The Nature of History

During this public history class, I was able to take a different look at history than I have normally done in all of my other histroy classes. I never thought about how long until the U.S.S. Constitution is no longer the U.S.S. Constitution. I enjoyed thinking about this question because it is a question that really doesn't have an answer and people will always be willing to fight over. Before this class, if someone would have asked me How Long until the U.S.S. Constitution is no longer the U.S.S. constitution I would have probably said forever. I don't believe that holding certain historical artifacts in a high regard is a bad thing but when I went and visited my historical sight in Haslett I was left a little dumb founded when I found literally a park, thats all it was. I can't imagine that anyone would go to this run-of-the-mill park to gain some sort of historical perspective or to commemorate anything.

I also think that I may have become a little cynical towards history after taking this class. I will look at some piece of clutter that a friend has laying around and wonder why he is keeping an old ticket stub to a women's gymnastic meet from 1997. When I asked him why he kept it, he said, "I'll never be able to get another one." This argument wasn't very compelling to me and I truthfully couldn't bring myself to believe that this gymnastics meet had that much impact on my friends life. Often, I now look at people who collect things that are historical to them as people who have a horders tendency.

My view on the nature of history has changed. Before this class I assumed that everything had some historical significance without really putting much thought into how I came to that conclusion, but I now take a different approach. Thinking back to the question about the U.S.S. Constitution, makes me stop and wonder when have we gone to far in preserving things. Like when Scott spoke about that two mile strip of road in Detroit that is being preserved as historical and I wonder when I-75, I-96, and I-69 will become historical landmarks that nobody is allowed to drive on anymore.