I was wondering why there seems to be a great amount taught on Democracy especially in the USA, which is strange because the USA is a Republic and most citizens are even ignorant of that, and not much else? Why don’t we Lecture, Debate, and discuss about Republics, Direct Democracy, Aristocracy and Polity defined by Aristotle, Democracy as a degenerate form of government and Polity the more virtuous, Monarchy and its difference to Dictatorship, the original idea of a Dictatorship in Ancient Rome...Why do we seem to only focus on the Tag or Hot button word of Democracy and completely reject, ignore, or pass over the other systems? Doesn’t discussion promote greater understanding and further development? Wouldn’t education, especially political education, be better off and the graduates as well if they weren’t ignorant of other systems?
Hi there! You’ve asked a question along the lines of ‘why didn’t I learn about X’. We’re happy to let this question stand, but there are a variety of reasons why you may find it hard to get a good answer to this question on /r/AskHistorians.
Firstly, school curricula and how they are taught vary strongly between different countries and even even different states. Additionally, how they are taught is often influenced by teachers having to compromise on how much time they can spend on any given topic. More information on your location and level of education might be helpful to answer this question.
Secondly, we have noticed that these questions are often phrased to be about people's individual experience but what they are really about is why a certain event is more prominent in popular narratives of history than others.
Instead of asking "Why haven't I learned about event ...", consider asking "What importance do scholars assign to event ... in the context of such and such history?" The latter question is often closer to what to what people actually want to know and is more likely to get a good answer from an expert. If you intend to ask the 'What importance do scholars assign to event X' question instead, let us know and we'll remove this question.
Thank you!