“Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it” – G. Santayana. I first came across this quote on a tablet engraved at Dachau, a German concentration camp during WW II. The camp is now a war memorial for the millions of Jewish people and others murdered by the Nazis. Today, more than 50 years later and we still are fighting over the truth of the Holocaust. There are still those who say the Holocaust never happened. Worse, there are those who sport Nazi arm bands and wear Hitler tattoos. Many of us have no wish to forget the past but we want to remember it accurately. It is not heritage when there is hate involved. It should not be remembered with nostalgia by the perpetrators when others suffered, died and were ignominiously buried. Imagine if someone suddenly said that crucifixions were an important part of their heritage and they did not want to forget them! Christians venerate the resurrection not the crucifixion of Jesus.
What a desecration to the past efforts of millions of Americans and others who gave their lives to wipe this disease of fascism and hate off of the face of the earth! To parade around in jack boots and Heil Hitler salutes is an insult to humanity. How in heaven’s name has it blossomed again and why? Are we so ignorant of the past that we do not think it can happen again? Do we not read the paper and notice the increased violence against minorities and immigrants. Why is this true? Why are we forgetting the past and allowing this rotten blight to spread? Are we willing to trade our freedom for security? What about the past do you need to remember? What have you chosen to forget it?
Are you confusing heritage with hate? Do you romanticize the past and forget the evil that was often done to others? The good old days were not often so good to others as they might have been to some.
Aging Capriciously 
Sep 30, 2025 @ 14:07:36
G’day John and I agree with you. But as you now, I think looking back is dangerous.
Socialism, Fascism, Liberalism, Communism, Conservatism, are all just names of political ideologies and all have both good and bad features.
To use the horrors of the past as an excuse to commit horrors today, is to be condemned by all rational and caring people. What the world is watching today in the Middle East, Africa, Europe (why go on), is to be deplored, so I suggest forget history, lets concentrate on the future.
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Sep 30, 2025 @ 16:02:00
Could not agree with you less here Jon. If we study history and we have the motivation to change things we can avoid making the same mistakes that we keep making. Concentrating on the future and ignoring the past is a recipe for disaster. This “Fact” has been proven many times over. I asked ChatGPT “How many times has ignoring the past led to disasters in the future?” Here is her answer>
Ten Times Ignoring History Led to Disaster
The historian George Santayana once observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” His warning has echoed for more than a century because it remains tragically true. Time and again, human societies have ignored the lessons of history, choosing short-term comfort, pride, or denial over long-term wisdom. The results are often catastrophic. Below are ten examples where forgetting—or willfully dismissing—the past led directly to disaster.
1. The Road to World War II
The devastation of World War I should have been enough to prevent another global conflict. Yet the Treaty of Versailles sowed seeds of resentment in Germany, while leaders in Britain and France practiced appeasement, ignoring the rising threat of fascism. By disregarding the warning signs from earlier authoritarian regimes, Europe stumbled into a war even bloodier than the last.
2. Vietnam and Afghanistan: The Quagmire Revisited
French forces in Indochina learned the hard way about the futility of colonial warfare against nationalist insurgencies. Less than a decade later, the United States repeated the error in Vietnam. Decades later, the Soviet Union and then the United States repeated similar mistakes in Afghanistan, underestimating the power of guerrilla warfare and local resistance.
3. The Great Depression and the 2008 Crash
Speculative bubbles and unregulated financial practices caused the 1929 stock market collapse. Regulations born from that crisis stabilized markets for decades. But by the early 2000s, many safeguards had been dismantled or ignored. The 2008 financial meltdown revealed how quickly history repeats itself when lessons are forgotten.
4. Hyperinflation: Weimar Germany to Zimbabwe
The economic collapse of Weimar Germany, fueled by reckless money printing, destabilized an entire nation and helped pave the way for Hitler’s rise. Despite this history, Zimbabwe in the 2000s engaged in similar policies, creating a currency so devalued that people carried trillion-dollar notes worth less than a loaf of bread.
5. Pandemics Forgotten: 1918 Flu and COVID-19
The Spanish Flu of 1918 showed how denial, lack of transparency, and delayed responses worsen a pandemic. A century later, governments repeated many of the same mistakes during COVID-19, allowing misinformation and political hesitation to spread the virus faster than facts and medicine.
6. Repeated Cholera Outbreaks in the 19th Century
Cities across Europe and America faced wave after wave of cholera because leaders resisted sanitation reforms. Despite evidence linking contaminated water to the disease, authorities delayed action. Countless lives were lost before modern sewage systems finally broke the cycle.
7. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s
American farmers had warnings about soil erosion long before the 1930s. Yet aggressive over-plowing and monoculture practices stripped the land bare. When drought hit, fertile topsoil blew away, creating a man-made ecological disaster. Civilizations from Mesopotamia to the Mayans had suffered similar collapses from ignoring sustainable farming—but the lesson went unheeded.
8. Climate Change in the Present Day
Scientists began warning about the dangers of carbon emissions and global warming as early as the 1950s. Those lessons from environmental science, energy policy, and past ecological collapses remain largely ignored. If history is a teacher, the disasters of the future—rising seas, mass migration, food scarcity—are already being written.
9. Titanic and Challenger: Hubris Meets Tragedy
The Titanic sailed with too few lifeboats despite decades of maritime warnings about iceberg dangers. Seven decades later, NASA ignored repeated cautions about faulty O-rings in the Challenger space shuttle. In both cases, overconfidence and disregard for warnings led to preventable tragedies.
10. Nuclear Accidents: Chernobyl and Fukushima
Chernobyl revealed the catastrophic risks of cutting corners in nuclear safety and hiding information. Yet in 2011, Fukushima’s disaster showed that lessons about preparedness and transparency were still not fully absorbed. Nuclear technology may differ across nations, but the human tendency to ignore the past remains constant.
The Pattern We Refuse to Break
What unites these stories is not the uniqueness of each disaster, but the stubborn refusal of humans to recognize familiar warning signs. Pride, profit, politics, and denial too often outweigh memory and wisdom. As societies, we claim progress while discarding hard-won lessons of the past.
The truth is simple: history is not a dead record. It is a living teacher. To ignore it is not merely careless—it is dangerous.
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Sep 30, 2025 @ 17:09:58
John, I believe your list (above), in fact supports my view, humanity has spent hundreds of years writing and studying our past, yet we are repeating the same mistakes (mistakes is a bit kind) this very day.
But and it’s a big but, we cannot correct the past, but we can and should improve our future.
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Sep 30, 2025 @ 21:05:25
Interesting Jon. We are seeing through different mirrors. My mirror says we need to do a better job of reading the past to prevent future mistakes. Your mirror says the past is over and lets look to the future.
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Sep 30, 2025 @ 21:16:24
Lets compromise John, keep the past in mind, but concentrate on the future. My current worry, is the fact our politicians don’t seem to know which way to go and indecision is a killer.
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Oct 01, 2025 @ 07:11:33
I certainly agree with that John both in terms of compromise and the fact that most of our politicians seem clueless today. I am awaiting the “Brave” Democrats fight on the partisan budget bill to see how long it lasts before they cave in.
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