History History

The Reason History Repeats

It was a time of war.

By 24th March 1918, German forces were a scant 75 miles from Paris, dealing massive damage to the capital with their railway guns. The British and the French had major casualties, much more than the Germans. The future seemed bleak for the Allied forces. Then the Germans started sinking American ships. America entered the war. A few months later, Germany was defeated; Austria had already lost. The war — the World War — was over. Casualties: about 35 million.[1]

It was a time of war.

By mid-1942, Hitler and Mussolini had conquered most of Europe, all the way from France to part of Soviet Russia. In Asia, Japan had conquered China, Korea- most of south-east Asia. The Axis was pushing the Allies back. Casualties were running high. The future seemed bleak for the Allied forces. Then Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and America entered the war. Three years later, Germany was defeated, Japan was in ruins. The war — the Second World War — was over. Casualties: up to 78 million. [2]

History had just been repeated.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

– George Santayana

History tends to repeat. All wars, whether military conquest, or religious crusades, have been matters of wounded pride and hurt ego. In short, war, though it may not seem so at the time, is pointless. War and death engenders war and death, fuelled by hatred and vengeance. But people do not change. Thus the future is predictable.

For example, dictators the world over have killed thousands of people to gain control and power. A good number of them met a sticky end. Benito Mussolini killed over 300 thousands in his war on Ethiopia. [3, 6] On 28th April 1945, Mussolini was executed. [6] Adolf Hitler birthed a genocide that took over 12 million lives. [3, 6] On 30th April 1945, Hitler committed suicide to avoid capture and execution. [6] Saddam Hussein killed over 600,000 Kurds. [3] On 30th December 2006, Hussein was executed. [7] Genocide is war: discrimination of one kind or another always becomes a reason for aggressive expansion, and thence for war. The fate of dictators is common, recorded, and taught. Do you suppose the dictators don’t know this? I doubt it, but it doesn’t stop them from committing atrocities in the name of whichever convenient cause they advocate.

Why is that?

The reason history repeats itself is because we are taught what happened in that past, rarely why it happened, and almost never how to apply that knowledge to the present. We learn of history, not from history.

History should not be about merely memorizing facts and figures. It should be about understanding the reasons and relationships behind the events recorded in history. About analyzing the psychology that leads to conflicts. History and psychology should be taught together. But not in the way textbooks of psychology are written, as if in an attempt to find acceptance as a science though deliberate obfuscation of content.

Having basic knowledge of psychology will help you understand the reasons behind known history. By doing so, you may learn to recognize patterns in today’s society that match the past, working to prevent undesirable history from repeating.

If you read the history of World War II, you might conclude that the war ended in 1945. And you would be wrong. Just because a volcano stops erupting, it does not mean that the Earth’s core has frozen. Since mankind’s beginning, humans have been fighting a war for survival.

The first part of this war is for the survival of the ego, for finding power and glory, one that results in wars. Wounded egos, hurt prides, offended morals, and angered gods are all psychological manifestations of the ego’s instinctive need to survive. The over-glorified battle of Troy was really about Agamemnon’s pride hurt by the theft of Helen. Or if you delve further, it was about Paris’s lust. Or go back even further and it was about Zeus’s cowardliness in brokering peace between three Goddesses. Or it was about the vanity of Greek Goddesses. Or it was about Eris, the Goddess of Strife, whose ego was hurt when she wasn’t invited to Paleus and Thetis’s wedding party and thus created a scene during the celebration. This is the point. It is important to understand the flow of events but more important to understand the motivation behind those actions. Only by understanding the motivations of the actors involved can you begin to draw parallels with current events.

We learn of history, not from history.

The second part of this war has been forgotten by most. It is the war with oneself. It is a battle to understand the meaning of life and to find freedom, to attain Moksha. The story of Mahabharata is perhaps the best example of this. While the epic delves deeply into the events that lead to Kurukshetra, the giant battle between Pandavas and Kauravas, the real story is about the victory of one individual, Yudhishtira, against himself, against his own nature. When we think about wars in our history, we tend to remember the Kurukshetras, the world wars, and forget the battle with our base nature. Our real failure is that in trying to win external wars, we lose sight of the internal one.

Humans are not a rational species. Violence comes naturally to emotionally weak and insecure creatures. For an animal of violence to overcome its base nature requires it to do something extraordinary: conquer its instinct and replace it with rational thought.

Overcoming instinct: that is the real war.

References

[1] World War I — Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I [2] World War II — Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II [3] A Century of Genocides: http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html [4] The Holocaust — Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust [5] Benito Mussolini — Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini [6] Adolf Hitler — Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler [7] Saddam Hussein — Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein