Why is studying the history of Western ideas helpful for understanding your ideal of social (and/or, political) and aesthetic developments today?
It is a bigger question than that. We are a product of our past and how we process that past into present actions, preparing for the future. We are who we are, and what we do. We have heritage, which leads to our future, for better or worse.
Without study, and reflection, we are just acting randomly based on impulse, without direction, trying to see if evolution really works.