Point: History has no moral authority over the present.
Point: We cannot resort to a kind of hero-worship and blindly follow our forerunners just because of the great things they did.
Counterpoint: We cannot completely understand our present without understanding our past.
Counterpoint: We cannot dismiss those who came before us and shaped how we live today.
Quote: "At its best American history is a conversation with the dead about what we should value and how we should live" ~David Harlan
By studying history, we can attempt to understand a world that no longer exists in order to have a vantage point to try and look at our own world with fresh eyes. In the case of America's founding fathers, their beliefs help shape the nation today, but their beliefs do not completely encompass what we presently are.
Understanding the revolutionary generation helps us understand how we got to where we are, but now what or why we should be whatever we choose. Human history is an evolution and we cannot live in the past no matter how much some people may want to... On the same token, we cannot escape the past however much some people may try to. History is a symbiotic relationship... But it does not own us.
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