Can we get past the past?
It's a cyclical moral we're always taught throughout our lives, the monotonous repetition of a net that we fall comfortably back onto whenever we refuse to accept blame: History is doomed to repeat itself. Sure, it does tend to have trends of the horrible nature of humanity, but when does history repeat itself for the better? Not really ever.
The part of history that seems to recur constantly is the hatred, the intolerance. Genocides and war are the only things that truly happen in almost the exact same way to the exact same people, over and over again. For example, the Jews have forever been blamed for the hardships faced in Europe. Even to this day with Schroder in Germany and Chirac in France, the Jews are targeted as scape goats. Also, homosexuals in this country have been blamed for many diseases and also many "plagues." Sure, AIDS was widespread among gay citizens in the 1980's and 1990's, but now that it's everywhere, we refuse to support monogamy between two men or two women, therefore having the "sanctity of marriage" ideal absolutely askew.
Where am I going, you may ask. Well, history seems to only repeat the horrors and the hatreds. And that's what we focus on in school, isn't it? My point is, what if schools focused on peace and love in history? Sure, it would create a neo-Capitalist environment amongst students, but it's better than having another Apartheid.
Another problem is that there are so FEW examples of peace and love in history, the course would take a few weeks, tops. So we, in America, use the methods of either conservative half-truths or violent exposes. The latter method is a bit dangerous, as with violence we receive a couple responses: for some, the violence shocks the students into pacifism and the search for true justice. For others, it simply dulls the shock of violence in our children. Another response could be the absolute opposite of progress: complacence through using the half-truth history of our textbooks, relying on the surfaced, censorship-riddled "facts" of our time on this planet, exploring and exploiting every resource possible.
This leads me to my next idea. With history repeating itself, why does personal history seem to repeat itself? Is it because of our attitude? Since I've been hurt so much, does my defeatism towards relationships hinder me from attracting a girl? Does the fact that a past relationship ended quickly and painfully mean that the next will end badly as well? I'm beginning to find the patterns in my life, and I don't really know whether or not coincidence is involved.
In conclusion, because shit happens -- or sh'appens, to use the parlance of our times -- we are programmed or conditioned into setting up the perfect environment necessary in which that shit can thrive. Can we ever let go of our history and start over? We see movies about computer-ruled civilization as a pure work of fantasy, but the stories about one man parting an ocean or another walking on water, those are non-fiction? THAT's history? When can we finally get away from the fiction of history and start over, ignoring the past and not learning from any mistakes, because, frankly, we haven't learned shit from them. Can we get past the past before the future is ruined, or did we waste too much time in the past looking at the past and seeing nothing but grey matter.
The part of history that seems to recur constantly is the hatred, the intolerance. Genocides and war are the only things that truly happen in almost the exact same way to the exact same people, over and over again. For example, the Jews have forever been blamed for the hardships faced in Europe. Even to this day with Schroder in Germany and Chirac in France, the Jews are targeted as scape goats. Also, homosexuals in this country have been blamed for many diseases and also many "plagues." Sure, AIDS was widespread among gay citizens in the 1980's and 1990's, but now that it's everywhere, we refuse to support monogamy between two men or two women, therefore having the "sanctity of marriage" ideal absolutely askew.
Where am I going, you may ask. Well, history seems to only repeat the horrors and the hatreds. And that's what we focus on in school, isn't it? My point is, what if schools focused on peace and love in history? Sure, it would create a neo-Capitalist environment amongst students, but it's better than having another Apartheid.
Another problem is that there are so FEW examples of peace and love in history, the course would take a few weeks, tops. So we, in America, use the methods of either conservative half-truths or violent exposes. The latter method is a bit dangerous, as with violence we receive a couple responses: for some, the violence shocks the students into pacifism and the search for true justice. For others, it simply dulls the shock of violence in our children. Another response could be the absolute opposite of progress: complacence through using the half-truth history of our textbooks, relying on the surfaced, censorship-riddled "facts" of our time on this planet, exploring and exploiting every resource possible.
This leads me to my next idea. With history repeating itself, why does personal history seem to repeat itself? Is it because of our attitude? Since I've been hurt so much, does my defeatism towards relationships hinder me from attracting a girl? Does the fact that a past relationship ended quickly and painfully mean that the next will end badly as well? I'm beginning to find the patterns in my life, and I don't really know whether or not coincidence is involved.
In conclusion, because shit happens -- or sh'appens, to use the parlance of our times -- we are programmed or conditioned into setting up the perfect environment necessary in which that shit can thrive. Can we ever let go of our history and start over? We see movies about computer-ruled civilization as a pure work of fantasy, but the stories about one man parting an ocean or another walking on water, those are non-fiction? THAT's history? When can we finally get away from the fiction of history and start over, ignoring the past and not learning from any mistakes, because, frankly, we haven't learned shit from them. Can we get past the past before the future is ruined, or did we waste too much time in the past looking at the past and seeing nothing but grey matter.
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