How Unexamined History Makes You Dumb

“The First Thanksgiving 1621” by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

To study history is to look at the past through the lens handed to you by someone else. To re-study it is to grind that lens into a new shape—one that doesn’t blur systemic truths or polish over inconvenient realities. This isn’t just an intellectual exercise. It’s about cultivating critical intelligence, the ability to identify patterns, question assumptions, and connect the past to the present in ways that illuminate not just where we’ve been but where we’re going. If you want to understand how the world works—how power, privilege, and identity shape human experience—there is no better place to start than with the past.

Re-studying history is essential because the adage “History is written by the winners” holds unflinching truth. Historical narratives are crafted by those who prevailed, who had the loudest megaphones or the sharpest swords. In the past 1500 years, that often means SWAMs—straight, white, American males—whose comfort zones often insulate them from grappling with how systems of power actually function. But they’re not the only ones distorting history. Progressives, often motivated by identity politics, can twist the past into a different kind of mythology, one where everyone is conveniently categorized as villain or victim. Both approaches rob history of its intrinsic complexity, leaving us with a version of events that feels more like propaganda than truth.

Re-studying history, then, is about more than learning facts—it’s about interrogating narratives. It's about tearing apart the comfortable stories that protect privilege and uncovering the systemic patterns that connect yesterday's injustices to today’s inequalities. It is, quite frankly, a moral obligation for anyone who values growth, both personal and societal.

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The Problem with Extrinsic, Linear History

Most of us learned history the way you’d assemble a bookshelf from IKEA: follow the steps, attach piece A to piece B, admire your handiwork, and call it a day. History is taught as a series of discrete events in a linear timeline, stripped of their systemic context. You memorize dates, names, and bullet points: 1776, George Washington, Civil Rights Movement. But these are the skeletons of history, not its living body.

Teaching history this way erases the "why" and "how" that connect events to the larger systems of power and values. For instance, American slavery is often taught as a moral failing resolved by the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, with a cherry-on-top mention of the Civil Rights Act. What this tidy narrative ignores is that slavery wasn’t just a moral lapse. It was an economic engine—a core feature of American capitalism—and a system explicitly justified by Christian theology.

This linear, extrinsic approach leaves us woefully unprepared to see how the past isn’t really past. It allows people to sidestep accountability for the systems of injustice they’ve inherited, whether they’re driving on roads funded by redlined neighborhoods or sending their kids to schools built on land stolen from Indigenous peoples.

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Systemic Blindness and the Privilege of Comfort

The problem gets worse when you factor in systemic blindness, the inability—or refusal—to see the interconnected forces shaping history and modern life. This blindness is most prevalent among those who benefit from the systems in question. For SWAMs, for example, it’s easier to believe in a narrative of individual merit than to confront how their success might rest on centuries of stolen labor and land.

But systemic blindness isn’t limited to traditionalists. Many progressives fall into the trap of intention projection, where they view historical figures and systems through the lens of modern values. On one end, you have folks turning Thomas Jefferson into a saint of liberty, conveniently ignoring the enslaved people who made his lifestyle possible. On the other, you have progressives flattening him into a one-dimensional villain, erasing the complexity of his time and the contradictions in his life. Both approaches obscure the truth, which is often messy, uncomfortable, and morally ambiguous.

Leaving history as you learned it—untouched, unchallenged—is a kind of privilege. It creates an identity buffer, insulating you from the discomfort of realizing that your version of history might be more myth than fact. For Christians, this can mean ignoring the ways in which their faith was weaponized to justify colonialism and slavery. For Americans, it means celebrating wealth and power without reckoning with the exploitation that built them. For progressives, it means holding onto a simplified narrative of oppression that leaves no room for nuance or shared humanity.

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
― George Orwell

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Case Study: The Doctrine of Discovery and Its Competing Distortions

The “Doctrine of Discovery” is a prime example of how historical narratives are twisted by both privilege and ideology. In 1493, a papal decree declared that lands not inhabited by Christians could be claimed by European powers. This theological justification for colonization became the bedrock of systemic violence—enslaving Africans, displacing Indigenous peoples, and extracting wealth from the Global South.

Traditional narratives ignore this doctrine altogether. You’re more likely to hear about Columbus “discovering” America than about the genocidal policies that followed. This erasure allows SWAMs to ignore how their wealth and national identity are built on systems of theft and exploitation that persist to this day. For example, the Doctrine of Discovery’s principles were explicitly cited in the 2005 Supreme Court case City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation, which denied the Oneida people the right to reclaim their ancestral lands.

But progressives distort this history in their own way. Some focus solely on the cruelty of European colonizers, reducing Indigenous and African peoples to passive victims. This erases the agency and resistance of these communities, who didn’t just endure but fought, adapted, and survived. Others conflate Christianity itself with colonial violence, ignoring the role of faith in abolitionist movements and civil rights struggles. Figures like Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. show how Christianity was also a powerful force for liberation—something that a simplistic, identity-driven narrative fails to acknowledge.

