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Social Studies skills: Difference between revisions
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** sometimes called "counter-factual" or "historical fiction" ("what if?" type scenarios) | ** sometimes called "counter-factual" or "historical fiction" ("what if?" type scenarios) | ||
** however, it's illuminating to consider and evaluate different variables that create historical contingencies and actual outcomes | ** however, it's illuminating to consider and evaluate different variables that create historical contingencies and actual outcomes | ||
=== Contingency Traps === | |||
==== Contingency Fallacy ==== | |||
* an error of historical interpretation through the lens of the present | |||
** i.e., one's understanding of the past is shaped around conditions and perspectives that accord to the present but are not valid in interpreting the past | |||
==== Contingency Trap ==== | |||
* by failing to consider the nature of a contemporaneous past (i.e., how and why things were at the time), | |||
** modern points of view fail to appreciate the conditions and choices that led to their own modern, contemporaneous conditions and the choices they face. | |||
* the "trap" occurs by negating the value of an historical moment while failing to identify that event as necessary and sufficient for the present day | |||
==== Grandfather paradox ==== | ==== Grandfather paradox ==== | ||
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<pre>''If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it off them with some part of the produce of our own industry employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country, being always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will not thereby be diminished ... but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed with the greatest advantage.'' (Book IV, Section ii, 12)</pre> </div> | <pre>''If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it off them with some part of the produce of our own industry employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country, being always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will not thereby be diminished ... but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed with the greatest advantage.'' (Book IV, Section ii, 12)</pre> </div> | ||
** Comparative advantage means concentrating on what your country is good at making/doing in order to get what other countries are better at making/doing." | ** Comparative advantage means concentrating on what your country is good at making/doing in order to get what other countries are better at making/doing." | ||
** early 19th century British economist David Ricardo (1772-1823): | ** early 19th century British economist David Ricardo (1772-1823): | ||
*** argued for specialization as basis for national wealth and increased trade | *** argued for specialization as basis for national wealth and increased trade | ||