Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Ignorance
Whenever I see something by Mark Steyn, I’m always interested. His essays on demographic trends are particularly fascinating. This is an excerpt from an article of his that I found via Instapundit:
He’s right. You can’t have a real discussion with the Bushitler types. His contention though is that these people are dominating the political debate, and that this is a new thing in American politics - a gulf big enough, paradigms so fundamentally different, that there is little point in debate since both sides simply talk past one another.
I have a hard time taking seriously anyone who asks questions like “who was the best/worst US president” or says something like “invading Iraq was probably the worst thing we as a country ever did.” Really? So where does Millard Fillmore fall on the good/bad scale? How about James Polk? How did the occupation of the Philippines compare to the occupation of Iraq?
We have a profound ignorance of our own history. I’ve tried to fill gaps in my own learning, and I’ve discovered exactly how hard it can be. I feel that I don’t truly “know” an era, until I understand not just the names, dates, and events, but also the people, their personalities, their motivations, the culture, and how all of those things fit into the national and even global context of the times. It’s a big undertaking, for ONE era. How can I make a judgment about the relative worth of one recent president, when I know very little about presidents that served as recently as when I was a child?
For this reason, I’m skeptical any time I read about how suddenly the opposition is more shrill, more unreasonable, more divisive than ever before. How about during the implementation of the New Deal? A little research shows the events of the time - the implementation of various New Deal programs, Republican opposition, and Roosevelt’s court packing scheme. That’s valuable information, but how much do we know about the mood of the country at the time? We know there was fierce opposition to some of these things. Was the political climate more or less divisive than today?
History repeats itself. The famous quote by George Santayana goes “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” This is true, but I think it leaves out a fundamental and important point - mankind will always forget it’s history, and therefore is always doomed to repeat it.
Pretending that what is happening now is somehow special, new, or different is just a trick to sell newspapers.
Comments
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SPOT ON!
“Ma Ma, Where’s my Pa?” ....."Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!”
The republicans tasteful campaign adds about Grover Cleveland and his “zipper” issues.
“Might be a brother to big Bill Taft but he ain’t no brother of mine”
Campaign add about Pres. Taft’s statement that we had to look out for our “little brown brothers” in the PI.
I don’t know about others but I always felt vaguely dirty after reading some of the more extreme right wing comments about Clinton. Just flat out nutty stuff, not much different that Bushitler.
Everything old is new again.
Dbltap | 10/23/2007 01:05 PM CDT -
Well, when ancient history consiste of when Paris Hilton dated a boy named Paris, and school is filled with “everyone must feel good about themselves, or it’s just too traumatic for the lil’ darlin’s”, there just isn’t enough room in the day to teach about the Philippines or the expedition to Korea in the 1850’s, or Haiti in the 20’s - or any of the “Banana Wars”, or the “Polar Bears” expeditionary force to Archangel after WW1, or the Tuskeegee syphilis experiment or . . .
Iraq is the worst thing this nation has ever done only if history began in 1992 and you can’t remember anything after you change the channel.
/rant offWindy Wilson | 10/24/2007 12:24 PM CDT
