. EMBRACING HISTORY'S LESSONS..
What Every College Graduate Should Know

Chapter 1   About the Author  TOC  Central Lessons  Appendix A B C

10.1.2 Principal Phenomena

History is a composite of influences of: environment, life forms, great men and women, the common person, class struggle, excesses of leaders, conspiracies, manipulation, modifying events (acts of nature, disease, and so forth), wars, religious movements, and political actions. It is also a useful exposé of human nature, cultural fusions, idea evolution, technological developments, and a flow of events.

As Eduard Meyer said, "All of human history is relevant to present and future human needs." He added, "World history is important that we may learn from past experience, cultural history is important that we may understand our social conditioning, and family history is important that we may feel connected." He might have added that personal history is important that we may perpetuate fundamental values.

James Burke remarked, "You can only know where you are going [in life] if you know where you have been." To compliment that observation, Newt Gingrich advised: "Combine the potential of the future with the lessons of the past to enrich the future." Doing so fortifies Disraeli’s conviction, "The more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do."

J. Kelly Sowards wrote, "History has revealed powerful ideas with revolutionary potential." We should know them and about them. Dominant positive ones relate to: morality, liberty, equality, freedom, and the concept of justice; negative ones to: class division, racism, greed, resentment, and the lust to dominate. Significant strides toward sublimating the negative concepts and emphasizing the positive ones have been made over time. That is evidenced in the progress of the principal phenomena of Western history (Anon):

1. Ideas — about morality, moderation, and reason; and doing no harm to others or ones self.

2. Events — evolution of belief systems, development of the scientific method, the Reformation, and the U.S. Constitution.

3. Trends — civilizing mankind; moving toward individual rights.

4. Customs — enhanced: ideals, traditions, and principles.

5. Constants — emotions, change, conflict, and progress.

6. Influences — writing, printing press, and microchips, etc.

7. Challenges — keeping technology, education, and society from turning on themselves.

8. Dangers — power brokers, unrestrained passions, terrorists, taxes, debt, fiat money, regulation, and concentration of wealth.

Positive aspects of these concepts have led to: literacy, government, technology, organized religion, city life, and widespread prosperity in developed countries. In the process, as Sumner noted, the evolution of civilization has emancipated many people from (mental and physical) poverty.

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10.2 Central Lessons

The most important lesson of history, the moral imperative, is embodied in the scriptures, particularly The Ten Commandments, which graces the doctrine of all major religions. Not surprisingly, the "Big 10" are deducible by purely rational means, as was discussed in Section 8.2. Those guidelines form the bedrock of the moral imperative, which is arguably the most important, yet the most widely ignored, of all the lessons of history. It is not the purpose of this section to sermonize on the moral imperative, but rather to acknowledge its central importance and then to summarize more secular findings.

Arguably, the second most important ethical precept, one which constitutes a bridge between the moral and the secular, is the absolute necessity of religious accommodation to achieve individual freedom, social harmony, and long-term stability. This has been demonstrated time and again throughout history.

Most other lessons cannot be documented with the same degree of certainty, which leads to the warning tendered by Michael Howard, "not to generalize from false premises based on inadequate evidence." That is a tough task considering the relatively limited chronicle of the past. Still, useful findings are evidenced.

With that in mind, the following is a synopsis of what others and the present effort have identified as principal inferences. For starters, here are Bronowski and Mazlish’s deductions:

a. The ideas of the past, duly tested (by the scientific method), are the empirical way to truth.

b. Physical nature and human nature follow consistent and permanent laws.

c. The laws of society must derive from the needs and aspirations of individuals.

d. There has been a long-term trend toward the secularization of thought based on the idea that people should make their own judgments.

e. The relation of mankind to themselves and to nature is not totally predetermined.

f. Institutions are formed and die to express the changing mental development (world view) of mankind.

g. Men’s idea of themselves often changes through the generations.

h. Human fulfillment is unattainable without freedom.

i. Societies which safeguard the expression of ideas are the most creative and progressive.

j. The history of ideas is a conflict of mental concepts and constructs.

It is noteworthy that most of the above deductions are associated with the basic nature of mankind.

Closely related to the Bronowski and Mazlish deductions are the symbolic ones of Charles Baird, loosely interpreted: (a) the bee that robs the flower also fertilizes it (there is power in moral self-interest); (b) when it is dark enough you can see the stars (a clear mind enhances perception); (c) whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power (negative acts are destructive); (d) the mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly well (there are processes and progress in life).

