As far as I can tell, most people who like history become fash. I've loved history from when I was 12, but now I'm not sure if I should. Even if they don't become fascist "entertainers", they become academics too obsessed with the minute details and not about how it meaningfully affects today's world.
Maybe I'm looking into the wrong field for what I'm interested in. Any thoughts?
You're not gonna become a fascist by taking history classes I promise you
This is completely the wrong reason to reconsider your major
This is completely the wrong reason to reconsider your major
Correct. They should reconsider this major because they might become an underemployed alcoholic who posts frequently on /r/AskHistorians.
"Fellas, some fash on YouTube claim to be history buffs. Should I abandon my interest in academia and materialism and cede ground to bad-faith shitposters?"
History is like, one of the most communist things to study. Sure there's dorks who just want to learn fun facts about the past and fash who are weirdly obsessed with the "glorious" empires of the past that constantly smelled like shit and treated women as property, but actually really studying history as a dialectical process is how you get historical materialism, and you can't do that if you don't know your history.
Communists are even bigger history nerds than fascists. It's probably one of the most useful things to study as a communist. Theory is absolutely drenched in historic knowledge. Wanna defend existing and historical socialism against libs? Know your historical arguments and have a degree showing that an institution they believe in doesn't think you're full of shit.
the problem isn't people who like history become fash, the problem is people who become fash like history. they fetishise military history because it fits with their ideology, the study of history doesn't make you one of them. to be a leftist and to not study history is to be ignorant of how we even got into the issues we have now in the first place, to let so many struggles go forgotten, you cannot have a materialist analysis of the world without an understanding of history
So I was a history major in uni, and most of my professors were left-leaning or straight up Marxists. Most of the history books I read are written by Marxists, and the study of history in any sort of actually rigorous fashion often leads me to Marxist conclusions. I wrote my thesis on Firestone's imperialism in Liberia and its intersection with black radicals in the United States and the role it played in radicalizing du Bois into a full blown communist, got to do some serious class analysis, used scary words like "bourgeoisie," and won some award for the best thesis at my school that year. So don't reconsider a history major out of concern for the people involved it in, they're often very sympathetic or outright communists—I have never met a fascist history professor or writer.
That said, maybe pair a history major with something else because I can 100% assure you you will not be working in academia for history in any stable fashion. Tenured history professor positions are virtually nonexistent, and adjunct life is both terrible and very scarce for history majors. You can definitely do office jobs with a history major (I'm a programmer) but don't assume you'll be able to work in the historical field because it basically doesn't exist anymore.
If you love history, do history. Fascists like history because they think it reinforces their pre-existing worldview that they are superior to others. Capitalists like history for the same reasons, I assume. As a history major, you have an opportunity to counter false narratives on socialism and liberation struggles. If you participate in left-wing projects, history might inform you of historically successful and unsuccessful strategies. History won't make you fash
Teach them history from a dialectal/historical materialism standpoint. We need teachers of history who are not fascist or sympathizers. That includes the US.
Ugh I want to be a teacher so bad still. I lost myself when I got out of the army and am just now climbing it out the whole. Teaching may be past me but I can still educate others the best I can.
It turns out that being a good student of history means having the tools and the means to literally tear apart the narratives of settlers, colonizers, and Capitalist apologists everywhere. Be a history major, be a historian, and write a Settlers for the current moment or something. A more objective view of history written by various anti-capatalists has done more to guide my radical understanding of our present reality than any old French pedophile writing philosophy, even if their stuff is occasionally good. There's no better argument I know for opposing most of western economics, for example, than David Graeber systematically demonstrating that the common formative narratives that we have about the capitalist mode of production are literally the myopic bullshitting of Adam Smith and co.
fuck no, 'history buff' fash literally don't know history, they've got fuckall to do with the discipline
