
11:47 notes and then taking notes at this
11:49 point it's just effortless because you
11:51 know what goes where what's happening
11:54 what things are significant while others
11:55 are not instead of coming in contact
11:58 with a bunch of information not knowing
12:00 what goes where what is more important
12:02 than the other and what is worth
12:05 memorizing and what is not so this
12:06 backbone right here is really gonna
12:09 serve you well so yep that's what I have
12:12 to say about history very short not
12:13 exactly that short but a very brief
12:15 introduction into historical reading
12:18 happy New Year and happy holidays this
12:21 is the Creek enquiry signing off right now
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