Lessons selected by the Durants are quite different from those identified by others. They claim the first lesson of history is the need for modesty. Their second lesson is, "History is subject to geology." The Durants point out that utopias of equality are biologically doomed; further that, birth control spreads in the upper classes while immigrant stock replenishes and alters the population. One of the Durants’ more significant conclusions is that when a civilization falls, it is because of failure of its political or intellectual leaders to meet the challenge of change.

Inferences from Smyth, Roberts, other scholars, and the present work are summarized below according to their general area of derivation.

1. Lessons from religion: (a) religious feelings must be kept tolerant; (b) the moral imperative must be honored to avoid social disintegration; (c) there is a deep-seated need for religion among a large segment of the world’s population; (d) belief-system conflicts are a constant of history; and (e) conquest of self-centeredness is essential to social harmony. There is a growing sense that religion is essential to human dignity and moral order; the reason is, as Wilford M. McClay commented, "Secularism boasts no energizing vision and no revolutionary plan. Everything we know about the function of a healthy political entity suggests the need for governing assumptions, legitimizing myths, and foundational narratives." Besides, there is no significant example before our time of a society maintaining a moral life without the aid of religion (Durants).

2. Overviews from science and technology: (a) virtually the entirety of science is built upon discoveries from the past; (b) science and reason propel technological progress, not myth and belief; (c) the law of obsolescence tends to be ever in force; and (d) civilization is energized by working capital and by applied science.

3. Conclusions from economics: (a) sustainable economic systems must conform to the laws of nature; (b) unless it is corrupted, the free exchange process coordinates economic activity without direction from regulating bodies, except that needed to prevent fraud and dishonesty; (c) a sound currency is necessary to the long-term stability of a nation, (d) excessive taxation and regulation plus uncontrolled debt are the sure route to undermining a nation, (e) any government which hopes to succeed and survive in the long term must foster and protect competition, and (f) great empires crumble when their leaders fail to heed critical warning signs: huge deficits, fiat money acceleration, corporate losses and fraud, over-extended military involvement, plus abandonment by allies; and (g) increases in gross domestic product must be kept greater than the rate of population expansion to avoid societal decay.

4. Observations from the social sciences: (a) society needs to avoid being misled by misguided intelligentsia and by power-mad leaders; (b) a high educational level in a group is necessary to achieve adaptation to change, progress, and economic well-being; (c) to understand men’s minds, you have to understand their history; (d) a mindset of self-responsibility is necessary to the survivability and progress of any group; (e) social progress ordinarily comes slowly and through reason and moderation; (f) communication and trade are lubricants to progress — as Dent wrote, "The more people interact the wealthier they become."

5. Lessons related to government: (a) if not limited, governments tend to become the people’s worst enemy; (b) morality in government is essential to social survival; (c) just systems (based on morality, elevation of reason, and conscience) are necessary to the advancement of civilization; (d) the struggle between capitalism and socialism is the struggle for an equitable distribution of wealth that optimizes the well being of the populace and its progress; and (e) there is no one best governmental system, the best one for a given nation depends on its historical memory and other factors. (Deepak Lal and Hla Myint claim there is no relationship between form of government and economic performance. They say democracy’s only basis for being a "preferred" form of government is its emphasis on the value of liberty.)

6. Lessons from conflicts: (a) there is great danger in unrestricted authority, (b) care must be taken to preserve peace, (c) government should be moderate in civil and international dealings, (d) excessive concentration of wealth and power destroys countries; (e) war is an exercise in immorality that should be avoided whenever possible, (f) other countries unite to prevent any entity from becoming or remaining too powerful; and (g) world powers come and go but conflict continues forever. Empires have over-extended themselves and faded rapidly and dramatically (Harry S. Dent, Jr.). History is not on the side of extremism, events evolve such that the majority are best served (Dick Warshaw). Guarding against fantasies about the glory of war should be a prerequisite of leaders and an aim of the populace.

7. Insights of a general nature: (a) there is an urgent need to achieve a humane means of population equilibrium in most areas of the world, (b) there is a powerful trend towards ever larger groupings, (c) literacy expansion is essential to progress, (d) acceleration of civilization evolves from cross-fertilization of ideas, and (e) the freedom-movement is innate to the nature of mankind. In reference to the last "insight," Bernard M. Baruch wrote, "History teaches that liberty is among the most priceless possessions of humans and is indispensable to just government."

