The lesson of history

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Website owner:  James Miller

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History. What is its value? What does it tell us? What can we learn from it? What we can learn from history is the real, unvarnished truth about human nature. The study of history is a study in human nature. History is about the actions of man. But underneath all those actions is the character, nature, inclinations, and tendencies of man himself. History is mostly about all the many tendencies of human nature exhibiting themselves endlessly in different players in different combinations in various cultures through time. History is all about all the basic inclinations of man in the form of envy, hatred, lust, jealousy, greed, ambition, anger, pride, arrogance, vanity, selfishness, cruelty, strife, dissension, duplicity, violence, immorality, moral depravity, etc. and the dynamic interplay of various combinations of these things in different people interacting through time in various cultures. The study of history is a study in the basic nature of man.

It has been said, “Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it” and knowledge of history may help in some cases in avoiding mistakes of the past but I am inclined to think that knowledge of the past usually does little to keep it from being repeated. Mankind remains ever the same and all these basic ingredients interacting insure that history just keeps repeating itself. The envy, jealousy, and anger that the poor carry for the rich. One group in a culture carrying bias against another group for one reason or another. One group of people seeing itself as downtrodden, mistreated and oppressed. One group of people seeing itself as superior to another group. One nation or country seeing itself as superior to other nations or other countries. Everyone acting in his own interest, sometimes at the expense of others. In a world of limited resources, where there is not enough to go around, everyone acting selfishly trying get as much for himself as possible. The rich using their money and power to become richer. Man plundering, in one way or another, his fellow man. The social classes. The rich and the poor. Selfishness. Ambition. Pride. Foolishness. Laziness. Wealthy, affluent cultures becoming effeminate and degenerate from too much ease and wealth. High moral depravity in the form of practices like homosexuality. It is all as old as man himself. One person in a position of power attempting to silence all who oppose him through imprisonment, mayhem, or murder. The intolerance of one group in a society for another. Political parties. One party attempting to silence or do damage to an opposing party. Political alliances. One social group scheming to take away by some means or another the property and possessions of another group. Powerful nations going to war against other nations, subjugating them, appropriating their possessions as spoils of war, and taking the citizenry into slavery.

Lying, deceit, sham, pretense, duplicity. Scheming, ploys, trickery, plotting, maneuvering. Ambition. Exploitation. Brutality. Inhumanity. Intolerance. Bad men out to get what they want in life. These are all the ingredients of life and they are the ingredients of history. It is all as old as man himself. The horrible things that happened under Hitler and the Nazis. Don’t think that can’t happen again. The ugly atrocities that occurred in Russia under Stalin and the terrible things that happened in China under Chairman Mao. The Communist atrocities in Cambodia. Intellectual elites who think they know everything and are above all law trying to force their ideas on everyone. Communism. Socialism. Clever, intellectualized ploys by the lower classes to appropriate the property and wealth of the rich and divide it among themselves. Not a new idea. The idea goes back to ancient times. People with power and the ugly ways they use the power. The horrible atrocities that occurred at the hands of the Huns and the Mongols and the Vikings. The many powerful nations and great slaughters occurring in Biblical times. Men in positions of power acting with great inhumanity. Men with newly acquired power murdering all their rivals to secure their power. It is an old, old tactic. It has happened in every culture and is as old as man himself. Man enslaving his fellow man. (Slavery is an age-old practice going back to the mist of ages past. A very large portion of the populations of Greece, Rome, Persia, Egypt and probably all of the ancient civilizations were slaves and slavery is still practiced in some Muslim countries today). Husbands abusing their wives. Wives cheating on their husbands. Child abuse. These problems aren’t new. (Now the idea that government is able to solve these problems. That delusion may be new and modern. It is part of modern intellectual foolishness.) It is all about human nature. Human nature has not changed one iota from the beginning of time. Don’t think man has evolved in any way. He has not. He has made great accomplishments in science, medicine and technology but man himself has not changed in the least. He may think he is enlightened but he lives in great self-deception. He is as inclined toward depravity and wickedness and evil as he has ever been. He takes advantage of the weak, plunders them. He is selfish, is concerned about no-one but himself. His basic nature hasn’t changed in the slightest from the beginning of time. He is as vain and arrogant and greedy as he has ever been. He is as malicious, vengeful, and spiteful as he has ever been. If history should teach us anything it is that man cannot be trusted. That is the most important lesson that history can teach us. It is not without reason that our founding fathers included the right to bear arms in our Bill of Rights. It shows their understanding of the basic nature of man and the lessons of history. If we don’t wish to be helpless victims, if we don’t wish to be enslaved, we need to be able to defend ourselves. In my own country the Left frightens me. I fear it. For all of their rhetoric about the horribleness of intolerance there is none more intolerant than they are. In all their self-righteousness, I see none more self-deceived. They think they have all the answers and none are greater fools. They have a collective blindness revealed in all their political correctness that is highly disturbing.

History repeats. And repeats. One reason this is true is a certain very basic fact of life: the vast majority of people are not deep, thoughtful, rational, independently thinking creatures. Rather they are shallow, emotional, impetuous, impulsive, volatile, easily misled, easily influenced, irrational creatures. The masses are volatile, swinging easily and quickly from one extreme to another, and easily manipulated by the press and mass media. The liberals take advantage of this fact and through the press and media manipulate the masses. I quote from Seneca,

“For it is dangerous to attach one's self to the crowd, and so long as each one of us is more willing to trust another than to judge for himself, we never show any judgement in the matter of living, but always a blind trust, and a mistake that has been passed on from hand to hand finally involves us and works our destruction. It is the example of other people that is our undoing; let us merely separate ourselves from the crowd, and we shall be made whole. But as it is, the populace, defending its own iniquity, pits itself against reason. And so we see the same thing happening that happens at the elections, where, when the fickle breeze of popular favour has shifted, the very same persons who chose the praetors wonder that those praetors were chosen.”

It is not that all men are bad. Not all men are bad. But mankind in general has a strong inclination towards badness of many kinds and ambitious men often get what they want through total lack of any moral principle. A very large portion of humanity lacks grossly in moral principle. There are a great many people who will do anything, up to and including murder, to get what they want. People will prostitute themselves for gain. (If one doesn’t believe in a God, or a heaven or a hell, why not?)

Feb 2018