Historical Value

[akhtene]

littltmanpoet wrote:

I believe that the key to learning history, or anything really, is connection. Relationships. Even learning by experience fits into this, because experience itself can be the connection by which we learn something.

I very much appreciate this idea because learning just for learning ‘s sake without really finding relations between our glorious (or not so) past with present, without setting values and behavior models, without seeing any perspective may not be so helpful, apart from being just a mind exercise and the way of satisfying one’s curiosity

Much has been said here about the historical knowledge and lore being of immense help and support to the Ring-bearer and the Fellowship on their Quest. But there is another character in the book, “the most inquisitive and curious-minded in the family”, “interested in roots and beginnings” who nevertheless was subdued and ruined by the evil power of the Ring. I mean Smeagol, the loathsome Gollum. Why then was the knowledge of no help to him?
I’d guess that his interest in “great secrets …which have not been discovered since the beginning” was purely ‘academic’. He learned no lessons, saw no perspective, “…he ceased to look up at the hilltops, or the leaves on trees, or the flowers opening in the air”. Another reason is that he made his discoveries alone and there was nobody from the very start to tell him right from wrong. And dark and evil things may seem more appealing, especially to an inexperienced mind.
Thus learning, history learning especially, should help establishing connections not only between various facts, but also between people on the model teacher (a person, a book, an idea) – pupil (the one who is willing to absorb the knowledge and apply it).