I believe that history repeats itself. And I see a great many parallels in our times to another time that I've read about.

Do you believe that history repeats itself? Do you see the parallel? If so what period of time in American history does this remind you of?

(Please, this can be an interesting discussion. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and view. No flames, no finger pointing and no name calling. This is the Vintage forum. Thanks.)

 

The British Empire's "Manifest Destiny" comes to mind. To coin a phrase, the US now seems to be championing the "White Capitalists' Burden."

(of course, I only mean this tongue-in-cheek, but there are some real parallels).

 

I think that history repeats itself regularly to a degree. These days remind me of the late sixties and early seventies in some ways, however I don't believe that the parallels are quite the same. Besides the obvious similarities, I find myself again in a position of distrusting the government, but my reasons are quite different.
I despised Nixon both as a president and as a human being to such a degree that even to this day, I cannot discuss the man rationally. (I've been known to launch into foamy-mouthed Hitlerian rants at the mere mention of his name. ) Everything that his administration said or did became automatically suspect in my view.
These days, I find myself very distrustful of the Bush administration, but it's not because I believe that Bush is a megalomaniac or evil. I think that Bush is well intentioned and honest as politicians go, and I don't view him as the villain or the fool that he's all too often portrayed to be.
The reason for my distrust is the sense that I get from his actions that he allows his religious beliefs to color his decisions, i.e., stem cell research. I am also dismayed by his meetings with leaders of various extremist religious groups. In my view, his actions lend these groups no small amount of credibility which is unwarranted and undeserved.
Bush has a ethical duty and an obligation to leave his religious beliefs at the White House door, just as I am bound by professional ethics to leave my political and religious beliefs at the classroom door. While religion and science are two vastly different spheres of thought that often oppose each other, religion and politics have no real place in science, but science most certainly has a much needed place in politics.

Dean

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Following on from Chazmo's post how about the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.

I wonder if anyone has ever done a study comparing empire's and tried to correlate them to the current world situation.


Edit: sorry missed the part about it being only American history.

 

Ooh, you're right... Rob was referring to American history. Forget the British Empire then. I'm stumped. How is modern America repeating its own history, Rob?

 

I think Dean has made a few good points but I think the main resemblance between now and the 60's 70's is a point a made a while back in another thread about aging liberals, hippies, new-agers, commies, conservatives, anarchists, revolutionaries and other associated angers-on feeling a need to revitalize their psyches after spending most of their adulthood amassing the very wealth that they despised and railed against as young people. They now feel as if they have sold out and want to make amends. (my tongue is only partially in my cheek..when it's not sticking out )

Humans have the amazing ability to totally forget what has happened in the past. History repeats itself because mankind does not seem to take it's lessons to heart.
An old adage goes "Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result." My adage goes "Genius is doing the same thing repeatedly and getting different results."

 

I wasn't thinking of the 60s and 70s although there are some strong parallels. I was thinking of the 50s, the McCarthy era. If you think about it, the similarities are striking.

There was great fear of a common enemy then as there is now, we were engaged in a military action (Korea and after 1954 Vietnam) to stop the spread of the enemy and to bring democracy to the world, just as we are now. There was a movement back to religion and morality, just as there is now, and there was a need for conformity just as there is now. There was a degradation of civil liberties in the name of security just as there is now. And there was a fear of weapons of mass destruction, just as there is now. Nixon defeated Helen G. Brown for a seat in the congress with in a very dirty campaign filled with finger pointing and accusations, just as campaigns are run now.

There are many more parallels, but I thought I'd throw out just a few. Think about it.

(I know I said I wasn't going to post today, but I couldn't resist a good discussion).

 

Yes, yes. I see that, Rob. That was fear at work. I don't know why I missed that. I think I was looking too far back in history.

 

Ooh, ooh, another chance to throw some science into this thread.
Playing a large role in that ability to forget is the fact that of all stimuli that registers on the human brain, the sensation of pain is the most quickly forgotten. Overall, that's a good thing (women would never have more than one child, for example), but it also works against us in the way that you described.

Dean.

 

Some of the pro-Kerry supporters here seem to think that it's 1933 again and that we have a Feurer in charge