History

As defined by Webster’s dictionary, history is “a chronological record of significant events (as affecting a nation or institution) often including an explanation of their causes.” And what would be the use of studying such a record, you may ask. Judging by the Bush administration’s actions at home and abroad for the past six years or so, it appears that no one has given them a satisfactory answer, if any answer at all, assuming they actually asked the question in the first place, which appears doubtful at best. Had the question been asked, and then answered by anyone with even a superficial grasp of our most recent history, the abject folly of the current administration’s actions in both war and peace would have been shockingly apparent. (What was it the French, for example, accomplished in Algiers or Vietnam?) But, alas, the one basic truth history has revealed consistently throughout the ages is that nobody really studies it, at least not in any meaningful way, and, therefore, fools that we are, we are doomed to be the victims, time and time again, of history simply repeating itself. We’ve heard that little axiom all our lives, haven’t we? But we learn nothing; we make no progress; we are the human stain on history, which otherwise would be the most enlightening compass for navigating peace and prosperity around the world. It seems so simple, really, but it must be very difficult somehow. Or else, as a race, we’re just born psychotic: “fundamental mental derangement (as schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality.” That’s the way it could appear, anyway. But, wait; could it just be, say, politics? And these days the political fight for democracy really seems to empower the, dare I say it, oligarchy, “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes; also : a group exercising such control.” Now there’s some history for you. Or would that be histrionics: “of or relating to actors, acting, or the theater?” Oh my.