Dangerous Games Research: The Uses and Abuses of History (Essay Sample)

Running Head: Dangerous Games         Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History Your Name Your Institution’s Name Your Professor’s Name Paper                           Abstract As human beings, we all live in history whereby some of us are either made or broken by it, while some make history. History is mostly written by a few of us but then read by the majority. Some people try so hard to make use of it by going through the past for similarities to give details of the current and to forecast the upcoming. However some of us neither write nor read it but instead we spoil it. In this undeniable article, Macmillan looks into the different ways in which history has been politicized and perverted to simply take care of  one purpose or another. Dangerous Games gives clear information of her expert psychoanalysis and points of view presented in her insightful humorous writing style.                             Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History Dangerous Games is an interesting highly refined and decipherable book which allows readers to discover more on the dangers of inappropriately tending to the past, overlooking demanding truth and disfiguring it. Macmillan simply describes history as a pool that lies beneath the current, noiselessly deceiving our societies, likes and dislikes as well as our habits of thinking, (Macmillan, 2010, p.14), and if done appropriately history helps in unfastening the past in different constructive ways, she adds, thus history should grant the wellbeing of the living.   She looks at how the past has present significance as a foundation of national satisfaction, in offering a sense of uniqueness for different groups and as an instrument of mending past wrongs. In her significant work, we learn that history is more than just demonstrating the facts but its all about structuring the past.  She tries to look at the varied ways in which the principles and dangers of history have an effect on us not forgetting how the history itself is being used and misused. Since the past should be used for the wellbeing of the living and history made out of what has happened so as to become persons and live as persons, we must never abuse history. We simply need to understand the super-historical and the unhistorical roles played in our modern life that is not a historicism slave. In our secular life, history has somehow relocated religion, using it as a means of conveying principles and positioning moral standards. We therefore expect the history judgment to act as an object of binding generations, making the nation as well as an object of asserting individuality and not merely by being just. It’s however quite amusing that history has turned out to be a battlefield of professors who are often pushed into forefront service in the ethnic wars.   In addition, criticism brings out our present life after the past of which may have fallen in conflict to the one which we are descended. We try creating a second nature of ourselves in such a scenario, and in so doing we understand that each triumphant subsequent nature was once a primary nature and the primary nature at one time happens to be a subsequent nature. In other words, by being critical of the past, broadening our fleeting look of history to find the good and bad turns out to be our subsequent nature, being critical will probably be the first nature of the following generation. We try to give hope of a better livelihood that is quite healthy to the following generation by basically taking off the rose colored glasses. For history to be used to serve the living then we should be able to embrace the social, cultural as well as religious history altogether for the purposes of gaining facts. In our contemporary society, one has to have the cultural and historical knowledge to be seen as educated, even though this does not make us refined. We live in times when through the historical education we are able to ignore the unfairness of the present, which leads to the ripping of the inner and outer personalities. People have continued loosing their dignity at the expense of becoming educated and history’s ability to shape life has been shattered purely by the science objective. Macmillan clearly reveals that the deeper engagement of history with our personal lives and the public discussions can easily help us understand the world and ourselves much better guiding us to more progressive, wealthier persons and nations, (Macmillan, 2010, p.53),  but she also gives a warning that history can be misused hence leading to great misunderstandings among ourselves and nations. Many might be thinking that historical things have a bigger value as compared to the current things, but when the people’s sense is hard-bitten in this way, when history serves the existence of the past in such a manner that it conceals advance livelihood, when historical sagacity destroys life and no longer protects it, then the nation’s ideology dies inexplicably from the top progressively down to the ancestry. According to her, bad history simply enlightens on the multifaceted fractions of stories which are rather deceptive and can lead to national myths creation that embrace their own perils. A great example is that of the Serbian myths formed due to the defeat of prince Lazar, Serbians’ hero. Macmillan points out clearly that Lazar was just a Serb prince and at the time of his killing, the battle was declared as Serb’s victory and was broadly analyzed as a draw, being far from spotting Serb’s end of sovereignty, Serbia remained sovereign for decades. It was Lazar’s death that was used by the Orthodox Church to strengthen the opposition myth to the Turkish rule for centuries. Later on the myth crashed with the appearance of chauvinism transversely Europe, resulting to bloody disagreements in the former Yugoslavia and activating still bloodier world war1 proceedings. Dangerous Games explores why it’s absolutely important for history to be treated with great care. History manipulation in the world of today is progressively more persistent, being used to protect both the political functions and religious activities alike. This is simply because those who find no enthusiasm in living tend to turn to history and headstone it for enthusiasm. However, we can all agree that history can never be simulated through head-stoning, and the greatness that once was become again in the same manner. These can only occur if we misrepresent the history so as to get the similar consequence. The result of trying to reconstruct the cause to raise the same great consequence is simply just the effort to revitalize the effect. For to replicate the reason that lead to the effect in history is simply to copy and yet there is no repeating history. It is this attempt to replicate history that ends up obliterating it through reinterpretation and misrepresentation leading to creation of mythic inventions. We use history to petition to power, put up a regretful history, run away from the present and more so correct the past with a command for contemporary compensations.  National fable-creation is a unique basis of frank misrepresentations and suppressions, a basically good history decomposes bad folklores. Nations are a modern progress of like the last two hundred years as we all understand, but that doesn’t prevent the false petitions to fantasy past histories. History, at its best educates us, however there still exists misty areas like what to omit or comprise in a school set of courses or in the museum display about the Enola gay concerning a past war and still the public celebrations like Columbus Day do incite the historical argument. Enola Gay is a well known atomic bomber whose exhibits were exchanged at the National Air and Space Museum due to the controversy over the original historical script displayed with the aircraft. On the other hand, Columbus Day is a public holiday in celebration of the empirical native peoples’ conquest and genocidal effects that followed the coming of Columbus in the West Indies. The controversy has come up over the legality of honoring the voyager, Christopher Columbus as a conqueror. Macmillan tries to clearly bring out the idea of history being the best and ideal source of strong disbelief, self consciousness and modesty, (Macmillan, 2010, p. 93). Macmillan argues that much of the recorded history is tainted by nationalistic and religious prejudices claiming that citizens unaware of its shortcomings are easily manipulated by less-than-scrupulous leaders, (Macmillan, 2010, p.98). A good example is that of Adolf Hitler, whereby he actually put the blame on the Jews for Germany’s defeat and its humiliation in World War 1 at Versailles.  She skillfully thinks that it’s of great necessity for us, having a great knowledge of the past to avoid the ordinary traps in thinking to which we may be the target. This therefore calls for a new assessment and understanding of history not forgetting our own faith. In most cases history may be repressed by autocrats simply because it confronts their total power asserts, their thoughts as well as their plans, they undermine history only to use it in formulating traditions. In this very important although slim volume, historian Macmillan tries to defy those who use or abuse history for their own intentions. She tries to draw upon tangible examples from the Chinese who in spite of rising to the position of fiscal superpower, still promote the sense of oppression, to the Israelites and Palestinians fighting over land now under the power of Israel with the subject of who may have arrived there first (Macmillan, 20...