The value of using human history

The main value is with the emphasis on “human”.

After all, all times and circumstances are different. But, how we humans act and react in our own times has a consistency that can be an attention gainer. Yes, the circumstances are always different, but how we in our own times think and act and react is probably pretty consistent. In other words, if one wants to add to their bag of tricks, considering history has advantages; and respecting human tendencies is smart. It is pretty much taking advantage of all who have gone before us, and what we might learn from them, our ancestors. And why not?

Some examples are obvious to me. Whoever heard of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854? Well many did in their time, and they made decisions that affected all of them, back in their time. Fast backward to the Magna Carta, and read about all that. Fast forward to the recent and long civil war in Sri Lanka, and read about these fellow humans, on both sides. Even read about the history of the USA Constitution.

Now what do we humans do if our present leaders think and act and govern another way, as in their way. That is a normal human question. After all, some leaders do better than others, or so I think. And mostly I think we voted them in, at least in the USA. Now in mainland China, I think, these leaders presently got themselves ingratiated with the present dictatorship, and now have a hard row to hoe, in the old fashioned human history term. And in other parts of the world, like the continent of Africa, the old time western diplomatic idea of nation states will evolve back to whatever happened before. There is friction everywhere in some of Africa, one might say from a tribal and history point of view.

Last one historical human tendency is to generalize, especially about humans. Yet we are so different everywhere, to try impose one idea on all is historically silly.

The point of this article is to think about what we humans presently want to do in our own country. And using some history is probably smart in adding to one’s bag of tricks. And most certainly our human future will be different from our past, everywhere.