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Never heard of this before! Thank you for posting this link. OT: Historians deem it unprofessionial to ask this question, which always comes to mind: what's t

Never heard of this before! Thank you for posting this link. OT: Historians deem it unprofessionial to ask this question, which always comes to mind: what's the moral of this story? Should it remind us about the contradiction of "what is right" and "what is necessary"? Should we take lessons from it at all? For me it's exactly this what makes history interesting. We may never get rid of atrocities but we'll get to know a lot about human nature, about what our actions will lead to over the long term and what delusions we can entangle ourselves in. For Germans this fence made a lot of sense. And who is to say that if Germany didn't erect it, the Netherlands wouldn't have done so at some point. Like a financial bubble that inevitably will pop, we will repeatedly live in these scenarios that seem to be outrageously unsustainable afterwards.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
"All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again." Maybe the question of moral is unprofessional for the historians, but I think it is crucial to consider it. Humans have very short memory as a civilization - we lose the collective memory of things that happened before oldest of us were born. II World War is hitting this border right now, and you can notice all kinds of things happening that two decades ago would be unthinkable - like rising popularity of neo-nazi movements, or regular people suggesting methods to deal with immigrant crisis in Europe that would make the continent look pretty much like 1938 Germany. This is a big problem, because we've wasted thousands of years of collective experience this way. Knowing what king ruled where at what year (which is what we're being taught in schools) is of very little value for most people. But the moral coming from their mistakes and successes is actually helpful. It's funny that people do study the Bible this way, but not history. It's also sad. That said, the problem nowadays is that any attempt on trying to preserve collective memory of lessons coming from past events will be criticized as propaganda and brainwashing.
- woodpanel 11y ago
  "we've wasted thousands of years of collective experience" - nicely put. It's exactly this what good education of history should counter - the waste of collective experiences. It is very inefficient to go through the same cycles over and over again.
coldtea 11y ago
Short term memory, like "beware of the German ambitions" would be also important. You might not be able to make predictions for Brazil and Argentina in 2500 from the story, but as a Belgian or Dutch, e.g., knowing that this happened you'd know not to trust Germany very much around 1933... In other words, it's important to know one's local and recent history at least (recent being even 50-200 years ago, since those events can still influence current events -- e.g. the fact that blacks came in the US not as immigrant citizens like others, but as slaves is important to understand their subsequent history and today's treatment, especially in the South, etc). It's not much different than personal history. Knowing that Joe has been a jerk to you in high school, or Alex has a tendency to borrow home tools and never return them, makes you more informed in dealing with them, trusting them, etc.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

"All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again." Maybe the question of moral is unprofessional for the historians, but I think it is crucial to consider it. Humans have very short memory as a civilization - we lose the collective memory of things that happened before oldest of us were born. II World War is hitting this border right now, and you can notice all kinds of things happening that two decades ago would be unthinkable - like rising popularity of neo-nazi movements, or regular people suggesting methods to deal with immigrant crisis in Europe that would make the continent look pretty much like 1938 Germany. This is a big problem, because we've wasted thousands of years of collective experience this way. Knowing what king ruled where at what year (which is what we're being taught in schools) is of very little value for most people. But the moral coming from their mistakes and successes is actually helpful. It's funny that people do study the Bible this way, but not history. It's also sad. That said, the problem nowadays is that any attempt on trying to preserve collective memory of lessons coming from past events will be criticized as propaganda and brainwashing.

woodpanel 11y ago
"we've wasted thousands of years of collective experience" - nicely put. It's exactly this what good education of history should counter - the waste of collective experiences. It is very inefficient to go through the same cycles over and over again.

coldtea 11y ago

Short term memory, like "beware of the German ambitions" would be also important. You might not be able to make predictions for Brazil and Argentina in 2500 from the story, but as a Belgian or Dutch, e.g., knowing that this happened you'd know not to trust Germany very much around 1933... In other words, it's important to know one's local and recent history at least (recent being even 50-200 years ago, since those events can still influence current events -- e.g. the fact that blacks came in the US not as immigrant citizens like others, but as slaves is important to understand their subsequent history and today's treatment, especially in the South, etc). It's not much different than personal history. Knowing that Joe has been a jerk to you in high school, or Alex has a tendency to borrow home tools and never return them, makes you more informed in dealing with them, trusting them, etc.