Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
-George Santayana
What does this statement mean to you? Post a quick response...I will accept anons.
It is a much more complicated statement than you think. I will explain it in my next post.
6 comments:
ummmm un-wise spending..... ummmm economic un-stimulous bill
This statement applies to mistakes that are being made right now, that have been made in the past and led to disastrous consequences. It is my personal belief that people elected Barack Obama to become President because they mistakenly think that he is going to be able to remedy everything that is wrong with their lives. Many people trust him right now to follow through on the empty promises he has made the American people. This might be a bit of a stretch, but does anybody remember that these same tactics of propaganda in a time of economic turmoil, poor morale, and a lack of unity among a country is what helped Hitler come to power? Obama's campaign was all propaganda! Nobody knows for sure what is to come next, but I think it is going to be very interesting when people start to realize that just because the president-elect turned celebrity (which is also a huge problem, and one I don't have time to comment on now)is now in power, all of their economic, financial, life woes aren't just going to magically disappear. What a precarious situation we have gotten ourselves into, America.
I think in general people don't learn from history, that is why it does repeat itself.
What scares me about this, is that we live in a new age of fast change. More changed in our lifetimes changed in 100's of years in the past. So not only will poor decisions 'doom' us, they will do so at such a rapid pace. We won't know what hit us.
But maybe, I'm in a glass half empty phase in my life.
I'm going to mix it up. I expect everyone will have neg things to say about the stimulus bill. But History generally holds that the great depression was a result of the government not doing enough. No one wants to go though that again.
Now we can certainly disagree with the idea of what really caused the depression but if we diverge from the common held view then how can we "learn from history" because everyone will have a different view of it. I'm not saying that is my view but I always try and see the other side.
Let's start with something smaller.
You are a child, riding a bike. Your mother says you may only ride your bike in a specific area, presumably where she can keep an eye on you, where she knows you're relatively safe. It seems limiting at first. But as you ride that same circuit over and over, you begin to learn it. You know the places where there's a slight slope in the pavement, and if you take it just right, it feels like you're flying down the hill. There's another spot in the same limited circuit where there's a crack in the pavement. If you swerve just right, you can avoid hitting it, and stay on your bicycle. But if you don't get it just right, if you hit that crack, you're going to wipe out on your bike. You'll leave skin all over the blacktop, and you might even bend the frame.
What if you never remembered that crack was there? What if every time you rode that same circuit, you hit that crack, every single time.
If you could not learn from your own personal history, you would indeed be doomed to repeat it every time.
Now expand that. Expand it beyond kids on their bikes. Expand it to every decision you make. Expand it to every decision your political leaders make. Expand it to every decision your nation makes.
Even the ugliest things in our history can be redeemed if only we can learn from the mistakes made by everyone before me, and the ones I've made myself.
pay attention to who has gone before and what they have done. learn from their mistakes, and be inspired from their successes.
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