These competing distortions—one of erasure, the other of oversimplification—illustrate why re-studying history is vital. Only by embracing systemic context and intrinsic perspective can we see the Doctrine of Discovery not as a relic of the past but as a living thread in the fabric of our present systems.

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The Long Shadow of the Doctrine of Discovery

The Doctrine of Discovery is a great example of how unexamined history becomes modern reality. It is a chilling example of what happens when moral authority and political power become entangled. This toxic fusion of church and state not only corrupted both institutions but also created a lasting template for oppression cloaked in righteousness.

The U.S. Constitution, written in the shadow of Europe’s history of church-state abuses, explicitly sought to prevent such alliances. The First Amendment’s establishment clause wasn’t a theoretical safeguard—it was born of hard-earned lessons about the tyranny that arises when governments adopt religious authority or when religious institutions wield political power. Yet, the Doctrine of Discovery remains a potent reminder of how easily this line can be blurred, both in the past and in modern forms of ideological overreach.

Modern Christian Nationalism: A Revival of Church-State Entanglement

In its contemporary form, the Doctrine of Discovery finds echoes in Christian Nationalism, which seeks to conflate American identity with a specific brand of Christianity. Proponents of Christian Nationalism aim to legislate morality based on their interpretation of biblical principles, pushing for policies that blur the separation of church and state. This movement invokes a revisionist history, claiming America was founded as a “Christian nation” while conveniently ignoring the Constitution’s clear warnings against such governance.

Christian Nationalism’s agenda often uses religious authority to justify exclusionary policies, targeting reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ freedoms, and pluralistic education. Like the Doctrine of Discovery, it cloaks systems of harm in the language of moral righteousness, framing the subjugation of others as a divine mandate. This isn’t just a political threat—it’s a theological one, corrupting the spiritual integrity of Christianity by weaponizing it for power.

The Progressive Mirror: Secular Alliances That Mimic Religious Overreach

But the danger of church-state alliances isn’t confined to conservatives. A progressive version of this overreach can emerge when secular ideologies adopt the same tactics of moral enforcement, treating certain values with quasi-religious sanctity. This occurs when progressive movements push the state to act as the arbiter of ideological purity, mandating conformity in ways that echo the very dynamics they claim to oppose.

For example, progressive education reforms often aim to correct historical erasures and highlight systemic injustices—crucial work for a more equitable society. But when these efforts stray into moral absolutism, presenting subjective interpretations as unassailable truths, they risk alienating potential allies and stifling legitimate debate. This kind of ideological rigidity can mirror the authoritarianism of church-state alliances, albeit under the banner of inclusion and justice.

Similarly, policies designed to promote inclusivity can sometimes overreach, creating environments where dissent or critique is treated as heresy. Examples include overly broad speech regulations that penalize individuals for unintentional infractions or suppress good-faith discussions about sensitive topics. While rooted in noble intentions, these actions can replicate the exclusionary dynamics of historical church-state alliances, where deviation from the orthodoxy—whether religious or secular—is met with punishment.

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The Ripple Effects of Historical Ignorance

The failure to re-study history ripples outward, poisoning our understanding of religion, race, wealth, and national identity. For Christians, it allows the faith to be hijacked by nationalism and capitalism, distorting its central teachings of compassion and justice. For Americans, it enables blind patriotism, where systemic exploitation is dismissed as the price of greatness. For progressives, it encourages divisive identity politics, where historical complexity is sacrificed for ideological purity.

Most importantly, this ignorance stunts personal growth. Without systemic context, individuals cling to a fragmented sense of identity, unmoored from the broader systems that shaped their lives. Re-studying history forces us to confront the uncomfortable truth that our personal values and privileges are products of these systems—and that we have a responsibility to challenge them.

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The Path Forward: Re-Studying History with Critical Intelligence

Re-studying history requires courage. It means abandoning comforting narratives and grappling with the messy, systemic realities of the past. It means asking hard questions: Who benefited? Who suffered? What systems connected them, and how do those systems persist today?

For Christians, this might mean confronting the ways their faith has been both a tool of oppression and a source of liberation. For Americans, it means reckoning with the exploitation that built the nation’s wealth. For progressives, it means resisting the urge to flatten history into binaries and instead embracing the complexity of human experience.

“If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree. ”
― Michael Crichton

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Conclusion: Why It Matters

Re-studying history isn’t about tearing down statues or rewriting textbooks for the sake of political theater. It’s about cultivating critical intelligence, the capacity to see the world as it truly is, not as we’d like it to be. History is not a tidy narrative of progress. It is a contested, messy story, written by the winners, distorted by ideology, and shaped by systemic forces that still define our lives.

To leave history untouched is to live in comfortable ignorance. To re-study it is to wrestle with the truth—and to grow, both as individuals and as a society. As daunting as that may sound, it’s the only way forward. And if you’re not willing to face the past, don’t bother hoping for a better future.