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Although I broadly agree with the author that we should remember the past, I am sad that his tone suggests we are doomed to forget it.

isodude 8y ago
Forgetting is a double edged sword, but one needed for us to live in the present. Living in the future or the past is what really opens up for hatred and fear. Unless something acts as a reminder how bad it really was, it will become fairy tales eventually.. "it couldn't have been that bad right?". But it shouldn't hinder us for trying to make it better in the future. Edit: It's up to us all to prove the author wrong, it makes me sad when I talk to people that try really hard to wrap everything in lies to make themselves feel better. Maybe the starting point that dooms is when parents/states tries to smooth over horrible events.
- philwelch 8y ago
  It's hard to remember the lessons without remembering how we learned them, but it happens sometimes. The founding ideals of the modern world rose from the ashes of the Thirty Years War, and they stuck around pretty well even after that war passed from living memory. Sadly, the lessons learned from the 20th century didn't even seem to survive that long. If anything, the very ideas that the 20th century utterly discredited are poised to overturn even the Enlightenment.
  - isodude 8y ago
    Back then we were relying on tales told from grandparents, or for that matter trades learnt from parents, it seems now that much i dissolved by mega industries or common databases/search indexes. Like we used to remember phone numbers but now it's not needed. Wikipedia can hold all the bad memories so we don't need to. From an energy conservation perspective it's great. But how far should we let it go?
wetpaws 8y ago
Human collective knowledge is limited to couple of generations at best. He is not suggesting it, just merely stating facts.
weej 8y ago
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" -George Santayana
qubax 8y ago
It's not that we are doomed to forget it. It's that humans ultimately don't care. We are selfish creatures. The most obvious example is what the jews did to palestines in palestine/israel a few years after ww2. Look at what we did in vietnam/laos/iraq/etc. Look at what the chinese are doing to their minorities. Look at what happened in rwanda. Did we all forget ww2? Of course not. The idea that we are doomed to repeat history if we forget it is nonsense. The nazis didn't forget about the history of the native genocide in the US. They actually studied it and they learned from it and they improved upon it. Think about it, neo-nazis want to remember the past just as much as the holocaust survivors. But for different reasons. As long as people have their creature comforts and are well fed and content, we'll pretend to be civilized and caring and charitable. When that gravy train dries up, we just resort to our natural tribal state. Nobody forgot the native genocides, but the holocaust happened. Nobody forgot the holocaust, but the rwandan genocide happened.

isodude 8y ago

Forgetting is a double edged sword, but one needed for us to live in the present. Living in the future or the past is what really opens up for hatred and fear. Unless something acts as a reminder how bad it really was, it will become fairy tales eventually.. "it couldn't have been that bad right?". But it shouldn't hinder us for trying to make it better in the future. Edit: It's up to us all to prove the author wrong, it makes me sad when I talk to people that try really hard to wrap everything in lies to make themselves feel better. Maybe the starting point that dooms is when parents/states tries to smooth over horrible events.

philwelch 8y ago
It's hard to remember the lessons without remembering how we learned them, but it happens sometimes. The founding ideals of the modern world rose from the ashes of the Thirty Years War, and they stuck around pretty well even after that war passed from living memory. Sadly, the lessons learned from the 20th century didn't even seem to survive that long. If anything, the very ideas that the 20th century utterly discredited are poised to overturn even the Enlightenment.
- isodude 8y ago
  Back then we were relying on tales told from grandparents, or for that matter trades learnt from parents, it seems now that much i dissolved by mega industries or common databases/search indexes. Like we used to remember phone numbers but now it's not needed. Wikipedia can hold all the bad memories so we don't need to. From an energy conservation perspective it's great. But how far should we let it go?

wetpaws 8y ago

Human collective knowledge is limited to couple of generations at best. He is not suggesting it, just merely stating facts.

weej 8y ago

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" -George Santayana

qubax 8y ago

It's not that we are doomed to forget it. It's that humans ultimately don't care. We are selfish creatures. The most obvious example is what the jews did to palestines in palestine/israel a few years after ww2. Look at what we did in vietnam/laos/iraq/etc. Look at what the chinese are doing to their minorities. Look at what happened in rwanda. Did we all forget ww2? Of course not. The idea that we are doomed to repeat history if we forget it is nonsense. The nazis didn't forget about the history of the native genocide in the US. They actually studied it and they learned from it and they improved upon it. Think about it, neo-nazis want to remember the past just as much as the holocaust survivors. But for different reasons. As long as people have their creature comforts and are well fed and content, we'll pretend to be civilized and caring and charitable. When that gravy train dries up, we just resort to our natural tribal state. Nobody forgot the native genocides, but the holocaust happened. Nobody forgot the holocaust, but the rwandan genocide happened.