Somebody told me once that we should focus on the immediate needs of our society... to the actual survival of the race. My response was "Yes, that's important. But, if you don't know what caused the trouble, might you do it again?" Sometimes, you have to stop and smell the history.
And, then there was my professor at ECU who said, "History doesn't repeat itself... people do." This wisdom can also be applied to the nation as a whole. Have we really learned from past mistakes? Well... no. Because we don't learn about what caused those errors. This is the very important job of the historian.
These are not only important lessons, they are vital to our survival. Ask yourself what has caused every depression in history and you just might be able to avoid the next one. Do you know what it was? Greed. Uncontrolled greed put us in the situation we find ourselves in today. Maybe if we learned more about past depressions and LISTENED to those lessons, we might grow and better ourselves, make life easier for our children. If that's important to you, that is.
What else is there? Native Americans, perhaps? Was that handled well? Why not? How about slavery? There's a question that we don't want to ask ourselves, don't want to see the very human causes behind it. But, we did it. Why? We must know if we want to heal from it. No more, "Let's move on..." No. Let's understand it.
Try to remember that the historian is your most vital part of any planning strategy. One of my favorite phrases is "The only difference between genius and insanity is that at least genius knows the difference!" It's funny, yeah. But, kind of REAL, huh?
Baylus C. Brooks is a professional research and maritime historian, genealogist, and writer living in North Florida. Writes for Poseidon Historical Research & Publishing. Author of Quest for Blackbeard, Sailing East, and Dictionary of Pyrate Biography, all now from online stores! All posts are the opinions of the author unless otherwise noted.
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