A Story Of Us?

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.7 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2022

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We've been seeing a lot of debate recently about how history should be taught. For example, some believe that the Civil War was about state rights while some argue that slavery played a large role in it. But what if we could all agree on one shared history? The past, as we know it, is a collection of billions of smaller stories that coalesce into the stories of families, communities, nations, and entire cultures. According to Tamim Ansary, narrative is the way we invent the past and the key to understanding history is understanding the stories we tell ourselves about three key areas: technology, environment, and language. With a world seemingly more connected than ever and still volatile with a constant sense of fracturing identities, Tamim contends that our shared history is a story we must invent. And the future of our species depends on our ability to develop a story we can all see ourselves in.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The shape of the narrative is what it all comes down to in the end.
0:11.4	History deals in facts, of course.
0:14.0	But in history, those facts fundamentally serve a narrative.
0:18.5	When we construct our story, we are inventing ourselves.
0:22.5	That's what we were doing in those caves long ago, gathered around the fire, passing
0:27.1	on to our children what we remembered about our grandparents, reminiscing about life-changing
0:31.9	adventures we'd shared, arguing about which of us really killed the bear, and drawing
0:36.9	conclusions about the meaning of life from the stars we saw above.
0:41.8	For when ancient folks looked up at the night sky, they didn't just see stars, they saw
0:46.7	constellations, they said, there's a bear, and they said, hey look, a mighty hunter,
0:55.1	and their companions nodded.
0:57.4	And as long as everybody in the group saw the bear and the mighty hunter, there they were.
1:05.2	To meem unsari, the invention of yesterday.
1:18.0	Conservative lawmakers are asking the Biden administration to abandon curriculum.
1:22.7	They say fabricates American history in schools.
1:26.0	A new controversy about Texas history and free speech, all centering around a new book
1:31.6	about the history of the battle of the alamo.
1:34.4	A Tennessee school board has banned the critically acclaimed graphic novel mouse.
1:39.2	It is a true story about the horrors of the Holocaust by Art Speeglement.
1:43.9	It is a bill passing its first house committee vote on Thursday.
1:47.7	Opponents call it the don't say gay bill.
1:50.2	Here's what this bill says.
	...

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