Does history repeat itself?
George Santayana, a Spanish philosopher, famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Well … we may wish we were condemned to repeat the past of nearly 100 years ago, when a soft-spoken, mild-mannered president shocked the nation by announcing he was not going to run for re-election, despite opinion polls showing he was quite popular.
But even if that isn’t possible, history does contain some important lessons of which we should be aware. Instead of repeating, history may at times turn itself inside out and provide us with an opposite, negative image of a familiar tale.
Still, if we can’t remember what originally happened, we might not appreciate how far we have strayed.
George Santayana, a Spanish philosopher, famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Well … we may wish we were condemned to repeat the past of nearly 100 years ago, when a soft-spoken, mild-mannered president shocked the nation by announcing he was not going to run for re-election, despite opinion polls showing he was quite popular.
But even if that isn’t possible, history does contain some important lessons of which we should be aware. Instead of repeating, history may at times turn itself inside out and provide us with an opposite, negative image of a familiar tale.
Still, if we can’t remember what originally happened, we might not appreciate how far we have strayed.
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