>in uni history class
>dumb bitches talking about the first world war and the rise of nationalism and art trends during the renaissance as if it's their first time hearing about it
I was raised among three other brothers, so naturally we had an interest in wars, and in extension, all of history. My father also has a degree in history.
I just want to know how much the average American knows about world events. What did they learn at home instead of that? I'm just so confused sometimes.
Why are you so condescending? Maybe it is the first time they know of such things, so fucking what?
Someone not knowing about the first world war or the rise of nationalism is rare.
Art trends during the renaissance is understandable though, since it's in no way related to US history, and has no real bearing on international history
I think the average person doesn't even know who Charles V was. And is likely to consider Martin Luther King a bigger figure in history than Charlemagne.
Different people know different things. Not everything can be boiled down to "hurt sure dumb Americans"
And why be such a dick and someone who is making an effort to learn about history ?
*hurr durr
Fuck autocorrect
>so fucking what?
So what the hell did they learn instead of history while they were growing up?
They learned not to be a sperg online.
An American not knowing of those events in college is disturbing. Considering it is part of the basic curriculum in US high-school
>this is your brain on Eurocentrism
I'll agree that Charlemagne is more relevant than Martin Luther King Jr, in the context of global history.
However, Charles V is not very relevant. Considering there have been hundreds of monarchs in European history, and expecting non-Europeans to remember every one, that did something that was even remotely relevant which many did, is absurd.
Americans only learn of a small number of Monarchs in school, these primarily are British, French, or Spanish ones, during events such as the War of the Roses, English Civil War, Christopher Columbus, and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head.
Shit, for the French I mean the one that was beheaded, but her last words was apologizing to the executer..
I bad with names :(
>I'll agree that Charlemagne is more relevant than Martin Luther King Jr, in the context of global history.
Of fucking course he is. Only a complete ignorant person would say otherwise.
>However, Charles V is not very relevant.
He is an important figure in the colonization of Americas and the Reformation, which affected the entire European continent. He is also the first King of an united Spain.
how to whip and nay nay
Also
>This is your brain on Americentrism.
To even think that the historical importance of Charlemagne and MLK is even close to be comparable.
Most of the people I know simply don't care about any event that happened 50 or + years ago and isn't directly relevant to their lives.
I have to make a conscious effort not to look like a sperg and reveal my power level whenever we talk about history.
I'd say about 50% have almost zero knowledge of history whatsoever.
40% have very basic middle school understanding. They might be able to write a four paragraph essay on world war 1 without looking anything up.
9% have a somewhat decent knowledge of history from taking classes in college, watching movies and maybe reading a couple pop history books like Guns Germs and Steel.
.9% have an interest in history and a good broad based knowledge with many points of reference.
.1% is actual historians and whatnot. Probably much less than .1% but you get the idea.
Majority of Veeky Forums board falls in the top 10% but that's not saying much.
They are.
Race relations is one of the biggest tensions in America which is the global super power.
To think a major shift in culture of the worlds largest power won't have far reaching historical impacts is inane.
The average normie barely knows anything outside 20th century history and whatever nationalist history he learned at school about his own country.
s/barely/doesn't/1
>Americans
>knowing something outside an extremely narrow field
Are you a troll or are you an idiot? There is no 20th century American politician that can compare to Charlemagne in impact.
Don't insult them, inspire them! History is something to be passionate about. Show them that passion.
>tfw sperged out today to a Chinese chick I work with about Prussia
>lectures to her my admiration for it without pausing for a solid 15-20 minutes
Am I doomed?
I once asked a Chinese-American guy what part of China he was from. He said
"My grandma says we're Han, although I don't even know what that means"
...
i go to a fairly decent university too. i dont think (we) Americans are stupid, but there is a general disdain for culture, in general.
that depends on if you are talking about actual impact or perceived impact. MLK has a much higher perceived impact
>martin luther, you mean mlk?
>prussia, you mean russia?
>austria, you mean australia?
The average normies knows not nearly as much as us, dear sir.
*does a wicked ep*c fedora tip*
>prussia, you mean russia?
every fucking time
Americans can't even point half of European countries on the map. You're considered an intellectual in America if you know basic geography.
