We see, of course, partly through the eyes of hunter-gatherers. History is a blip compared to prehistory, in which some very basic reactions were selected out. We can’t discard that legacy, and we wouldn’t want to discard it if we could, because leaving this heritage behind would be leaving humanity behind, in any plausible sense of humanity. We are hunter-gatherers in a strange new world, and that we just have to live with.
So, to be educated is – in the first instance - to recapitulate that history. Oddly, education has come to be defined, through various accidents, as the recapitulation of other histories. In Plato’s day, educated young men recapitulated the Archaic Age, reading the Illiad. Jews in the First Century recapitulated the nomadic times. Christians recapitulate First Century Hellenistic culture. Liberally educated persons learn to recapitulate the rise and fall of Athens. All of these educations give students screens through which to read current realities. And then, as a second move, students need to correct those readings.
It is quite complicated, being human.