Supposedly, the story goes that the original quote of doomed people and the repetition of history was "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." While both versions of George Santayana make a lot of sense, the application of it seems illusive. The article I linked above pointed out that people knowing the past didn't prevent them from making more stupid mistakes, and in light of everything that has happened in the post 8 November world, Clairmont's analysis seems to be coming to a sad fruition.
Part of the difficulty of applying historical lessons is that things are different (and very much the same) in our world now, so which pieces of history are the ones that are most instructive at any given point? For example, there are lots of lessons to be learned from Alexander Hamilton's life, but which one is the one that matters? Immigrants can make a difference? Adultery ought to scuttle a political career? Abrasive people get jobs done? Government-dictated economies can work?
What about the counter points of these same questions? Sure, Hamilton was so successful as a Founding Father we put him on the $10 bill, but not all of his legacy is worthwhile. Joseph Stalin was an immigrant adulterer who was so abrasive he committed atrocities against his people, all while working the government-dictated economy toward his own ends. Stalin is no Hamilton, but the example shows how fraught it is to learn from the past.
The immense politicization of America in the 21st century has turned history inside out. Whatever political point of view someone is on, there are now "conservative readings" and "liberal readings"--and everything in between--of history. This is toxic: If one wants to map modern thinking upon the past, the inevitable result will be a distortion.
I feel an alternative is to go the opposite direction: Learn the facts as best you can, then look for parallels in the modern day. The problem with this approach is 1) it's counter-intuitive, especially for the speed of news in our modern era, and 2) it's hard work. There's a lot more history than anyone can know, so how can you go about making informed judgments? This is complicated by 2a), that history has some really solid, reliable facts that prop up the foundation, while the building itself is shifting, skewed, and capable of sundry angles and interpretations. The annual brouhaha over Indigenous People Day (or Columbus Day, and consider your reaction to the fact I put one in parentheses and not the other) goes to show that interpretations matter. The facts are there: Columbus and his crew arrived in the Americas in 1492. That's solid. That he's a God-inspired explorer--or the harbinger of disease and genocide--are less so. Okay, well, the disease thing is also solid, and the genocide certainly happened, but the focus of the effects/motivations can vary wildly.
I mentioned that things are different and similar nowadays. This isn't to be contradictory or paradoxical: I really think that what's different is an awareness of what we've always been. The greater visibility of, say, police brutality or political corruption is what has changed from the past. There were police beatings a century ago, as well as crony capitalism and political abuses. I don't know the statistics, but people being people, we've had these problems before. The difference is that now we're capable of recording and documenting the problems in a way that is without parallel.
Part of what scholars love about Pompeii is that the snapshot of Roman life is so well preserved. Even the graffiti has been saved, and--no surprise--the things that they wrote on restroom walls is essentially the same as it is now: Salacious comments, perverse innuendo, and scathing profanity proliferate over their walls as much as in a Nevada gas station.*
The point is, as history advanced and record keeping improved, we've begun to see more and more parallels between ourselves and the past. Yes, there are significant, positive steps toward progress that we enjoy that were unheard of in prior generations (look at Milton's divorce tracts and realize that, though there are problems with so many marriages in America ending in divorce, the fact that it was almost entirely impossible to get a divorce shows we're much better off as a society by following Milton's advice). The advancement of record keeping in the digital age--the social media difference, as it were--is what's new about modern history, not the way that we're acting, reacting, and behaving.
That's the lesson I've learned about history.
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* For more information on this, check out (or don't, I'll understand if you choose not to) Holy Sh*t. This, or any other history of swearing, will likely give similar examples.
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