The tricky part is, everyone tends to forget the inconvenient things. Or just not research them. Even if it’s staring them in the face.
And denying that we could be bad (or have bad tendencies) that need to be resisted makes it more likely that we would, ultimately, be really bad.
But acknowledging we can be bad ‘hurts’. People want to feel good, and right, and justified. The more pain they are in, the more true it is. People don’t like pain. When it gets really bad, they look for scapegoats and seek comfort in delusion, anger, etc.
There is a balancing act in here somewhere. Frankly though, looking at history as best as I can - the wheel exists, and the analogy of the wheel is so apt because it does keep going in cycles. Pretending that knowing history will somehow insulate us from repeating it is a delusion.
It will all happen again.
The best we can hope for, is that we can make it less painful or evil when it does.
Thanks for the clarification. I understand your point about the research not being done and also the lack of acknowledgement that we as a species are not as good to each other as we think and that we are very much capable of repeating the horrors of WW2 in a heartbeat.
But still, I can't help feeling like we are regressing.
And denying that we could be bad (or have bad tendencies) that need to be resisted makes it more likely that we would, ultimately, be really bad.
But acknowledging we can be bad ‘hurts’. People want to feel good, and right, and justified. The more pain they are in, the more true it is. People don’t like pain. When it gets really bad, they look for scapegoats and seek comfort in delusion, anger, etc.
There is a balancing act in here somewhere. Frankly though, looking at history as best as I can - the wheel exists, and the analogy of the wheel is so apt because it does keep going in cycles. Pretending that knowing history will somehow insulate us from repeating it is a delusion.
It will all happen again.
The best we can hope for, is that we can make it less painful or evil when it does.