History Repeats, and then History Repeats (Again)

What’s the whole point of going to great lengths to study history and try to take lessons from it, if all the benefits and blessings of that immense treasure trove of knowledge are IGNORED?

History has always been an important part of my life. History isn’t just fascinating purely as entertainment and even occasional amusement. History can also be immensely valuable — essential, in fact — because it helps us understand the present by revealing the causes and consequences of past events. This, in turn, may help us to make better future decisions.

Much of what we all do every day involves history, though we might not realize it. I’m not talking about watching The History Channel. It’s akin to not touching a hot stove because we remember what it feels like to get burned. Picking a place to eat is likely a decision made based on past experiences at that and other establishments. Driving a certain route to a destination is likely influenced by our memories of previous traffic patterns. Even trying to pick a winner in a football betting pool is almost entirely rooted in the teams’ past performances. And certainly, our opinions about politics, economics, culture, and current events were molded by our perceptions of historical events. So, dare I say — history is everything.

History made us who we are.

So, why then do we not ever seem to learn from it?

I admit this frustration is not just a pernicious source of personal resignation from much of the rest of society. It’s actually quite depressing. It becomes the basis of cynicism. What’s the whole point of going to great lengths to study history and try to take lessons from it, if all the benefits and blessings of that immense treasure trove of knowledge are IGNORED?

I’m not able to answer that question. Perhaps someone here has superior insight and can share, or at the very least provide evidence of why we should be optimistic. I’m reading. I’m listening.

I’ll use current events –because sadly– they’re the best evidence of a mass disconnect from history and reality.

— NOTHING was learned from the innumerable lies and catastrophic losses of war. Time after time, the depletion of national treasury which could have gone towards the betterment of society has been plundered — in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, in Iraq. Thousands of lives lost plus incalculable future costs have been the heavy price of our foreign conflicts in the recent past. Now, here we go again with talk of invading nations and instigating regime change, in Venezuela and Columbia. We NEVER seem to learn from history.

— NOTHING was learned from letting capitalism and financial institutions run wild. Nothing has been learned from what happens when regulations get slashed and oversight disappears, when reckless economic policies (and lack thereof) most recently plunged the entire world into an economic meltdown during the 2008 crash. It took us a decade to recover. Before that, we didn’t learn from the Wall Street Crash of 1987, nor before that the Great Depression on 1929 — all economic disasters that might have been avoided altogether with more control and better oversight. Now, here we go again with slashing regulations on banking, defanging Wall Street watchdogs, and allowing unscrupulous shareholder-driven corporations to do as they please, which potentially risks ruining us all once again. We NEVER seem to learn from history.

— NOTHING was learned from an estimated one-million American deaths, many/most of them unnecessary, because a dangerous virus was initially called a “hoax” by the leader of the country. Now, here we go again with gutting science and politicizing life and death issues, from spewing quacky theories on vaccines, to turning the once-respected Centers for Disease Control into a nest of conspiracy cranks, to mocking (and threatening to prosecute) real scientists and medical professionals, and to reconfiguring national health policy around provocative crackpot YouTube videos. And don’t even get me started on what happens to societies that restrict WOMEN’S reproductive rights. We NEVER seem to learn from history.

— NOTHING was learned from the horrors of the past. We thought we’d exorcised the demons and darkness of humanity known as McCarthyism, fascism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and avoided the frightening vestiges of a future Orwellian world described in “1984” (which is now ironically 41 years prior). Now, here we are. The Constitution is revealed to be fragile document, it’s guard rails in danger of being dismantled. International law is shaded, then violated, then openly trampled — while abuses are summarily celebrated by millions of cultist sycophants. We’ve come as close to a dictatorship as ever in our history, with at least three more years of this regime ahead–and who knows how far to the far-Right we’ll end up. Label me as pessimistic because….we NEVER seem to learn from history.

History lessons cascade with testimony, with data, with confirmation, with proof, with information, with witnesses, with documentation, and with WARNING SIGNS.

Of course, it doesn’t help that history is now disappearing from many educational curriculums. And the history that’s taught is getting severely whitewashed. Real history is being removed from museums, even the great institutions such as The Smithsonian. Real history is being stricken from school textbooks. Real history is being plucked off of library shelves, as more than 1,500 books have been banned in Texas alone. And perhaps worst of all, real history is being twisted and bastardized into an unrecognizable gargoyle of distorted reflection and grand illusion. Who is left and who will be there to teach the truth?

When real history disappears, so do we.