Will We Ever Learn? – A brief investigation on whether the human race can learn from its mistakes.

“History repeats itself”. The quote has been used enough times to make me wonder: just why? Why does history repeat itself? Is it inevitable?

The first thing that must be examined is whether the human race, as a whole, can change. We know that humans, as individuals, can change, but does that mean that the human race as a whole changes? Not necessarily. For example, just because a machine is made of lightweight parts, it does not mean that the sum of the parts (the machine) is lightweight. A machine made up of 1,000 one pound parts would be pretty heavy (this line of logic has a special name, though the name eludes me).

This reasoning, however, would not apply if we were able to say that humans, as individuals, share the same properties as the human race. If such were the case, then, hypothetically, we would be able to say that the human race can change. I just have a problem with that rationale. Humans change within their lifespan, and once a human dies, his/her ‘changes’ are lost in the dust of his/her coffin – so once a whole generation dies, their ‘changes’ would be lost to humanity…There is one thing, however, that can prevent the human race from forgetting these changes…what’s that you ask? History.

Yes, you guessed right, the only way to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself is to learn about history itself. (I’m sure many of you thought about that conclusion already, I just thought giving my own little explanation on how to get there would be a bit interesting). I will remind you, however, that the answer depends on whether a human race as a whole can change.

The aforementioned answer, I presume, also sheds light onto why history is recorded at all. Do we record our generation’s history for our own sake? Or for future generations? Trick question. We record history for our own sake, but our ‘sake’ is rooted in the future generation.

What do I mean by that? Well most humans (and I would argue it is part of human nature to) desire immortality, or at the very least, have that immortality manifested in ‘our mark on the world’. Now, if individual humans are similar to the human race (as I spoke about earlier) then the human race will also crave that desire for immortality –aka to make a mark on the world. History provides the means for leaving one’s mark on the world.

Generations record history to leave their mark on the world (which, of course, would include their changes). By recording history they affect subsequent generations.

Out of the human race’s ‘selfish gene’ for immortality, we learn from our mistakes and progress (change) is made.