We are all haunted by George Santayana’s famous statement: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We say it often, but is it true?
I welcome others’ opinions, but I have my doubts. Let me offer three reasons:
First, do we ever really understand the past? Could the Civil War—the most deadly war in American history—have been prevented? Possibly. But if so, how would slavery have ended? Avoiding one tragedy might have perpetuated another. So what have we learned about the Civil War that could possibly guide us in the future?
Second, let’s suppose we understand the past. Can we know where to apply that understanding and where not? Nearly everyone agrees that World War I was a pointless war and a horrific tragedy; in contrast, historians generally agree that World War II “had to” be fought, and it was the Allies’ finest hour.
And yet the horrors of World War I triggered the revenge on Germany that allowed Hitler to ascend (the kind of impact foreseen by John Maynard Keynes, by the way). The war also triggered the revulsion against war that persuaded Britain and France to avoid fighting as long as they could. Thus, the lessons from the first World War were probably the wrong ones, at least over the short term (which leads some people to consider the period from 1914 to 1945 a second Thirty Years’ War).
In fairness, after World War II ended the Allies helped restore the economies of Germany and Japan, unlike the 1919 Versailles Treaty, which was designed to keep Germany militarily and economically marginal. So a lesson may have been learned. At the same time, however, the Allies, focused on Germany and suffering war fatigue, allowed another dictator to take control of nearly all of Europe east of Berlin, leading to tragic lives and deaths and another war, albeit a cold one.
Finally, assuming that we know what is right, how do we make it happen? Who could have successfully advised George W. Bush that entering into Middle East politics to kill a tyrant would have major unexpected repercussions? Even Bush’s father could not persuade him to be more cautious. Political forces sided with action, and restraint was abandoned.
We can conduct the same kind of exercise about our economic history. Do we know the causes of the Great Depression? If so, should we apply them in every recession?
Tight money (reduction of liquidity by the Federal Reserve Bank) was one factor in the Great Depression; if the Federal Reserve had allowed more money to circulate, the depths of the Depression might have been avoided. Having partially learned this lesson, Keynesians used expansionary fiscal policy in the 1970s to address unemployment; it led to “stagflation.” And a return to “easy money” in 2003 and 2004 helped fuel the Great Recession of 2008. Finally, banks were closed during the Great Depression but were bailed out in the Great Recession. Surely, that was more humane, but did it contribute to the divisive anti-Wall Street attitude that is fueling calls for socialism?
I’m skeptical that we can avoid making mistakes, whatever our knowledge of history, for the reasons listed above: It’s hard to understand history; hard to know when to apply it; and often impossible to transmit the right answers to the key players.
All this, of course, raises the question of why study history? I will have to consider that in a separate post.
[1] I recently came across an essay arguing that American strategists attempted to apply the lesson of the successful British suppression of Communism in Malaysia to Vietnam, with tragic results.
Image by Kim Shaftner from Pixabay.
On your question, “Could the Civil War—the most deadly war in American history—have been prevented? Possibly. But if so, how would slavery have ended?”
In February 1861 at the invitation of Virginia a convention of the states met to draft a constitutional amendment to stave off the Civil War. The amendment proposed would have limited slavery to existing states and to territories below the 37th parallel—basically Arizona and New Mexico, but no part of California. Because the convention did not have proposal power under Article V of the Constitution, it could not submit its compromise as a proposed amendment to the states directly, but sent it to Congress. Congress was as dysfunctional then as it is now, and took no action. So states like Virginia gave up and seceded.
Had the amendment been ratified, probably no more states would have seceded and those that had left likely would have been forced, induced, or found it convenient to return to the Union. Slavery would have remained in place for the time being, but ultimately would have been doomed by its inability to expand (neither AZ nor New Mexico were particularly conducive to the institution) and by rapid technological change.
Something to keep in mind when you hear naysayers belittle calls for a convention of states with constitutional power to propose amendments without going through Congress.
History does not repeat, but it does instruct. This is why it is useful. The problems that confronted Europe during the interwar era — economic crises, populist anger at elites, the growth of state power, the rise of charismatic strongmen, and the ability of media to “organize enthusiasm” — are similar to ones we face today. This is why many of us are troubled by the direction of US and European politics.
I agree with Professor Vincent’s contention that history primarily “instructs.” How else can we be informed about the cause and effect of large-scale human actions when we make political decisions about the future than by understanding the past? We can detect large-scale patterns of human action that can be generally agreed upon: the fact that great empires rise and fall, or that some small segment of the population will reject dogma and seek truth even under the penalty of death. So I disagree that history does not repeat: these patterns are precisely such repetition.
Yet the repetition is never certain; my difference with Steven may be merely one of definitions. We never know when the pattern will hold or society will veer in a new direction. The sheer complexity of human existence defies any such certainty about human action. In all this chaos, the real lessons may be ignored, denied, or defied. Steven and I are likely to look at the same period of history and derive very different lessons from the same events. And even if we agree on the past, our prescriptions for the future may differ greatly.
Furthermore, even when we agree on both the lesson learned and the path forward, we may fail to observe underlying shifts in the conditions, culture, and zeitgeist that will thwart our well-crafted plans based on prior cause and effect.
Somehow, we have to muddle through it all. And that may be for the best. If history is ever reduced to a science, in which we can all agree on history’s lessons and how to respond through policy, it may very well be a bleak existence, with historical inevitability imposed on us almost as if we are biologically determined.