It is often said that “history repeats itself”. A lot can be said about whether this is actually true, but let’s assume that it is. What could explain why it’s true?
One explanation that I particularly like concerns education.
When a baby is born, they know nothing.
They have no knowledge of the history of our world. They have no knowledge of all the terrible and great things that have human beings have done in our brief time on this planet.
This is an obvious but important fact.
Every human being has to be taught the history of the world that they are born into. It is our responsibility to make sure that new humans are “caught up” on what’s been happening on our planet.
This requires education.
Without education, human civilization as we know it would collapse into primitive forms. Imagine if no one learned about the progress we have made in science, or medicine, or engineering. Imagine if the entire next generation of human beings were simply not told about these things, and had no interest in learning them.
The progress of human knowledge cannot be taken for granted. It does not get into the heads of young minds by osmosis. We have to put it there so that it can be preserved and passed on.
Even if it is true that in the modern world we have extensive records and technology for preserving valuable information, people still have to want to learn about this information and why it matters. Children have to be taught, step by step, how things work.
If “history repeats itself”, it may be because education is not as highly valued as it should be.
Knowledge is not capable of reproducing itself. We must seek it out, share it, and put it into practice. Although education is one of the fundamental pillars that supports our world, it is unequally distributed, and seriously undervalued.