Learning from the Past: Looking to the Future

Oct 20, 2023

Even the most cursory reading of current affairs would suggest that we seem to find ourselves in ‘extreme’ times right now. Recent human experience of phenomena meteorological, epidemiological, technological, financial, and political point to an almost inexorable surpassing of historical benchmarks. Events that statistically speaking are supposed to occur but once or twice in a millennium now appear with unexpected frequency. The ‘inconceivable’ increasingly crowds the headlines in our daily newsfeed. We feel alarmed.

In such times, the historical record, based on the experiences of earlier generations, will not offer much guidance in times of the ‘unprecedented’, the ‘unanticipated’, or even the ‘inexplicable’. How such crises were handled in the past may only shine a dim, flickering light on the enormity and complexity of some modern issues. Time-honored solutions may lack the power to solve problems in the present. We are facing times in which there is growing resistance to the reliable panaceas of the past. We feel powerless.

In addition to the diminishing reliability of past experience, and perhaps even more concerning, is the growing influence and activism of those who invoke past memories and seek to ‘fix’ the past, to right the wrongs of history, to correct the historical record, to seek retribution for the sins of past generations, and ultimately, to avenge past victims in the present. We feel afraid.

The philosopher George Santayana is famous for his maxim on the lessons of history: “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it ¹ (George Santayana, 1905). A similar sentiment is reflected in the Chinese saying from the Warring States period: “前事不忘，後事之師” ² (forget not the past, it is a guide to the future). The caveat in this of course is the extent to which any of us can ‘remember’ the past. Sure, to an extent we can remember our own past and we can acquire knowledge of the past, either through direct reportage or third-parties, but such knowledge is always contained within its own subjective cultural, chronological, political and social frame of reference. What each of us actually remembers of the past will reflect a multiplicity of interwoven personal factors. More worrying perhaps is that there are those who, in seeking to avoid repeating history, take action to punish in the now for crimes, imagined or real, committed in the past.

As we try to make sense of the past, we rely on what we can learn, either factually or experientially. There are many reasons why we might challenge the historical ‘record’ as incomplete or inaccurate. The ‘unprecedented’ events of the present offer compelling evidence to support a more skeptical view; history is an unreliable witness. The history of world affairs is written by the victors or the survivors ³ (Max Lerner, 1989). We must therefore treat such learning with a critical eye. The learning on which many of us rely with the greatest degree of tenacity is that which we might call ‘experiential’. These deeply rooted lessons, acquired with our own perspiration, perseverance and pain, are the ones we hold to be the most relevant, reliable, and authentic representations of our individual ‘real’ world. It is perhaps a frustrating truth, however, that we can never learn ‘from’ someone else’s experience; we can only learn ‘about’ someone else’s experience. Experiential learning, it must be said, is something each of us must acquire alone. Of course, we can ‘share’ an experience with those present at the same time and place, but each will construct their own unique recollection of what happened. In our own minds, we carry with us a mental analogue of the world as we understand and experience it, unique in its shape and hue, highly personal in its fabric and fiber. That is not to say that another’s version of the world is either right or wrong, it is just not ours.

Our dilemma is clear: if what we remember of the past is clouded, contested, and constructed through experience, how do we avoid repeating its mistakes? Looking to the future, to what extent should we permit the past to determine our choices? There is no easy answer to this. While extreme events in the recent or distant past may make us feel alarmed, powerless, or afraid, we still have choices. The extent to which we allow the past to guide our actions in the future is a choice open to each of us. We can choose to understand, to empathize, to forgive, to restore, to change, and perhaps create something new – or not. Strengthening our resolve around the power to choose is an important focus of education in the present age. Before making our choices, however, I believe we should also understand an immutable truth: while we can remember the past, to an extent, perhaps even understand some of it, we cannot change it. We can only hope to do a little better in the future.

Dr. Malcolm Pritchard

Head of School

¹ Santayana, G. The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense. C. Scribner’s Sons. New York. 1905.

²《戰國策．趙策一》〈張孟談既固趙宗〉.

³ Lerner, M. It is Later Than You Think. Routledge. 1989.