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Underground eXperts United File 506
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Underground eXperts United
Presents...
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[ A Reason Why We Do Not Learn From History ] [ By The GNN ]
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A REASON WHY WE DO NOT LEARN FROM HISTORY
by THE GNN/DCS/uXu
Imagine that mankind will suffer a great human disaster in a not very
remote future. Also suppose that this disaster is caused by a group of
people, who wanted to do good, but failed big time; perhaps due to lack of
knowledge, inability to foresee consequences, lack of introspection, an
exaggerated belief that everything they saw in front of their own eyes was
everything there were, and equal, and so on.
During the peak of the disaster these people will naturally be described
as monsters. After all, they are de facto the ones responsible to for the
misery. No one will be interested in (and rightly so) debating questions
like "are these people really bad?" because the acute subject on the agenda
is to get the disaster to an immediate end.
But later, when things have cooled down, what ought we do? Ought we
still describe them as pure evil-doers, monsters, devils?
If we want to learn from history, we ought not. Because the descriptions
will not be true.
But if we do not want to learn anything, we ought; we should paint them
in the darkest colors we can find, so that the difference between black and
white will be indisputable to all.
Unfortunately, the latter is what is always done. History, as we learn
it, consist of good people - and evil people, end of story. We are told to
analyze the evil people, so that we will be able to spot and stop them if
they appear again in some other disguise. But, no matter how many times we
are told this, the same (but not identical, of course) disasters strikes
us, over and over again.
Why do we not learn from history? The answer has already been stated: we
do it because we are not told the entire truth. Yes, the core of the
historical education is true: the events that we are told really happened.
But when demands of explanations why those events happened, the truth is
suppressed in favor of exaggerations and simplifications.
The point of learning from history is that old mistakes will not be
repeated. But by not telling the whole truth of what has been, painting all
the little entities that makes up the complex whole with rough brush
strokes, mistakes are deemed to be repeated. We will walk the streets and
look for truly amoral people who want to do bad.
But there are no, and have never been, such people. There has always
been people who wanted to do good, but failed big time; perhaps due to lack
of knowledge, inability to foresee consequences, lack of introspection, an
exaggerated belief that everything they saw in front of their own eyes was
everything there were. But we do keep an eye on those people. Instead, we
might even vote for them, believing that we have done the right thing.
So, once again, while we with the best intentions are searching for
ghosts, mankind will suffer yet another disaster. And as usual, we will
wonder how it could happen. Do we never learn? we will ask ourselves, and
the answer will be no. Not yet.
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uXu #506 Underground eXperts United 1999 uXu #506
ftp://ftp.lysator.liu.se/pub/texts/uxu/
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