The American philosopher George Santayana once noted that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. What he failed to note, however, was that when you're doomed, you end up taking a whole lot of others with you. And, that's pretty much the case right now.
There are others who will tell you that history is written by the victors. There is certain more than a grain of truth in that one, even if conscientious historians like Howard Zinn strove to face this truism head-on. In other words, you have to search far and wide for one that isn't.
Taken together, we're faced with something of a dilemma. One reasonable conclusion seems to be that since we're reading a distorted history, we're learning all the wrong lessons (if in fact we're truly learning at all). It is especially problematic when different victors with different histories meet. The confrontation is too often volatile.
This, in turn, should make us aware of at least one thing: we need to be careful with the histories we believe to be true, and when in doubt, it doesn't hurt to do some checking to make sure the one you're using is worthwhile. More often than not, people choose to believe what they want to believe and only use the "documentation", if you will, to "prove" their foregone conclusions. What our friend Wm. James said about thinking in general is just as applicable to histories in particular.
In the course of my life, I have come to discover that most of what I was taught about history in school and those entertaining and dramatic depictions of history that flowed across the TV screen were, almost invariably, not just false, they were downright dishonest. I'm not so naive as to think that there are no dark sides to any nation's history, nor am I gullible enough to believe that what others are pushing as their own official versions might have "conveniently" left out those less savory parts. But, if I have learned one thing from the Germans in my time living here, it's that regardless of how painful it might be, it is absolutely essential to confront your history, to deal with it, to come to terms with it. Some are still struggling with it, to be sure, but at least it's on the table for discussion.
I'm no big fan of the idea that the past is the best predictor of the future for the simple reason that too often the past we are looking at isn't the one we should be looking at. Consequently, I'm making a plea for getting the real one and taking a good, hard look at it. If nothing else, it can provide a view of a whole lot of mistakes that we would do well to avoid in the future.
For example -- and it is only one, of many -- I have searched far and wide but simply can't find that example where waging war was a good thing, that it actually solved a problem or that it lastingly made the world a better place. But, as recent events have shown, it is still an awfully popular "answer" to some as yet not clearly formulated question. I simply don't get why we don't get it. What's worse, instead of coming to the realization of its futility, we're actually expanding it, turning it on ourselves, so to speak. (Or what is all that militarization of police forces all about?)
At bottom, for me, then, is the question: don't we know or don't we want to know?
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