David Hegg | Will We Learn from History |
By David Hegg
Edmund Burke, the 18th-century British statesman, is the first one credited with saying, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” It looks like we are rushing to prove him right.
Some years ago, I quit playing racquetball for a couple of reasons. First, I moved away from both the club I frequented and my playing partners. But I was ready to quit anyway for the second reason. The game had become quite predictable. I became convinced that racquetball has only a few dozen situations that are played over and over and over again. After some time, my playing partners and I learned how to address every situation. Simply put, we learned how to face each challenging serve and kill shot, and without the element of surprise, the game ceased to be engaging.
Like racquetball, history has a way of putting us in the same situations over and over and over. And, as Burke so cogently pointed out, if we face each situation as though for the first time, never learning from experience, we are never going to overcome the challenges each situation poses.
Is it just me, or are we seeing the same episodic miniseries being played out in........