Abstract
This chapter deals with the contribution of both formal (schools) and informal (museums, exhibitions, etc.) history education to the possibility of imagining the future. It considers that history education is indeed related not only to the past but also to both the present and the future. Also, from a theoretical point of view, this chapter develops the idea that Orwell envisaged this relation between past, present and future in his classic novel 1984. The chapter shows that both formal and informal present practices of history education should be revised in order to promote a full comprehension of the relation past–present–future and avoid an essentialist and romantic view of the past, which does not allow for understanding either the present or the future.
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Notes
- 1.
Elsewere (Carretero, 2011), I have considered these goals as romantic because of the close relation of Romanticism and nationalist ideas. Present approaches of history education objectives as conceptual tools to critically understand social and political problems through disciplinary developments is something rather recent which started its development by the 80s of the last century approximately.
- 2.
House of Cards. Season 2, episode 5, min. 45., ss. 5.
- 3.
As can be noted, the expression “living history ” is indicating, by itself, a clear connection of past, present, and future because if something belongs to the past, how is it living at the same time?
- 4.
- 5.
At the moment of revising this chapter, hot controversies and even strong political fights have been produced in the United States about precisely the statue of General Lee, who was the military leader of the South. President Trump has criticized the possibility of taking out symbols of slavery as an institution like the statue of General Lee (https://elpais.com/internacional/2017/08/17/actualidad/1502980445_259315.html). Are similarities between Trump and Underwood a pure coincidence?
- 6.
See, for example, Episode 1 (Season 3) in relation to the first sentence and Episode 3 (Season 3) in relation to the second one.
- 7.
For example, the way Orwell looks at the relation of language and thought is also fascinating because he considered many Vygotsgy (2012) positions and also he anticipated many issues discussed later by contemporary research, specifically about the relation between language and thought. This is to say, for example, according to the Party State of 1984, to change the language being used in the present would definitely influence not only its future use but the thought associated with it.
- 8.
It has been considered that Orwell was inspired by the novel We by the Russian writer Zamyatin (https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/jun/08/george-orwell-1984-zamyatin-we). In his novel, he described a society where the houses are made with transparent crystal. Therefore, all the people are seen by others and by the State all the time and there is no privacy. This idea was re-elaborated by Orwell through the analysis of the influence of the mass media, and particularly TV, on present lives.
- 9.
As a matter of fact, Orwell had serious difficulties publishing 1984. As it was a strong critique of the Soviet Union, both USA’s and UK’s political establishments preferred not having confrontations with their former ally in World War II.
- 10.
Officially, China and Cuba are still communist countries, but it would be much more accurate to consider them as state capitalist countries. The first has allowed capitalist practices several decades ago and the second has a nomenklatura which is the owner of most of the country.
- 11.
Probably one of the most interesting from a psychological and cultural point of view is his argument of a newspeak. The relations of this idea with soviet psychology of the 1930s is very clear and it deserves a careful exploration.
- 12.
The case of Victor Klemperer (2006) who studied how the language was censored and extremely controlled under the Nazi regime is also very clear.
- 13.
Wertsch (2002) has alerted us about how very often counternarratives are very close to official narratives in the sense of just having a different content but the same structure.
- 14.
For example, let us consider Orwell’s ideas about the importance of nationalism when he says: “One cannot see the modern world as it is, unless one recognizes the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In certain circumstances, it may crumble; at certain levels of civilization, it does not exist; yet as a positive force, there is nothing comparable. Next to it, Christianity and international socialism are weak as hay. To a great extent, Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries because they were able to understand this fact, whilst their opponents were not”.
- 15.
Even nowadays, an important part of present politicians denies the role played by the Japanese army in World War II. For example, they deny the well-established historical research about the 200,000 so-called comfort women, mostly from Korea, used as forced prostitutes for the Japanese army.
- 16.
Recent events in New York and Los Angeles (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-columbus-new-york-20170902-story.html) have indicated how controversial this historical figure is who is producing continuous debates in at least the last two decades in both North and South America.
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Acknowledgements
This chapter has been possible because of the support of the Project EDU-2015-65088P, from the Ministry of Education (Spain), and Project PICT-2016-2341, from ANPICYT (Argentina) coordinated by the author. My acknowledge also to Candela Carretero because of her comments about the series Black Mirror.
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Carretero, M. (2018). History Education and the (Im)possibility of Imagining the Future. In: de Saint-Laurent, C., Obradović, S., Carriere, K. (eds) Imagining Collective Futures. Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76051-3_13
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