Why are there so many people who don't really care about their heritage?

I believe it doesn’t matter more than what we have in common. The rest is in that question. Do you find this somehow troubling?

Learning about your heritage is a great way to learn history. Who knows? Maybe folks don’t care about history.

@snowberry I find that learning about one’s heritage or learning about history doesn’t necessitate having to care or be proud about it. I learned about my heritage eons ago, so what, you know?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir It’s not troubling to me at all, it’s just interesting to find out because I grew up learning all about my heritage and it was instilled into me that it was important. I just found it surprising that not as many people as I thought cared about there heritage.

Ehh they’re a bunch of dead people? I care far enough to want to know when my family came to America from Italy but not much past that. I dont really care what my great great grandfather did for a living or who my great great great grandmother met while visiting a foreign country. It impacts my life in no way what-so-ever. Maybe sometime down the road Ill get bored and decide to look into these things but currently, in my life, I have far to much to care about than the boring history of my family. :)

@KatetheGreat You and I share Russian heritage. :)

I’m the only one out of six siblings who is really interested. The rest are marginally interested or not at all interested. Perhaps it will be important to some of them in the future but for now it’s just me.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I never knew about this! That’s really cool!

@KatetheGreat Well you get half of me. The Armenians get the other.

People from countries which are strongly nationalistic tend to focus on their country more than their personal heritage.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Ahh. What part is your family from?

Some of us are futurists in a small sense. Not so far as to neglect or reject history entirely but simply that we prefer to spend most of our focus on what good can be achieved starting from today.

This manifests sometimes in the way that I write on message boards, for example. You might notice in a lot of my replies a certain lack of that good ole’ scholarly habit to quote or cite references. I prefer to aggregate information rather than regurgitate where possible.

I am one of those who said his heritage isn’t that important. It can be of passing interest, and some of the stories of my grandparents are interesting, but I have no loyalty to Scotland or Mexico. My ancestors were not treated well in either country, and I feel very little cultural affinity.

The heritage I feel strongly about is as a patriot. I get verklempt thinking of what the Continental soldiers went through fighting for our freedom, what the Union boys endured to defeat the traitorous South, what the GIs of my parents’ generation suffered fighting the Nazis. And also the heroism of FDR taking on the banks, and the migrants escaping the dust bowl.

I really do wish I knew more but, I don’t because I wasn’t raised that way. One day I’ll go and learn more and bring back some heritage. I do believe though, culture is great, but I don’t think it has to be strictly genetic. I was raised in somewhat of a cultural vacuum, and honestly I do regret that. I have nothing of my actual heritage, culturally… which is pretty sad. I do care, but it’s hard to invent heritage where there is almost none, to go on.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Well, it’s the history of My ancestors. I’m not proud of some of the things they did, but it makes their dates and names personal for me. History without a story is rather boring. Learning the stories behind all those dates and names makes it real for me.

When we homeschooled, I taught my kids history by having them read autobiographies of the people during a certain time period and location, and then we’d plot all that on a timeline. It’s ever so much more fun than the “normal” dates and names way of learning history.

It’s just kinda pointless, and largely depressing. What I know about the ones who were in the past 2–3 generations is that they were a) often horrible people and b) people with lives/interests that are drastically different from mine – sharing a few common genetic traits doesn’t mean I actually care about your needlepoint accomplishments. I love history, but I like being able to choose which parts to look into, not have it dictated to me. As a general rule, I hate my family/ancestors and am deeply ashamed by them, so when I spend the rest of my life trying to get away from them, it seems self-defeating to spend tons of time learning about them.

@MyNewtBoobs that’s an awful lot of vitriol you’re harboring there… what on earth did you ancestors do that was so awful, if you don’t mind my asking of course?

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Stuff bad enough I don’t really share it with other people.

@MyNewtBoobs damn… Gotcha.

Good question Kate. I believe our heritage helps define us as who we are. It doesn’t dictate who we have to become, but still its nice learn about relatives, customs and other shit that has been passed down to us.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Sorry ;) Although, some of them weren’t bad people, they were just uninteresting people who failed to be awesome in any ways that really counteract the crappyass actions of a few. Plus, the ones with all of the records are going to be the generations of the past 200 years, in America, and for some reason, I just don’t care about most American history after 1800.

It’s not that I don’t care about where my family comes from. I am always interested in hearing the stories my mum has to tell about my grandparents and I am fascinated by old photos and things like that. But when it comes to the countries my forefathers came from, I feel incredibly detached. That’s not where I live. That’s not my experience. It’s interesting to know, but it has no shape on my sense of identity.

I blame intolerance. We’re all one people on one planet. Separating it into heritages and nationality’s fills us with pride, and while pride is good, some take it too far and ruin it for the rest because they’re intolerant of others’ pride.

A guess would be that it wasn’t made into a big deal when they were a child. Or maybe it was, and they don’t want to be associated with the stereotypes that go along with that nationality.

Personally, I am. I pay for an account on a genealogy website and enjoy doing the research. I just don’t talk about it with people other than family members that can contribute to the collection of information.

I know a lot of my ancestors came to the United States from England. They settled in Virginia, then in Kentucky. They were Confederate drunks who had slaves. Is it terrible for me wanting to know about this?

I’m not proud of many of my ancestors, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t learn about them.

Because too many people in my family (and the culture where they grew up in) are so proud of their heritage it blinds them. They can’t see the benefits of other cultures, etc… This led to me expressly hating my heritage for some time (before high school) and later on realizing that my heritage doesn’t define me. I am who I am.

Also, I find that focusing on one group (your heritage or otherwise) tends to bias you towards or against that group due to a disparity of information. I don’t want to fall into that trap. Therefore, I do my best to keep my knowledge general.

It’s not important at all. It’s like being proud of your hair color. You didn’t achieve anything, you were just born.

@KatetheGreat I was born in Baku, Azerbaijan. We had to run during the war to a small village in Russia (Krasnodarsky Krai). 15 years ago, I came here.