I thought his board could appreciate the wisdom of this advice. Really starts at 2:20 mark:

Yeah baby, I really dig studying how we won our independence from France and of course how the aliens built the Taj Mahal.

As a single man who is more historically literate than 99% of people, I can say i hope this advice catches on. But... more than likely I'll be a single guy making historical music.

Somebody to Love-- A Historywave tribute to 20th Century Naval Warfare (youtube.com)

I have never understood the concept of Matt Walsh. The guy proudly never went to college and spent much of his career as a DJ yet feels compelled to give us all advice and posture as a deep thinker.

I guess that is the power of social media. Any old huckster from Logan Paul to this guy can really be someone by dishing hot takes.

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I think you mistake education for intelligence, degrees for wisdom.

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Wisdom is earned and not given per the poet Dante. I will gladly seek it from people who have earned it degree or no degree.

This guy's whole life is non-stop talking, however, so I don't see him as some fount of wisdom earned through navigating complex situations, overcoming hard tasks, failing and absorbing tough lessons, etc. Same goes for most shock jocks, media editorialists, and brand ambassadors. It is so easy to be a BS artist these days.

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The "concept of Matt Walsh" is that he combines a dry sense of humor with counter cultural wisdom on social issues.

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Maybe for a certain audience. Seems like a self-appointed bulls$it artist to others.

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."

Socrates

Matt Walsh and others don't grasp this concept when dishing black and white hot takes to captive audiences actively seeking a specific message.

But I digress.

No, I don't think asking that specific question is some sort of general mark of intelligence. Maybe curiosity in specific subject matter.

For example I was recently at a charity event and speaking with a new board member who has a PhD from Stanford and currently works as a grant screener for a very large, well known foundation with a specific focus on grants for cutting edge cancer treatments. This person told me their daughter was studying history in college, a topic the person had zero interest in and found boring.

This person by any measure is more "intelligent" than you or me and if this topic came up on a first date would signal to that person that the date was going to be lame and the person across the table is boring. I say this as a guy that loves history deeply but also knows it is not for everyone and plenty of smart people have zero interest in it and that is not some comment on their mental faculties.

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Did he find history boring but was informed about history or was he a doofus who will repeat the mistakes mankind has already made for his benefit (if he studied them)

I found math boring when I was younger but I learned it.

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It was actually a she, and she seemed informed enough but we did not speak deeply enough for me to truly know.

In that particular field, I can imagine history not being very helpful except for medical ethics, which history shows all sorts of periods where things crossed red lines. Folks working on gene therapies, for instance, probably won't benefit from absorbing knowledge on how chemotherapy was invented (from Yale pharmacologists studying the impact of mustard gas on white blood cell counts) or how Fredrick Banting was able to formulate therapeutic insulin from a pig's pancreas.

Windy City Ag said:

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I was recently at a charity event and speaking with a new board member who has a PhD from Stanford and currently works as a grant screener for a very large, well known foundation with a specific focus on grants for cutting edge cancer treatments. This person told me their daughter was studying history in college, a topic the person had zero interest in and found boring.

This person by any measure is more "intelligent" than you or me and if this topic came up on a first date would signal to that person that the date was going to be lame and the person across the table is boring. I say this as a guy that loves history deeply but also knows it is not for everyone and plenty of smart people have zero interest in it and that is not some comment on their mental faculties.

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1. Your acquaintance with a college-age daughter and her dating pool is not the target audience for this advice. It's directed to young single women going on a first date with a guy they likely met online.
2. Walsh states there are exceptions to the general rule. Your acquaintance likely fits, but I don't know. A PhD from Stanford can still be book smart but a moron. ETA- your example is a woman. I think you missed the point of his commentary.

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1. Your acquaintance with a college-age daughter and her dating pool is not the target audience for this advice. It's directed to young single women going on a first date with a guy they likely met online.

2. Walsh states there are exceptions to the general rule. Your acquaintance likely fits, but I don't know. A PhD from Stanford can still be book smart but a moron.

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Agree with #2.

Windy City Ag said:

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Did he find history boring but was informed about history or was he a doofus who will repeat the mistakes mankind has already made for his benefit (if he studied them)

I found math boring when I was younger but I learned it.

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It was actually a she, and she seemed informed enough but we did not speak deeply enough for me to truly know.

In that particular field, I can imagine history not being very helpful except for medical ethics, which history shows all sorts of periods where things crossed red lines. Folks working on gene therapies, for instance, probably won't benefit from absorbing knowledge on how chemotherapy was invented (from Yale pharmacologists studying the impact of mustard gas on white blood cell counts) or how Fredrick Banting was able to formulate therapeutic insulin from a pig's pancreas.

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History is helpful in not repeating the mistakes of the past, regardless of your profession.

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History is helpful in not repeating the mistakes of the past, regardless of your profession.

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Agreed . . .Sort of. I think its utility varies depending on the field.

The hard sciences it is probably less so, because it deals in certain cases with dependable and repeatable relations that are not subject to differing outcomes. We don't need a historian to tell us the sun will set each day or water will boil at a certain temperature.

Stretching out into the liberal arts . . .economics, political philosophy, law, history is paramount because we as a a society keep trying to resurrect failed concepts and our memories are short and people are not as well read on these admittedly sometimes contradictory fields.

In medicine, I would think history would lead researchers or practitioners to better question the dogma of the profession. I read one guy say:

"Medicine is like a building that has taken generations to complete though it's never really done. If you look carefully at such a building, with the right training, you will find evidence of builders' hesitation or incompetence, and you'll likely notice some of the parts don't quite fit together for the simple reason that there were different builders over time with different priorities and interests.

All to say, studying the history of the building can help us understand and explain why the building looks as it does and why the floors creak and the ceiling leaks. In medicine, history can illuminate why some things don't work so well today and what might be changed in the future because it needn't be the way it is."