“Why [consider history]? Simply because I am interested in the past? No, if one means that […] a history of the past in terms of the present. Yes, if one means […] the history of the present” (Michel Foucault). His quote can be found in one of his last works, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison which was published in 1975. Discipline and Punish was about the evolution in French society’s punishment. He explains about how the change from monarchial punishment to disciplinary punishment was in a short time. Though, from his quote he was attempting to show that there was more into history and that history is not all about the past, but the present.
Foucault said, “History was full of holes as gruyere cheese” (Strathern). From Discipline and Punish, he said, “Why [consider history]? Simply because I am interested in the past?” (Foucault). This doesn’t mean he had disinterest in history. In his early years, he loved reading history. He was influenced by Hegel because Hegel’s philosophy was that there was something else below the events of history. Hegel states, “In history we are concerned what has been and what is; in philosophy, on the other hand, we are concerned not with what belongs exclusively to the past or even the future, but what is both now and eternally is, with reason” (Strathern 16). There was a meaning or a hidden structure of history. Foucault meant history would be nothing without the true meaning of it. This quarter in history class, I studied the history of the United States up to the 1800s. Of course, I learned about the events happened, what lead to the events, and I identified key figures who were involved in the events. Though one concept left out about learning history was why did it happened, what was the reason or truth. In Foucault in 90 Minutes, the truth was not “something given, something which we have to discover –it is something we must create ourselves” (Strathern 16). When I studied about philosophers, like Hobbes and Locke, I understand that their concept of human nature ties in to leading of the occasion and how it was reacted. I thought that history would be just different significant events, but I learned that human nature was always behind history’s structure. Come to find out, history was the set of different events, but with similarities (also called trend). Without the true meaning behind history, I would only just learn about the events and how it was caused.
From Foucault’s quote, “history of the past in terms if the present”, it means that the significant events from the chronological record holds connections with similarities. Foucault was trying to say that the past is the present and we could understand that the “past showed how we could understand the present “(Strathern). He meant that history is the present. History is basically a repeat of its self. Foucault’s approach to history is the present made me realized that history hold similarities. Knowing the similarities would help me understand history better. It wasn’t difficult for me to relate, for instance, as a woman in the Daughters of Liberty that played a role against the British. Again from learning the meaning behind history, human nature will always be the same. The human nature concept gave me another way of studying history.
I have always considered that history was a boring subject. Learning about the significant events were useless for me that it sticks to my head and a year, or a quarter, it would be gone. Foucault's quote gave me another idea why history was so interesting to learn. I realized he meant we are living the past. I meant was that learning history is like learning right now.
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