Time better spent

History teachers love the saying, "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."  The saying gives them justification for their jobs.  I don't think it's true, however.  In fact, I prefer one of the slogans from the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, "History is bunk."  The slogan is one of the secondary themes of the book.

The idea behind the slogan is that no amount of history could have prepared the people of the very advanced and future world presented in the book is not a repetition of anything that had gone before.  There was no way people could have prepared for it.  Maybe from about 3500 BCE to 1400 ACE history tended to repeat itself in various aspects.  But since about 1400 BCE with the advent of the late Renaissance period, the world has presented many new scenarios and with ever-increasing rapidity.  Nothing learned about the Sumerians or the Romans, the Goths or the Mongolians, the Vikings or the Samurai could prepare the people today for anything in their world.

What should the proper stance on cloning be?  Should we continue the experiment with educating the masses or has it run its course?  Does anyone really cook with an oven anymore when the 5-10 minute microwave meal suffices?  Can you believe the panoramic views from the Mars rover Curiosity - they're stunning and majestic, a picture of Earth millennia from now?  And what about the moon Titan circling Saturn? That is a future world whose time will come before long.  It is exactly like Earth with the exception that water is liquid methane in the same amounts, complete with atmosphere, rain, lakes, and rivers.  And, of course, much much more like totally electric cars.

History has been included in school because it teaches us a few lessons about citizenship and a few ideas about connecting the dots of the evolution of our own history.  In the name of well-roundedness it has been a core subject.  But, no more.  It is more well-rounded to know about terra-forming other planets for future survival, or to know about nanotechnology, or to study the plans for colonizing and commercializing the moon.  It is more well-rounded to teach how to defend oneself against identity theft, cyber-hacking, and combating phishing and malware.  It is time better spent to know how to globally network than to know the dynasties of Egypt, Persia, and early China or to explore harvesting the ocean to stave off hunger for 4 billion of the world's inhabitants instead of learning what the government of the Roman Empire or the societal structure of feudalism was.

We need brave people with new thinking for a more advanced world.  That's the main message of Brave New World.  And the secondary theme is also true.  "History is bunk."