Everyone knows the old saying, "history repeats itself," but is there any truth to this? Do people really never learn from history, or is this just a convenient way to explain away bad the things that have happened? Does history really repeat itself, and are we helpless to stop it?
Yes, history repeats itself
History repeats itself because human nature never changes. At the heart of it all, we are all primitive beasts and have only our own best self-interests at heart; and this leads us to having the same conflicts, wars, and decisions made that favor the elite few over the grand majority, time and time again. This is an inherent part of human nature, and we are powerless to stop it.
No, history does not repeat itself
There are many cases in history where people have learned from the mistakes of the past. Human nature might be constant, but we have become more educated than our ancestors. Even if we all have our own self-interests at heart, we learn that conflict will not always get us what we want. There are also people who defy "human nature" and seek to make our future world a better place. History does not inherently repeat itself; it only repeats when we let it.
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This page was last edited on Thursday, 3 Dec 2020 at 17:53 UTC
