Why Don't We Learn from History?

Many social reforms and practical improvements have been carried out in a few years which a democracy would have debated for generations. A dictator's interest and support may be won for public works, artistic activities, and archaeological explorations in which a parliamentary government would not be interested because they promise no votes.

The history of ancient Greece showed that, in a democracy, emotion dominates reason to a greater extent than in any other political system, thus giving freer rein to the passions which sweep a state into war and prevent it getting out at any point short of the exhaustion and destruction of one or other of the opposing sides. Democracy is a system w

But "anti-Fascism" or "anti-Communism" is not enough. Nor is even the defence of freedom. What has been gained may not be maintained, against invasion without and erosion within, if we are content to stand still. The peoples who are partially free as a result of what their forebears achieved in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and n

Loyalty is a noble quality, so long as it is not blind and does not exclude the higher loyalty to truth and decency. But the word is much abused. For "loyalty," analysed, is too often a polite word for what would be more accurately described as "a conspiracy for mutual inefficiency."

Bismarck's often quoted aphorism throws a different and more encouraging light on the problem. It helps us to realize that there are two forms of practical experience, direct and indirect and that, of the two, indirect practical experience may be the more valuable because infinitely wider.

We learn from history that democracy has commonly put a premium on conventionality. By its nature, it prefers those who keep step with the slowest march of thought and frowns on those who may disturb the "conspiracy for mutual inefficiency." Thereby, this system of government tends to result in the triumph of mediocrity, and entails the e

Opposition to the truth is inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of resistance can be diminished by giving thought not only to the aim but to the method of approach. Avoid a frontal attack on a long-established position; instead, seek to turn it by a flank movement, so that a more penetrable side is exposed to th

What can the individual learn from history as a guide to living? Not what to do but what to strive for. And what to avoid in striving.

Direct experience is inherently too limited to form an adequate foundation either for theory or for application. At the best it produces an atmosphere that is of value in drying and hardening the structure of thought. The greater value of indirect experience lies in its greater variety and extent. "History is universal experience," the ex