Why We Study History Then Ignore It Completely
Historians have confirmed what everyone already suspected: humanity is spectacularly good at learning lessons from history and then immediately forgetting them like goldfish with diplomas. Despite centuries of carefully documented mistakes, complete with detailed explanations of what went wrong and how to avoid it, humans continue to charge headfirst into the same errors with the confidence of someone who definitely didn’t read the assignment.
The pattern is remarkably consistent across cultures and centuries. Civilizations rise, thrive, make the same mistakes their predecessors made, collapse, and then future civilizations say “wow, that was dumb” before doing exactly the same thing. It’s like watching someone touch a hot stove, say “ouch,” and then immediately touch it again while expecting different results. Historians have given up trying to explain this phenomenon and now just maintain detailed records of humanity’s commitment to repetition.
The most frustrating part about lessons from the past is that they’re all incredibly obvious in hindsight. Don’t overextend your military. Maintain infrastructure. Don’t ignore pandemic warnings. Balance your budget. Treat people with dignity. These aren’t exactly rocket science-level insights, and yet here we are, collectively ignoring all of them while wondering why things keep going wrong. It’s almost impressive how consistently we fail at this.
Modern society has developed sophisticated ways to ignore historical lessons while pretending to learn from them. We build museums, produce documentaries, assign textbooks, and then proceed to make policy decisions that would make our ancestors weep if they weren’t already dead from making similar mistakes. The difference is that now we have the internet, so we can ignore history faster and with more confidence than ever before. Progress!
Political leaders are particularly skilled at the “acknowledge then ignore” approach to historical lessons. They’ll cite historical examples in speeches, nod seriously about not repeating past errors, and then implement policies that historians immediately recognize as catastrophically familiar. It’s like watching someone use a history book as a playbook while insisting they’re learning from it. The cognitive dissonance is remarkable.
The phrase “history repeats itself” gets thrown around like it’s some mysterious force of nature rather than an indictment of our collective intelligence. History doesn’t repeat itselfwe repeat history because we’re too busy, too arrogant, or too convinced that “this time is different” to actually learn anything. Spoiler alert: this time is never different enough to avoid the consequences of ignoring lessons that were literally written down for our benefit.
Education systems worldwide teach history with the explicit goal of helping students avoid past mistakes, which is adorable in its optimism. Students dutifully memorize dates, events, and causes, pass their tests, and then go forth into the world ready to make fresh versions of ancient mistakes. It’s not that the education failed; it’s that humans are remarkably talented at knowing better while doing worse. It’s our superpower, and we use it constantly.
Perhaps the ultimate lesson from the past is that humans don’t actually learn lessons from the past, which creates a delicious paradox that philosophers probably have a name for. We’re doomed to repeat history not because we don’t know better, but because knowing better apparently isn’t enough to make us do better. It’s a humbling realization that every generation discovers independently, right before ignoring it and repeating history again.
As we continue to study history while simultaneously remaking all of its mistakes with modern technology and social media, one thing becomes clear: the real lesson from the past is that we’re terrible at learning lessons from the past. And that’s a lesson we’ll probably forget by next week.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/lessons-from-the-past/
SOURCE: Sarah Pappalardo (https://bohiney.com/lessons-from-the-past/)