8. Miscellaneous wisdom: (a) Historical precedent serves as a standard for evaluating scenarios, it is essential to avoiding errors and making sound judgments; (b) the mark of a truly civilized person or group lies in a willingness to defer gratification for the later benefit of self, the community, or those to follow (Modified from B. H. Roberts); (c) William Smyth’s cardinal lessons: (i) ambitions should be virtuous, religious sentiment tolerant, and government moderate, plus (ii) "Elevated sentiment is no basis for the conduct of human affairs" — rather, it lies in reason, realism, and moderation; (d) creations of the mind can change the course of history; (e) erroneous philosophies are usually originated by immoral people; (f) regression of morality must be vigorously opposed to avoid social degradation, and (g) right attitudes result in an optimistic way of life.

Thomas Sowell believes the most important lessons from the past are: (a) the catastrophic effect of unbridled political power, and (b) the deleterious effects from corruption of the rule of law. Sowell declared, "If any lesson is written in blood across the pages of history, it is that you cannot trust anybody with unbridled power."

James Dale Davidson listed his central observations from the annals as: (a) history repeats itself, often in startling ways; (b) it is punctuated by migrations; (c) the world is shaped by powerful trends within 60-year and 500-year cycles; (d) new technologies wipe out mistaken investments in old technologies; (e) a society in which no one can make a profit will fail; (f) every major government that tried to inflate away its debt obligations fell from power, (g) new forms of government and organization are needed to cope with new information technology, (h) the record provides examples of a whole way of life disappearing virtually overnight.

It can truly be said that history reflects not only the nature of events, but the nature of mankind. The course of human relationships has shown a trend from tribal to civic to national to global associations and an interdependence which is likely to continue. Similarly, there has been a continued evolution from the relatively simple to the highly complex — as though sophistication were one of history’s main goals. (Perhaps this is the natural opposition to entropy, i.e., the counterpart of the second law of thermodynamics.) The latter concept is in consonance with what philosophers refer to as the Theory of Universal Destiny (or Progress).

One of the clearest lessons of history is the tendency of societies to decay over time, usually from internal rot. It is a phase of the Law of History: societies undergo unending development, decay, and transformation (Tarnus). It follows that past primacy is no guarantee of future dominance as the account of the Fertile Crescent and China demonstrates. Nonetheless, as Jarod Diamond wrote, the nations currently rising to new power are still the ones which were dominant centuries ago; i.e., those with a history of literacy, centralized government, and similar attributes. As he said, "The hand of history’s course at 8,000 BC lies heavily on us."

From such revelations, the historical record provides an opportunity to learn how to make good choices in the course of gaining an understanding of how the world works. It is central to ongoing understanding of ourselves and our society (Loewen). Likewise, it is central to comprehending other people and their societies.

Windschuttle warns that if you discount history you lose your past. He goes on to comment about how our culture is reflected in our past, and interpreting the past any way you like is nonsense. In the same vein, Michael Crichton noted: "If you don’t know history,. . . you’re like a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree."

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10.3 Commentary

An unknown sage remarked that things are fundamentally simple except as they are complicated by the nature of man. The main complicating factors are fear, greed, pride, and sex. Fear keeps people from achieving their potential, greed prevents them from realizing their humanity, pride limits them in making rational judgments, and sex distracts them from sustained sanity. Those who can sublimate fear, greed, pride, and sex, plus maintain tolerant beliefs, have a good chance of achieving and contributing to peace, progress, and happiness.

The main challenge in the affairs of life is to control emotions lest they contribute to destroying rather than building the future. In that sense, history is a record of builders versus destroyers.

Destroyers play on the proclivity of societies to stratification and division. That tendency is a somewhat peculiar counterpart to the simultaneous merger-consolidation movement. Clearly, within much of society there is increasing fractionation within global consolidation. Much of the consolidation and its implicit cooperation has been forced by the expansion of international trade.

In the past, cooperation and the development of individualism distinguished the West from the rest of the world. Those characteristics permitted unprecedented progress. Thereby, the 18^th and 19^th centuries brought concentration of power in nation-states; while the later part of the 20^th century saw power dispersing toward local governments and corporations. This occurred simultaneously with a move toward globalization.

In retrospect, it is clear the twentieth-century freedom theme was based on the concept of primacy of the individual and respect for individual sovereignty. Simultaneously, electoral politics became the accepted organizational method in much of the West. In fact, the general trend in both Western and some Eastern nations during the last century was from authoritarian regimes to more democratic ones. That trend seems destined to continue. In the modern world, it is likely that any system which keeps its citizenry in mental bondage will fade over time.

