It's not that myopic though is it? Over the last 2 or so years breakthroughs in AI have given us access to a new level of technology. It's a rich seam to mine, so society is likely to benefit more from a state focussing its research on it instead of e.g. understanding Maori migration a few hundred years ago. A stronger economy leads to more funding for public services to support people alive today.
History has been pretty well uncovered, whether people listen to it and learn its lessons is another matter (schools certainly don't teach it unless it is how the white male oppressors fucked over everyone and it is the cause of all the worlds evils).
Most historical debate these days is also pretty subjective, egos-versus-egos for clicks and likes (and research money) Don't get me started on the subjective biases of social "science"
This is just absolutely factually wrong and betrays a total lack of understanding of the field. History manuscripts are released constantly that are investigating and discussing contents of the archive that have been sitting in a box unexamined since the time of their creation. Even if you take the outrageously limited view of history that it just exists to document the past, we make significant progress constantly.
There's also no research money in the field for egos to squabble over. Research grants for historians are regularly in the "couple of thousand dollars" range.
I wish I could agree, and happy to be shot down but I am not seeing anything that is not just a re-interpretation of current facts to make history sound nicer. there has certainly been nothing uncovered this century that has changed anything and I mean anything important about the current world and the original article was about economic benefits to our country which there frankly are none. Subjective "research" IMHO is a waste of taxpayer dollars when objective research is still underfunded.
Understanding how Māori and Pākehā react differently in different situations is crucial to good social services
If you do not study the society you live in how do you act in a socially positive way? How do you know what public services are even required if you refuse to look?
If there's not much money in the kitty to pay for the services it's academic. Far better to focus on potentially valuable tech so there is money to pay for things later, and do research then if there's any question how to spend it.
That's the kind of reasoning the USSR's Communist party embraced back then. It turns out that state planning of research doesn't works very well in the long run. In the short term it kind of does because all you have to do is catch-up with the state of the art in a handful of priority domains, but when these domains stale then you're screwed because that's all the research you have.
