“Why History is a Fundamental need of every Society”

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a
tree without roots”, it’s a quote by Marcus Garvey and I agree with him. History plays a
vital role in our society; it contributes to understanding on how each society was built and
evolved and most importantly it allows people to explicate history and apply the learnings
from the previous events to the present time.

Firstly, history has the ability to explain accurately on how each society was built
just like how scientists and researchers explain the nature of a certain phenomena and
through it, people will be able to know what are the previous events that became the
reason for how they arrived in their current situation. Secondly, knowing the past includes
the decisions that made a temporary or permanent change in the present time, and I think
through learning from the past mistakes will serve as our guide so that the mistake will
never happen again and we are going to use it as an opportunity to improve something
that has potential. One good example is politics, specifically the election where I am the
one who decides who I want to place in a certain position through voting. Now after the
term of those elected officials I voted for 3 or 6 years ago, I will review their performance
and evaluate my past decisions. Right then, I will realize that voting for some of them is
a mistake as they didn’t fulfill their promises and responsibilities. Hence, I will not vote
for them anymore in the next election as they might just do the same thing again, but on
the other hand, for those officials who did very well, I’ll vote for them again as I see
potential and they can contribute more in our society if they will be elected again. In
continuation, history is a basis of rules and laws we have today as the government wants
to prevent the past events from happening again, similar to the Republic Act No. 7659 or
the Death Penalty in the Philippines which was imposed due to high cases of heinous
crimes.
 There’s a quote that says “Your past doesn’t define who you are right now” I totally
agree with this as we always can make a change between the past and the present. But
this only applies to people who tries to make a change and I think the first step of making
change is knowing the part where you did a mistake and admit it that you made a wrong
decision or action. This will allow people to be more open and break the stereotype of
being hypocrite. When everyone values the history it will be a gateway for them to have
a better society as everything that is happening right now is purely the consequences of
the past that we chose to happen.

It’s impossible for us to have a society that is perfect and no deficiencies but I think
one of the best ways in order to address and ameliorate the problems and weaknesses
of the society is through history. History where we will able to know our real identity, where
we can evaluate our past actions and reflect from it, where we can build a better future
out of failures from the past.