I have had
people ask me many times over the years, "Who cares about history? Why is
history so important?" I like to ask them a very simple question: do you put
your hands on a hot plate? Everyone answers no, of course they don’t. I then
ask why? I usually get some variant of ‘because it will hurt’, or because it is
dangerous. I then point out the obvious: you know it will hurt, because you
have burnt yourself before. You know that fire hurts from experience. That is what history is. History is the communal collection
of learning from our own human mistakes.
We ignore history at our own peril.
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