“I want to offer a little ode to the importance of studying history. We’ve seen the assertion of “alternative facts” – meaning, essentially, a denial of actual facts. We’ve see the proliferation of “fake news,” along with the suggestion that it’s impossible to differentiate between “real” and “fake” news. Studying history responsibly does some handy things. It compels you to confront and consider ugly realities as part of a bigger picture. Studying history compels you to investigate, evaluate, compare, and analyze evidence to help you piece together ACTUAL facts. And in teaching people to evaluate evidence in search of facts, it trains them to logically analyze and interpret news for themselves. [F]or those insisting that the humanities has no value, we are getting daily examples of how the study of history offers practical tools for understanding not only the past, but the present.”

—  Joanne B. Freeman

Twitter (6 Mar 2017) https://twitter.com/jbf1755/status/838897292132421632

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I want to offer a little ode to the importance of studying history. We’ve seen the assertion of “alternative facts” – m…" by Joanne B. Freeman?
Joanne B. Freeman photo
Joanne B. Freeman 3
US historian and tenured professor of History and American … 1962

Related quotes

Alfred de Zayas photo

“In a world of fake news, fake history, fake law, fake diplomacy, it is no surprise to encounter fake democracy along the way.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

2021

Dana Loesch photo

“We’ve had it with your narratives, your propaganda, your fake news.”

Dana Loesch (1978) American conservative political commentator

We’ve had it with your constant protection of your Democrat overlords, your refusal to acknowledge any truth that upsets the fragile construct that you believe is real life. And we’ve had it with your tone-deaf assertion that you are in any way truth or fact-based journalism. Consider this the shot across your proverbial bow. In short? We’re coming for you.
April 2017, in episode 1 of season 7 of the NRATV series Commentators entitled Taking on the Times, and in an August 2017 one-minute promotional video drawn from the episode, speaking of The New York Times ([Dana, Loesch, Taking on the Times, NRATV, April 2017, May 23, 2019, https://www.nratv.com/episodes/commentators-season-7-episode-1-taking-on-the-times]; [Dana, Loesch, Dana Loesch: We're Coming For You New York Times, NRATV, April 2017, May 23, 2019, https://www.nratv.com/videos/commentators-dana-loesch-were-coming-for-you-new-york-times]; [NRA’s video message to ‘elites’: ‘We’re coming for you’, Associated Press, Lisa Marie, Pane, August 27, 2017, May 23, 2019, https://www.apnews.com/c8cfcc9f96de439ca0d7d7c338f97949]; [Amanda, Holpuch, The Guardian, 'We're coming for you': NRA attacks New York Times in provocative video, August 5, 2017, May 23, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/05/nra-new-york-times-video-coming-for-threat-dana-loesch]; [USA Today, NRA to 'New York Times': We're coming for you, Ryan W., Miller, August 4, 2017, May 23, 2019, https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/08/04/nra-new-york-times-were-coming-you/541826001/])

Douglass C. North photo

“Its objectives to suggest new paths for the study of European economic history rather than fit either of these standard formats. It is more than anything an agenda for new research.”

Douglass C. North (1920–2015) American Economist

Source: The rise of the western world, 1973, p. vii, Preface

Steve Sailer photo

“If you analyze a host of real world outcomes using adoption studies, fraternal v. identical twin studies, twins-raised-apart studies, the history of early childhood intervention research, naturally-occurring experiments, differences between societies, changes over history, and so forth, you tend to come up with nature and nurture as being about equally important: maybe fifty-fifty. The glass is roughly half-full and half-empty.”

Steve Sailer (1958) American journalist and movie critic

A Short, Stylized Dialogue On Epigenetics, Steve, Sailer, VDARE.com, October 25, 2012, October 27, 2012 http://www.vdare.com/posts/a-short-stylized-dialogue-on-epigenetics,

Donald J. Trump photo

“And I want you all to know that we are fighting the fake news. It's fake, phony, fake. A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people, and they are, they are the enemy of the people.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, February

“Some students of philosophy have unreasonably high expectations of the subject. They expect it to provide them with a complete and detailed picture of the human predicament. They think that philosophy will reveal to them the meaning of life, and explain to them every facet of our complex existences. Now, although studying philosophy can illuminate fundamental questions about our lives, it does not provide anything like a complete picture, if indeed there could be such a thing. Studying philosophy isn’t an alternative to studying art, literature, history, psychology, anthropology, sociology, politics, and science.”

Nigel Warburton (1962) British author and lecturer

Philosophy : the basics (Fifth Edition, 2013), Introduction

Bill Whittle photo

“The fact that the term fake news is now in the regular vocabulary of the American people is evidence enough Americans know the news is fake.”

Bill Whittle (1959) author, director, screenwriter, editor

"Hot Mic - Rejecting Fake News" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NShYFk9VCYs (25 July 2017)
2010s

Felix Frankfurter photo

“Of compelling consideration is the fact that words acquire scope and function from the history of events which they summarize.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

Phelps Dodge Corp. v. National Labor Relations Board, 313 U.S. 177, 185-186 (1941).
Judicial opinions

Lloyd deMause photo

“Indeed, most of what is in history books is stark, raving mad —the maddest of all being the historian's belief that it is sane. For some time now, I often cry when I watch the evening news, read newspapers, or study history books, a reaction I was trained to suppress in every school I attended for 25 years. In fact, it is because we so often switch into our social alters when we try to study history that we cannot understand it —our real emotions are dissociated. Those who are able to remain outside the social trance are the individuals whose personal insights are beyond those of their neighbors.”

Lloyd deMause (1931) American thinker

Source: The Emotional Life of Nations (2002), Ch. 5, pp. 108-109.

Related topics