Yesterday leads to today
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007
I know I said we would be back to Adam and His Kin today, but I want to discuss this instead, just to give a little perspective. I also have to admit that I haven’t done my own homework. How embarrassing is that? Rather than rush through it to throw something up, I’ll hold off until Friday to give you a better effort.
A friend of mine announced to me the other day that she found history boring, and saw no purpose in studying it. After I collected my wits from hearing this heresy, I told her to ditch the traditional history books. Sure enough, that’s what she was using to study history! She was stuck in all those dates. I told her to get some good biographies and start there, and then I listed several reasons why the study of history is important.
Yesterday leads to today. It is indeed true that there is nothing new under the sun. The world we live in today is a product of what happened before, and if we understand what happened before it is easy to trace those causal relationships. If we can trace the causal relationships we stand a chance of affecting the future in some ways. In other areas, we can accept that things cannot be changed, and that efforts in that direction will only lead to frustration and failure.
One such example of the latter is the middle east. For decades people have been trying to find a way to establish peace in the middle east. That will not happen. The middle east has been a land in turmoil since it’s beginnings and will continue to be so until the end of the world. The best we can hope for there is containment, and not cessation of violence. Why? It goes back to names you will recognize: Isaac and Ishmael.
