Does history repeat?

I believe history does repeat itself, though with very broad strokes of the brush.

We have about 2500 years of pretty well documented history. And from what I have read, there are things that nearly always work when they are implemented, just as there are things that almost never work when they are implemented. The irony is that the things that sound new and exiting are the things that almost never work, while the things that sound old and dull and boring are the things that almost always work.

Another factor to throw into the pot is collective memory fading over the course of about three generations. Consider the Great Depression. The first generation afterwards kept their fiscal house in order, because they personally remembered all too well what had just happened. The second generation remembered first hand stories, but loosened things up a little. The generation controlling the purse strings today is much too smart to be bound by the lessons learned by those fools so long ago. We're so much smarter now...and so things repeat.

I believe the same factors that cause nations to achieve economic wealth can be found again and again throughout history. And after several generations, when the populace forgets these factors, and comes to think they can have economic well being because it is somehow deserved and not earned, economic well being is then lost for the same reasons throughout history.

The same can be said in exactly the same way for peace and for freedom.

Does history repeat including myth of invincibility?
Your observations concerning the Great Depression are valid. The US population has little personal memory of bombs falling on US territory and that is confined to Pearl Harbor and the Philippines (WWII). This lack of personal memory (lost after the last Civil War or Indian Wars survivor died) is why so many in the US care little about the "collateral damage" caused by US bombing activities. Protected behind a giant military with no real conception of what it is to live through an air raid, the US citizenry is lulled into a myth of invincibility (just like Britain when it ruled the seas).
This is why 911 was such a shock. With help from the media who soaked up govt. lies and fear mongering, flag wavers were calling for war! But terrorism requires police action to control it. There was far more terrorist activity and lives lost due to it in the '80s.
Bin Laden knew America's myth of invincibility would bread out rage to the point of being sucked into an Afghanistan war (like Britain or Alexander the Great). The over enthusiasm of the Bushes fed into his hands with the added plus of the elimination of the removal of his biggest enemy, Saddam H. and US quagmier in Iraq. Such is the vanity and hubris of power.
Like all other empires, US has lost its way and will pay any price to maintane itself made myth. According to historical patterns, the US will morph to one of a few world powers and if the fall is too abrupt, freedom will be traded for security and the Republic will fall to dictatorship via marshal law.

I have to say that the Obama/Hillary fight for the Presidency did bring to mind the split between Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass over women's suffrage being simultaneously implemented with the voting rights for black males.

Some voters say sexism less offensive than racism

No history does not repeat itself. What is referred to as "human nature" is more or less a constant, and has a similar effect on the behavior of large populations repeatedly under certain circumstances. Therefore, it appears that history repeats itself . . . but that is apparent, as opposed to real.

Was it Mark Twain who said that
"History doesnt repeat itself but it does rhyme"

Maybe coulda been . . . it would sound like him.

I'll be ratback . . .

Samuel Clemens on this topic:

It is not worthwhile to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.

Which greatly resembles what i have commented.

I did find:

History doesn't repeat itself--at best it sometimes rhymes.

But without attribution (i.e., other than that it was attributed to Clemens).

close but no cigar.
Its the difference between lightning and a lightning bug

I too don't think history repeats itself. Set has stated it very well for me.

Dear Set, Farmerman and Edgar et al. and the rest of the doubting Thomas's,
Your Sam Clemens quotes are cute but also contradictory. I quote from your quote, Setane, "..... man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible."

Mr. Clemens uses the term "character", later mortals might use the word 'nature' or 'psychology' or my term 'zeitgeist' though I did not originate the Teutonic label literally translated as 'spirit of the times [or time at hand]'.

It is this human spiritual history that repeats its self, not the string of toys and tools invented along the way as humans adapt their recycling zeitgeist to fit their technology but never veer from the essential and eternal truth "...... there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastics

In the West (that includes Babylon and Moslelems too) there has been at least one 2000 year cycle that is recorded from the first Akkad-Babylonians to Rome that includes a theocratic phase which leads to a secular phase which leads to a spiritual phase that brings forth a new theology-religion (monotheism currently) which returns to theocracy (theocratic phase).

In the current 2000 year cycle, Rome provided the theocratic phase (lasting 1400 years) that was disrupted by the Renaissance and Age of Enligtenment-Reason which delivered the secular phase. Now, as in the Roman world 2 millennia ago, faith in science (secular phase) and faith in the church (theocratic phase) are both in question as humans try to modify both belief systems to adjust to technology (which does advance into the future lineally) or experiment with synthsyzing (if I may barrow Hegel's term) science and religion and/ or create a new belief system.

The controversy and cults are the agents of the spiritual phase (now begining and lasting 300 years), just as the science/academia vs religion/church contoversy and Isis, Mithra and Jesus cults were the same in Rome's day.