Doomed to be forever alone, yes.
Normies don't memorize history, they study it for classes then forget about it afterwards and they certainly don't study it otherwise.
I have a normie friend who's very smart and while we were watching Hacksaw Ridge he started commenting on how unrealistic the portrayal of war was in movie because "they are just charging at them, this is stupid and only done so the movie looks better" or something along those lines.
I told him this was standard practice in both world wars and still to this date he doesn't believe me.
Other things. Trigonometry. Basket-weaving. Orgasm by urethra stimulation. Other things.
Why would you even
just say enough to demonstrate knowledge and leave it at that
I have always loved history in its breadth and used to feel superior to historically illiterate people for the most part but delving deeper into individual topics on the post-graduate level left me disillusioned and tempered my delusions of superiority.
Too many compelling narratives and solid scholarly consensuses appear, on close enough examination, to be based on flimsy evidence, biased source selection or reading, or the need to hammer the square pegs of events into the round holes of some larger framework, with source materials often presenting tones and perspectives altogether different from the narratives purportedly based upon them, with the question of whether the reason for the differences is a misreading or a genuine investigation of the wider context of the source usually remaining open.
Today I feel that for almost every topic unless one has spent the better part of a lifetime examining every detail and unravelling the connections of countless sources and pieces of evidence one cannot have a grounding solid enough to say anything sound at all.
For a short while I thought that at least STEM fields have the advantage of having their "downstream" results embodied in feats of engineering which demonstrate the practical truthfulness of their work, but then I realised the same is true for history and soft sciences. The narratives being created are the equivalent "downstream" output, with objectives ranging from political to simply telling a compelling story - objectives wholly orthogonal to actual historical truth.
Thus I no longer enjoy plain history the way I did as a young man, because my mind is always drawn to what the narrative is meant to accomplish, whom or what it serves, and whether its deliberate or not. I also feel I have little reason to feel superior to illiterates on topics outside of very narrow areas of specialisation – at most I can be certain that I have learned more sophisticated stories, but I cannot vouch for their veracity.
Charlemagne is comparable to Augustus and Emperor Qin. MLK is not even close to be a Caracalla. Only someone completely ignorant would think MLK has a larger impact than Charlemagne.
:(
I couldn't help myself
>eurocentrists
>Americans who think history started in 1900
Tell me more about urethral stimulation. I'm interested.
As somebody who did the TEFL meme in Hong Kong and Taiwan for several years (fuck you, I was saving for grad school, it was a decent job) the "Amerilards know nothing about history or geography" shit kinda bothers me. Yes, I'm an American, but I'm not typically bothered when people make fun of us, we usually deserve it (we are kinda fat, and I do love burgers). We somewhat deserve it here too but not even a fraction as much as most Asians (including Japanese from what my TEFL friends there tell me).
I taught middle-school level history and science in addition to just English, and there were times (especially in Taiwan) when I would just snap the book shut and ad lib a lesson about general world history because I had stumbled across a new massive area they had literally no knowledge of. I'm not talking shit like, "Doesn't know who Charles V was" - after all, before I lived there I doubt I could have named a single Chinese emperor either. I'm talking shit like, "What's the British Empire?" Or this nearly verbatim gem:
>Can anyone name an Ancient Greek city?
>Hercules!
>hmm not quite, how about y-
>Rome!
Many of them are even ignorant of their OWN history - for a lot of Taiwanese, WWII consisted of "Japan took us over, there was a war in the Pacific, and then America dropped a bomb or possibly two bombs on them and we were free." None of my students knew what communism was, several of them thought that China had a colonial empire a la France, Britain, Spain. And without tooting my own horn, because come on, I was still a laowai English teacher, I taught at a GOOD (and expensive) school - these were bright kids with tiger moms who pushed them to study 6+ hours a night. Historical knowledge simply was not valued.
Having traveled around Asia (and having enough native friends to break out of the expat bubble) I do not believe Taiwan and HK are anomalies in Asia.
Americans aren't great, especially compared with most Euros, but we're far from the worst out there.
