WHAT SHOULD WE LEARN FROM HISTORY? - WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PAST?

Does History Repeat Itself?

Can we accurately predict the future on the basis of the past?  Certain types of events do recur.  For example, former U.S.Secretary o State Henry Kissinger said:  "Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed."  He added:  "History is a tale of efforts that failed, of aspirations that weren't realized. . . . So, as a historian, one has to live with as sense of inevitability of tragedy. 

No two empires fell the same way. Babylon fell overnight before the Medes and the Persians in 539 B.C.E. Greece broke up into a number of kingdoms after the death of Alexander the Great, eventually giving way to Rome. Rome's demise, however, remains controversial. Historian Gerald Schlabach asks:  "When did Rome fall?  Did it ever fall?  Something changed in Western Europe between 400 C.E. and 600 C.E. But much continued."  Clearly, some aspects of history recur, while others do not.

One consistently recurring lesson of history is the failure of human rulership.  In all ages good government has constantly been foiled by self-interest, shortsightedness, greed, corruption, nepotism, and especially the lust to obtain and retain power.   Hence, the past is littered with arms races, filed treaties, wars, social unrest and violence, the unfair distribution of wealth, and collapsed economies. 

For example, note what The Columbia History of the World says of the influence of Western Civilization on the rest of the world:  "After Columbus and Cortes had awakened the people of Western Europe to the possibilities, their appetite for converts, profits, and fame was thoroughly aroused and Western Civilization was introduced, mainly by force, over nearly all the globe.  Equipped with an unappeasable urge to  to expand and with superior weapons, conquerors made the rest of the world into an unwilling appendage of the great European powers .  .  .The peoples of these continents [Africa, Asia, and the Americans] were, in short, the victims of a ruthless, unrelenting exploitation."   How true are the words found in the Bible at Ecclesiastes 8:9:  "Man has dominated man to his injury"! 

Perhaps this lamentable record is what moved one German philosopher to comment that the only thing to be learned from history is that men learn nothing from history. Jeremiah 10:23 states:  "The course of man is not in his control, nor is it in man's power as he goes his way to guide his steps." (The Jerusalem Bible )  This inability to guide our steps should especially concern us today. Why? Because we are afflicted by problems that in both number and scale are without precedent. So how will we cope?

Next time: WHAT SHOULD WE LEARN FROM HISTORY? - CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PAST?/Problems Without Precedent

From the Awake!  magazine