In 14 AD Augustus began his reign that paid lip service to the Republic. Currently we have Pax Americana ruled by the left and right wing of the corporate monopoly capitalist interests (just like Rome) called the Republican and Democratic Parties. Weather the power is administered by one or a group, it is a ruling elite non the less.

But don't worry about the end of the USA empire in your or you grand children's life time, because the spiritual phase that we are now entering demands that the empire that spawns it remains so for at least 300 years (unlike all the empires that followed Rome's who lasted perhaps 150 years each except for the Ottomans who lasted 200) so that their 'myth of invincibility' is ingrained and there is no personal memory of the ravages of war exacted on the homeland.

The luxury of such security allows for the formulation and new ideas that will become the new state religion when the barbarians finally knock at the gates ( as will enevitablity). "Old time religion' no longer holds the hearts of the populace, so the state turns to one of the recent cults. Another cost for the security comes in the form of loss of democracy and rule of the oligarchy as law and order is used by the demagogs to rationalize the end of the republic and institute a dictatorship though not overtly at first.

Lets see now, who will be elected president in 2012 ? Or will marshal law be in place to 'suspended' any election?

too much to fathom ?
Well it has been a couple of weeks and edgeblyth and set and any other doubters seem to be at a loss. Even the quote from Mark Twain that was a quaint opinion had no fact behind assertion. Once again, denial trumps logic as few want to admit that their 'modern' existence is NOT built upon an advanced state of human history. The toys (and machines) have changed, but the game is the same.

The West has moved from theocracy to secular to the present spiritual phase (where both secular and theocratic forms are challenged), but it did that 2000 years ago and 2000 years before that. Few like the idea that we are going nowhere in our human development.

Yes serfdom and slavery were officially abolished (thanks mostly to technology's role) but they have been replaced by wage slaves and subsistence farmers to take their place. Is your credit card paid off? All that has changed are the labels.

Nothing new under the sun...........................

You got no response because you made no case. Nothing surprising there. By the way, Octavian, a.k.a. Caesar Augustus, died in 14 CE, so your bullshit has no solid foundation.

feeling full of ourselves blucher? Your thread is a bit lame because if you had any evidence Im sure youd want to present it.

Basically, this is a "global" political rant--it blames everyone for a world which doesn't meet this member's moral standards. This rant belongs in the Politics forum, not History, and would be more honest shorn of pseudo-academic references to history, which it is obvious this member has not carefully studied.

Dear Set
Dear Set,

Such Language. Is your Judaic-Christian-Islamic lineal concept of history challenged here? Philosophy of history is quite appropriate for this category. Even the ancient Greeks saw history as cyclical. So to Native American, Chinese and Hindu traditions. Get a clue, look at the facts:
Greek (post Mycenaean) Dark Ages....... 2000 years later European (post Roman) Dark Ages, Greek Golden Age .......2 k later Europe's Renaissance, Hellenistic Period ....... 2 k later Age of Reason/Enlightenment,
Pax Romana...... 2k later Pax Americana.

The toys have changed and this has fooled Marxist and other historians to assume that human nature has progressed as well. But it has not (see above).

Sorry that this concept is too difficult (foreign) for you to comprehend.

In fact, i have pointed out that human nature is the constant which leads those with shallow views of history (such as you) to assume that history repeats itself. Far from claiming that human nature "evolves," i recognize that it remains basically unchanged over time. I have nothing in common with marxist "historians," who claim that class struggle and class consciousness condition historical events.

You can sneer and spew your vitriol to your heart's content. It won't change the basic fact that history does not repeat itself.

In refutation of your latest bout of puking bile at anyone who has the temerity to disagree with you, here is my first post in this thread:



What is incredible and pathetic is that you make such a charge against me as that i " . . . assume that human nature has progressed as well." It would have been obvious to anyone who bothered to read and understand my first post that i believe exactly the opposite. But you're too wrapped up in your obsessive political hatefulness to actually pay attention to what other members write.

Poor Set
Poor, poor Set,

It is "pathetic" that you are so upset. Yes you acknowledge that HUman Nature is consistent and then go on to say it "..... appears that history repeats its self."

So what are you saying? Are you alluding to the idea that the appearance is false?

Humans are NOT exempt from natural cycles; sorry. It follows that their evolution is tapped out until a new species arrives to dominate the planet. Meanwhile birth-life-death/mass-energy-mass continues (whether an individual, empire or era) though their titles/labels change and the technologies employed may evolve.

Why are you so threatened by a non-Marxist, non-Judeo-Christian-Moslem view of history? Are you unable to address the repeating eras or phases of the Zeitgeist that humans travel through?