Good history is good story-telling. And good story-telling demands empathy; it requires understanding different actors, differing motivations, competing goals.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of empathy in understanding history through storytelling.
Ben Sasse suggests that history is best understood as a narrative that requires a storyteller's ability to connect with diverse perspectives. Good storytelling not only recounts events but also necessitates empathy to appreciate the various motivations and conflicts of the individuals involved.
In practice
In a classroom discussion about historical events, this quote can highlight the importance of understanding different perspectives.
Among the responsibilities of each citizen in a participatory democracy is keeping ourselves sufficiently informed so that we can participate effectively, argue our positions honorably, and hopefully, forge sufficient consensus to understand each other and then to govern.
Becoming a reader grows our horizons, our appetite for the good, the true and the beautiful, and our empathy.
The health of our republic depends on shared principles like the First Amendment, but it is also built on the Teddy Roosevelt-like vigor of its citizens and local self-reliance.
Being stuck in adolescence - that's a hell. 'Peter Pan' is a dystopia, and we forget that. Neverland is a bad place to be.
Rising political tribalism, shamelessly exaggerating our opponents' claims or behavior, is leaving us vulnerable: No one loves America's internal fighting - and our increasingly siloed news consumption - more than Vladimir Putin.
I don't think that our Founders would believe that America could long prosper if the people were not readers.
You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun.
My system is to be considered a system leading up, in a general way, to education. It can be followed not only in the education of little children from three to six years of age, but can be extended to children up to ten years of age.
My Alma mater was books, a good library... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.
We have a large public that is very ignorant about public affairs and very susceptible to simplistic slogans by candidates who appear out of nowhere, have no track record, but mouth appealing slogans
When I was going for my graduate degree, I decided I was going to make a feature film as my thesis. That's what I was famous for-that I had my thesis film be a feature film, which was 'You're a Big Boy Now.'
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
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