Answering the Need for Objective History
The science of history is in total disarray. Like philosophy, it continues to be dominated by intrinsicism and subjectivism.
On the subjectivist side, politicization runs rampant, making history look like a mere tool for propagandists--especially of the anti-capitalist variety. Even more insidious is the proliferation of more fundamentally anti-American and anti-western perspectives, including multiculturalism, environmentalism, and feminism. These philosophies have rendered history into a cacophony of warring "voices," with each group deploying historical evidence for purely polemical purposes. It is no wonder that most people do not take history seriously anymore.
Unfortunately, historians who remain committed to the intellectual value of history do not have a worthwhile alternative to offer. In the face of the subjecivist onslaught, they cling to the view that facts "as they really were" are accessible in an unperverted form and represent some kind of intrinsic value. But this value, they insist, can only be grasped by divorcing the study of the past from all present concerns.
In the subjectivist approach, consciousness--one's context of premises and values--acts as a distorting agent that allows the facts to be molded into any shape whatsoever. In the intrinsicist approach, self-effacement is promised as the means to experiencing a value that no longer exists! Either way, history has no objective value.
Yet, history does have a viable cognitive value to offer. It is a value achieved first by identifying the causal relationship between the past and the present. In this approach, history isn't merely seen as storehouse of antiquated facts, but rather as the basis for an abstract perspective on the present. In A First History for Adults™ the causal unity of history is relayed by means of a story. History is told as a causally integrated narrative, with its pivotal events connected into a unified sequence, culminating in the present.
To attain the full value of history, one must also maintain an evaluative perspective based on Objectivism. Contrary to the intrinsicist view, valuable knowledge of the past is not achieved by erasing what one already knows and starting blind. It is realized only by using every available cognitive and normative weapon in one's intellectual arsenal. This means Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism must be deployed at every possible juncture.
The aim of A First History for Adults™ is to do just that! It is a lecture series specifically designed to present the study of the past as a vital intellectual pursuit, informed by a true philosophy, and connected to one's life in the present.