I'm actually curious if non-americans casuals are as ignorant of our history as our casuals are of theirs
It is the same in northern europe.
Most people don't know shit about history aside from ww2, the evil germans and the poor jews.
Probably not AS ignorant (though in my experience most Europeans struggle to place more than 4 US states on a map, and those states will be California, Florida, Texas, and Alaska, with NY usually mislabeled) but I'm not sure it's a fair comparison because there's just so much more European history to learn. Not just because America is a young country but because it's just ONE country.
I mean, Serbia and Indiana have comparable populations, and Serbia is about as relevant to the lives of most Americans as Indiana is to most Euros, but Serbia has an intricate and important history whereas Indiana ... well, it has the Indy 500, I guess.
You understand perfectly, you're just trying to feel like a snowflake.
Take a look at yourself. God almighty.
Nice post. Good read front to back, faggot.
...
>talking with some college friends
>somehow or other the topic of WW2 comes up
>they agree that Hitler attacking the Soviet Union was stupid and if he didn't the Axis could have easily won the war
>want to sperg out at them but also don't want to disclose my powerlevel
The way history was taught to me in highschool made me thoroughly dislike it. You learned nothing about history, instead it trained you to remember dates/names just long enough to get the minimum score for the test.
>and I do love burgers
European here, seriously who doesn't love burgers?
Fuck you, Indiana has history.
No, because the role of the US has been more important in the 20th century.
In Eastern Europe, a (millenial) normie would probably know about:
>Revolutionary war
>Civil War
>WW2
>All that shit that went down in the 60s
>Ronald Reagan
Passion attracts people, lad. Whatever the subject may be
Don't forget Vietnam, everyone knows about Vietnam
Included in the "60s" part.
Thing is, normies care about MLK more than Augustus and Qin
So what? That's not the point. He has had less actual impact on history than Charlemagne.
In 1000 years, when the Afromerican Empire rules the Earth, then you can tout him as more important than Charlemagne.
Of course, but my point is that is how normies view history
Then you're agreeing with him? That only completely ignorant people think that MLK is more important than Charlemagne?
>Thing is, normies care about MLK more than Augustus and Qin
Which is an example of how ignorant of history they are.
Something useful.
>pr*ssia
Everything I know of history was taught to me at home. Either by my father or by books/documentaries I would pick up from time to time. Most of the shit they teach in school just scratches the surface for select time periods, which is part of the reason why most burgers know so little about world history/humanities. Not necessarily their fault, they were just never exposed to it when growing up
welcome to postmodernism bitch
If she doesn't like prussia, she isn't worth it user
That and most history classes are just memorizing date and facts for the next test. You can memorize the fact that WW1 started in 1914 and WW2 started in 1939, but that doesn't really help you understand how WW1 helped lead to WW2.
His radio show is decent but if it wasn't for MLK Jr. I don't think he'd even have it..
The average normie who has no extra interest in learning history will usually only know some 20th century history, a few massive figures from general history like Genghis Khan or Napoleon, and whatever particular nationalist tidbits their government drills into them as important. Really history starts at WW2 for most people, and that's for the slightly above average normies.
I had a fucking modern American history class (I know I know, I had to take it, wasn't actually too bad either) where only like 20 students out of 200 knew any actual details about Watergate, and that's within living memory tier shit.
>revealing your history power level to anyone you are not 100% sure is actually interested in history too
enjoy your social suicide among your female co workers
I think its because most people don't give a shit about history. I always noticed the teachers would teach shit wrong though, like one time one almost kicked me out of class for saying the war against the Nazis and Japanese happened during the same time in middle school.
I feel you senpai.
I'm a lawyer practicing in a relatively narrow field, and I know enough to realize that the breadth of my own ignorance is astounding. Not only that, but many of the preconceptions I held - including some very recent ones - I have now come to believe are dead wrong.
If I, a professional, have not yet mastered this topic - which is a relatively accessible one, given that basically every relevant piece of information is freely available - there is no reason to believe that my ideas in other areas in which I only dabble could possibly be sound.
white people did all the evil and need to give up their women as reparations