Has Learning History Become Less Socially Important, and Are We Condemned to Repeat It?

Question

"What experience and history teach is this.....that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."
-G. W. F. Hegel

Answer 1

No. Learning history is exactly as unimportant to the general population as Hegel said it is/was.

Let's say 10% of your population is the intellectual elite: the people who can "think" with their "brains." And then there is the power elite: another 10% who try their best to constantly get wealth and power. What you're left with is 80% cannon fodder.

In a democracy (whether representative, republic, parliamentary or otherwise) 80% makes a majority.

Learning history for that 80% is too much work. They're stupid. Are we condemned to repeat it? Mark Twain said it better: "History doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes."

Answer 2

I don't completely agree with that statement, but human nature is human nature, and the only thing that has really changed since Cro-Magnon days is technology.