Almond, et al, cite four major political trends of the contemporary world: democratization, decentralization, regionalization, and globalization. The problem is that in part some of these are conflicting trends, particularly decentralization and globalization; resolving those differences is one of the major challenges of the modernization revolution.

The characteristic traits of the modernization revolution, according to Fromkin, include: the rule of law, representative government, free market economies, individual rights, and personal identity. Those traits stem from the gradual transformation from people who lived by custom and tradition to those who live by ideas — and to whom change, reform, and progress are acceptable realities. Those ideas accelerated toward the end of the 20^th century with a barrage of productivity enhancing inventions, such as artificial intelligence, health enhancements, robotics, and the personal computer.

Patrick McGovern observed how personal computers flatten hierarchies as middle employees and go-betweens are displaced. Computers and the Internet also enable changes in ideas about government and how it should be run. The trend throughout history has been toward ever greater regularity in government and greater institutionalization of power; now it may be reversing. Why? because of the example of the Internet, "it functions without any minute-by-minute overall control by a mastermind, needing only a regulator (Stuart Harris and Gayle Kidder)."

A move to limited, indirect government is in harmony with history, which appears to be a process for achieving ever-greater freedom of the individual as a sub-current to the civilizing process. Certainly, there is a continuing move toward civil and political rights of the individual. One goal of history is the enlargement of freedom. Hegel thought so; he wrote that history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom.

History also represents a struggle to understand the meaning of life and the universe. In particular, there is a deep-seated need to comprehend those entities at the core of things but that are hard to fathom, viz., the: irreducibles, invariants, irradicables, indeterminables, and undeterminables. These remain among the pre-eminent challenges of the future. Examining their characteristics deserves a carefully crafted book. Those and other challenges to the future can and should be approached with enthusiasm and optimism.

However, there are ominous trends dampening rosy prospects. Prime among them is the threat of extremists among various groups of opposing philosophies. Contemporary events preclude the need for elaboration of that danger.

A more subtle hazard is the movement toward the so-called oligopoly, a market dominated by a few giant corporations, and to plutocracy, political domination by the wealthy. Greed-centered corporate heads conceivably could challenge governments or, at least, unduly influence them. Hugh Heclo in a Wilson Quarterly article, "Hyperdemocracy," warned that the biggest corporations could decide how political and social issues are resolved. That can be averted only if government, corporate heads, and the public remember that the key to long-term survival of any society is the self-discipline and responsibility of its individual members. It can be averted only if all parties avoid mistakes of the past and act in the best long-term interest of communities and the world as a whole.

The past holds the mistakes as well as the successes of others; wise people will learn from them. There is value in remembering the remark (in a Leo Cullum cartoon) of a young boy showing his report card to his father, "It seems I forgot history, and am doomed to repeat it." Too often the reality is as, Abba Eban wrote, "History teaches that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives."

Society would be better served if everyone, especially leaders, gleaned guidance from the past. History is full of the wisdom and ideas of brilliant people. It pays to know and use such lessons. Admittedly, there is good advice in the cogent quotation, "You shouldn’t look back except to learn." But, we should look back to learn!

Maybe mankind is wising up, at least there is hope in the long-term trend of events, e.g.: in the 1700s, the great powers of the day, France and Britain, fought for economic supremacy, control of colonies, and command of the sea. In the 1900s, the struggle between the great powers, Russia and the United States, was more for the minds of people and technological superiority. Those issues have been largely resolved.

Looking back, it is clear that a predominant trend over the past several thousand years has been toward ever larger, more complex societies and governments. Thus, the trend of nations moving to international regulation would seem inevitable. But, smaller units have not readily given up their political rights or sovereignty; thus, the transition cannot be expected to occur without considerable resistance and some turmoil.

Societies have evolved over time, both with changes in perceptions and with advances in science. In the process some of the world’s people have come to believe that everyone is going to be protected and served no matter how irresponsibly they act; as Michael Aronstein remarked, "it’s a pandemic illusion." The big questions are: how do we overcome such illusions, and how do we maintain freedom without turning the world into a moral garbage pail?

If the past is any guide, these problems will be resolved as have others. Clearly, the direction of the 21^st century seems to be nations moving irregularly toward cooperation.

In the opinion of Frederick Turner, mankind is in the midst of the gigantic task of reconstructing the world. Knowledge of past histories, of one’s own, and of other societies, should be used in that endeavor to help ameliorate disparate influences. In that effort, it would be well to remember that everything is interconnected and everything one does has consequences (Marcus Aurelius).

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