History Still Matters by Bill Moyers - Article Example

Lyndon Johnson pointed out upon taking up the office of the presidency that his position enforced him to address the “unfinished work of others” rather than taking up his own agenda. Finally, he uses himself as a journalist as an example of the dangers of writing a story without an understanding of its past and development. While his credibility might be called into question, the list of stories he provides as examples, the development of communism in Poland, the Middle East, South Africa, and the nuclear problem, are all valid and easily referenced to see his point.

Having attempted to illustrate why history matters in this way, the author moves forward to illustrate how Americans, as a people, have long struggled to ignore rather than learn from history. “We’re a people of the future. The horizon compels our gaze, not landmarks littering the past.” This claim ties in awkwardly with Moyers’ discussion of a documentary series he’d been working on in which he realized where the shift occurred to forward-thinking rather than backward understanding, but eventually makes sense as Moyers indicates that the horror and manipulation of the two world wars created a more pessimistic outlook when learning from history and a general tendency to avoid it.

Coming out of Vietnam, Moyers says, “We lost the war. We lost control of the economy. And we lost faith in our ability, despite the best of intentions, to work through government to make things better.” This overriding pessimism was then coupled to the rapid state of change that has affected the nation during the past 50 years, causing many to have difficulty just keeping up with the new pace and giving them little or no time to understand the past. It is presumed that the slow-paced and technologically-weak past has little or nothing to contribute to today’s high-paced, high-technology world.

However, as illustrated through Orwell’s novel 1984, history is essential to memory and memory is one of the distinguishing differences between humans and animals. While much of what the author uses to support his argument does not seem overly strong or compelling evidence, his final argument about history being our source of memory and our means of moving forward did strike true. As is discussed in the summary of Moyers’ arguments, many of his ideas don’t seem to be very strongly connected nor do they seem to argue convincingly that I should pay closer attention to history.

However, being familiar with 1984 and reading the quote Moyers ended his article with, “All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why,” was in keeping with my own idea of history and why it is important. While I don’t believe Moyers proved his argument to my satisfaction, he did introduce some ideas to ponder and perhaps develop more fully for a more convincing argument sometime in the future.