Column by Zachary Strauss
There is a famous term—which many of you might be familiar with—that goes, “those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it,” or some mixture of that. It seems to change based on whoever is saying it for whatever purpose they are saying it for. The quote is originally from a philosopher named George Santayana, who I had never heard of. Yet the quote attributed to him reaches far beyond where he probably expected it to go if he expected it to go anywhere. Santayana also coined the aphorism, “Only the dead have seen the end of war,” which is often misattributed to the Athenian philosopher Plato (such as on Call of Duty death screens).
If you have taken a history class on campus, odds are that someone has brought it up. Why are people thinking about this? Because people want to predict the future, to avoid harm to themselves or those they care about. The past is full of horrific things—war, plague, famine, genocide—so it is good to want to avoid these trappings, but how do people do it? They look to history.
If a person does not learn history, are they more likely to repeat it? Let us go straight to something most people imagine themselves unable to do or become: evil. All throughout history people have committed what is commonly thought of as evil. Did the average German know they were participating in evil? They were most likely not thinking that they were. Yet, they were most likely aware of some evil event in the past. People who are clinically sane (that is, psychologically determined to be sane) will try to rationalize most things they participate in. They will use anything to make themselves feel like they are doing the right thing.
There is a belief in something which can also bolster the belief to righteousness of a cause, regardless of how evil or cruel it might be. Mythology can play a substantive role in justifications, and it is important when we look back on history, and how it can be avoided from happening again. The past can seem distant but it is not. Memory can be a confusing thing and it is not always right, and it can make history seem like it is something that we need not worry about; however, this is wrong.
History is close, and mythologizing makes it closer. Myths can be an immensely valuable thing for really anyone. Myths often cloud the past, making it hard to see what the truth is, and people go to the past for justification. And myths still serve as a boulder for nationalists to bolster around—the myth of the “Lost Cause,” for the Civil War; the myth of “Blood and Soil,” for the modern white nationalism; the myth of Aryanism and Judeo-Bolshevism for Nazism; and the myth of the glorious and inscrutable founding fathers for American history. These terms are not important for this, only to show that mythologizing the past can be very dangerous.
If we recognize the dangers of mythology in history, can we separate what actually happened and what we mythologized happened? Yes, although it is difficult. It helps recognize when we might be falling the same trajectory. When the past becomes a subject without criticism and with adoration of figures lacking any nuance or inspection it can become romantic and worshipped. I am guilty of this, and I think we all are, especially when a certain history impacts us. Being too close to something can often impact the way we think about them and this is no different for history. I think when a person is able to recognize in themselves the contradictions of their history and the history close to them they can move in a more progressive direction. This starts by ridding ourselves of historical mythologizing and seeing the past for what it is, and it is the primary way we can prevent the past from becoming the future.
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