What are the Biggest Lessons to be Learned From History?

History's lessons scattered through time.
Source: Avigdor Arikha

And I'm not just talking about the simple recipes any young man might learn growing up, or that you never really grow up -- you just learn how to act in public. Practice moderation. Don't just try, try hard! Just glance at the gender you fancy -- do not practice the lingering gaze, head-follow and subsequent full-on course-change-and-following maneuver.

I'm talking about the knowledge that when we wrap metal around a magnet and move that metal -- electricity will result. That if we put manure on cropland, the soil becomes more fertile. Knowledge of the sort that gives us a much better chance at survival and distances us from the many unscrupulous and unassuming forces of death.

But what really gets me is the price we've paid over the years for this knowledge. The debt we owe for such information is often someone's life, spent toiling in a laboratory, or a field, or a church – I’m thinking of the guys who toiled on obscurity producing research that might make the television work. Or the unsung heroes who spent countless hours pouring blood, sweat and untold amounts of profanity into harsh soil to garner sustenance. These people are our heroes – the farmers out in the fields at the advent of agriculture, the scientists poring over microscopes for hours every day, obsessing over the excruciating minutiae of every experiment to yield significant results and progress us just that much farther.

It brings to mind the underrated efforts of humanity's top-flight scientists, in a now-famous quote from an authored reviewed here elsewhere:

“Maxwell wasn’t thinking of radio, radar and television when he first scratched out the fundamental equations of electromagnetism; Newton wasn’t dreaming of space flight or communications satellites when he first understood the motion of the Moon; Roentgen wasn’t contemplating medical diagnosis when he investigated a penetrating radiation so mysterious he called it ‘X-rays’; Curie wasn’t thinking of cancer therapy when she painstakingly extracted minute amounts of radium from tons of pitchblende; Fleming wasn’t planning on saving the lives of millions with antibiotics when he noticed a circle free of bacteria around a growth of mould; Watson and Crick weren’t imagining the cure of genetic diseases when they puzzled over the X-ray diffractometry of DNA; Rowland and Molina weren’t planning to implicate CFCs in ozone depletion when they began studying the role of halogens in stratospheric photochemistry..."

But this doesn’t just have to include people who have helped us escape death and ignorance. It also includes people who have suffered pointless under the reign of both. Think of all the people who have died under oppressive regimes, just so the rest of us could see what a typically fascist and megalomaniacal regime acts like so we can try to avoid it before it’s too late. Think of the millions of Jews who wished we would’ve recognized Hitler as the inhuman monster he truly was before it was too late. Think of all the people pointlessly killed in the name of Jesus Christ – the “heretics”, the witches, those imprisoned like Galileo, ostracized like Newton, shunned like Einstein – when you get right down to it, people have suffered from social and political institutions that should have been exposed for the farce they truly are long ago.

It’s all about seeing the signs from history and learning the lessons our rich past has to offer. So without any more delay, here are what I believe to be the most important lessons yet to be taken from history.

“We have learned a bit too late in the day that action springs not from thought but from a readiness for responsibility.”
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Lesson: Your President does not control the economy.

The world's most powerful nation is always the world's largest threat to peace.

The most powerful nation in the world always has an interesting position when it comes to promoting peace. I mean, think of it this way: if you had all the power at the top, would you really want to share it? Specifically with people you'd wronged in the past or that you believed may have a reason to try and wrest it from your control? That's the conundrum facing the world's most powerful nation -- every time throughout history when one country rises to the apex of global control.

As such, the lesson learned here is that you cannot count on the world’s most powerful nation to promote piece. Rather, it takes a concerted effort from nations worldwide to chain this nation and force it to abide by inalienable human rights. Picture the United States at present and their complete reluctance to follow mandates from the United Nations – indeed, completely stonewalling countless initiatives aimed at establishing more peace and prosperity at the global level. Of course, because all these initiatives would hinder US power. Think about the sanctions minor nation-states used to attempt to enact to curb British rule during their empire – and how quickly these were snuffed out in an attempt to wrest control from the world.

So right now, the world's most powerful nation (we're talking military strength) is America - and you can very legitimately make the case that America is currently the world's largest threat to peace. You'd be hardpressed to find another nation with simply as many enemies worldwide as the US, or a country that has routinely and systematically supported terror and injustice. Say what you want to about me, but the evidence spells it out in black and white.

To tell you the truth, if you want a nearly complete (and thus, completely chilling) account of US state-backed terror and support of extremism that has simply helped capitalism, check out The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1965-1989
or – perhaps more chilling than that, check out Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II--Updated Through 2003

But this isn’t just about America – can you blame them for wanting to hold onto their power? Well, yes, but nevertheless – this behaviour is not atypical of a superpower. Think Greece, Rome, Britain. In short, countries will most often adopt positions of imperialism and expansion over peace if it guarantees them a larger slice of resources (in the hope of becoming that top nation).

Rather than continuing to pick on America as a present-day example of something history has proven time and again, let's look elsewhere this time (simply because I use America again in the next section). Let's look at Israel.

Israel's decisions lo' these past three decades have really reduced its bargaining power substantially. It has sparred with neighbouring countries (with an obvious military superiority), sided with a country they all hate, and continues a deplorable foreign and domestic policy of obstinance in the face of peace. This is because they want the riches garnered by an alliance with the US, but now -- having made so many local enemies -- they literally have no choice but to continue serving as a US base in the Middle East and complying with American demands. Even dating back to 1971, when then-president Sadat (of Egypt) offered Israel a complete treaty of peace in return for a withdrawal from Egyptian territory. Would they integrate into the region and finally attempt to coalesce past differences into a peaceful future? On the basis of expansion, you know that Israel chose the latter.

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