The Value of History

It seems like the ultimate result of our education (conditioning) these days, is not to make us less biased and nonpartisan (prejudiced), but to make us more so, while calling it a nicer name. Many of the most deceptive and manipulative rabid partisans, even pride themselves fn their ability to persuade , convince and intimidate people to believe anything they want them to -- as today’s accepted and approved display of power -- as a more enlightened and progressive path, rather than it is the same coercion against one’s will, to do the will of another, with a lot less bloodshed.

And if we simply count the number of lives lost through these systematic programs for the elimination and extinction of lives -- we really have come a long way from century to century. What distinguished world events for most of human history has been wars, diseases and famines -- that are pretty much kept in check except for a sporadic few individuals.

Probably what most distinguishes an “undeveloped” country these days is not their lack of participation in the global economy as much as it is that they are still killing off their fellow countrymen, to determine who gets to reward only their clan. That is the mark and mentality of “third world” status -- rewarding only their own partisans, and exterminating the rest. Such leaders proudly proclaim as soon as they ascend to power, that they will reward all their friends, and punish all their enemies -- as though that was still was it means to be a “leader” in any field of human activity.

Hopefully, we no longer elect people like that to any position of responsibility and trust. but ultimately, it has to be the responsibility of the citizens not to promote such people to those positions -- by not being able to recognize any difference, or think that it does not matter.

People and societies improve because once they are exposed to “better,” seldom go back to preferring what was worse -- even while claiming that things have never been so bad in the whole history of humankind. Assuredly, they were always worse -- but the standards of tolerance have improved so greatly, that inconveniences can sometimes seem like a great catastrophe.

Not everyone has that inherent perspective of human development through time. Those without that sensitivity, think that times were always as they are now, or that the truth of another moment, no longer exists if one wants to say something else now, no matter how contradictory to what was said before. To such people, there is no truth and reality other than what they say and can get others to believe -- and that is their only reality.

For much of history, that was what history was -- a different story, depending on who told it, and the people who had the power, could hire the writers to write it the way they wanted it to be written. Subsequent historians (writers), merely spread that story more widely -- of that mythical past.

The New Historian observes and writes of the present as it is happening -- without benefit of how it all turns out for a happy ending to the desires and specifications of their benefactors (bosses), without benefit of that hindsight that is usually simply wishful thinking that it was so.