History Is Important To The Present

Irish statesman Edmund Burke is often misquoted as having said, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Spanish philosopher George Santayana is credited with the aphorism, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” while British statesman Winston Churchill wrote, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  From the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences

As someone who has spent most of her life studying and even living history, it causes me real angst when I hear someone say "who needs to know all that old stuff?"  Wow, if only folks in Pompeii had retained the knowledge that sometimes the big mountain over yonder blew up they might have had a better idea of how to handle matters in 79 CE when Vesuvius buried the town.

History matters.  If you do not know where you have been you will just return to the same mistakes over and over.  You won't be able to correctly understand what is going on around you.  Here are a few modern examples of history explaining the present:

Pandemics

For the past 15 months we have been dealing with the first major pandemic in recent memory.  And that's the problem.  We have gotten so good at controlling epidemic outbreaks that we have forgotten that diseases are real and they don't give a shit about our beliefs, politics, race, gender, etc.   Remember polio?  I do.  Society fought like hell against a disease that crippled and killed people of all ages, but was especially devastating to children.  The March of Dimes was founded to battle polio.  Mass vaccination sites were created and no child was allowed in school without proof of immunity.

It would take polio 38 years to equal the total number of deaths from one year of Covid-19.

Mostly we liken the current pandemic to the 1918 Influenza that killed 50 million people worldwide and at least 675,000 Americans -- over three years.   Again, Covid-19 has killed 78% of that number in just over one year.

Folks who rail against vaccines as being dangerous, undemocratic and a violation of Holy Writ forget that our past has been littered (literally) with those dead from disease.  Becuase of Bubonic Plague, Cholera, Typhus, Typhoid, Diphtheria, Yellow Fever, Pertussis, Rubeola and the most lethal of all, Smallpox, more people have died of disease than any other cause throughout human history.  And we have conveniently forgotten what it was like to live in a world where people died where they stood -- at home, on the streets, on trains, in pubs.  That one could walk out into the "fresh air" redolent of decaying flesh, where there simply was neither time nor space to dispose of the bodies.

Well, we can have that world back again at any time because too many are willing to believe the lies told by venal, petty, deluded politicians and preachers.  God never stopped any of the above epidemics so not much chance that there will be an end to Covid-19 without direct human intervention.

This is my grandfather's baby sister, Mary Rosellen Alexander (1899-1900).  She died of smallpox when she was 7 months old. Nothing of this child remains except this one photograph.  We don't even have a grave because I suspect she was buried in a "pest cemetery" for those who died of dangerous contagions.  Fortunately we eradicated smallpox in the 1970s through an aggressive international program of mass vaccinations.

Of course all the other pandemic diseases remain.  They didn't lock up Mary Mallon for 26 years because she was a bad cook.  We still require that food service workers wash their hands after using the toilet precisely to avoid another Typhoid Mary.

The Courtroom

When there was argument about how Derek Chauvin could have suffocated George Floyd when Floyd could still say "I can't breathe" many thought that was proof that the victim's death must be from natural causes rather than lack of oxygen.  

Allow me to introduce you to Giles Corey who was pressed to death on 19 September 1692 for refusing to plead when accused of witchcraft.  He, too, had last words: "More weight."  Not being able to expand the lungs fully causes death just as surely as being hanged or drowned.  Lack of oxygen is lack of oxygen.

Prohibition

When I hear folks talk about banning abortion or banning guns, I simply point to America's great experiment with outlawing the production, transportation and sale of alcohol from 1920-1933. Not only was it an abject failure, but it actually made the "problem" far worse.

Our long and futile war on drugs has created a vast network drug cartels, an over-crowded prison system and graveyards filled with overdose causalities.  We've outlawed growing poppies and cannabis, both of which are indigenous, and are also used in producing beneficial products that were lost in the zeal to end the "scourge of addiction."  When I hear someone complain about purposed legalization of drugs in their fear that drug dealers will proliferate I can only ask when was the last time they called their local bootlegger.

The simple truth is that once we have banned something we can no longer regulate it.  Illegal alcohol led to poisoned alcohol.  Illegal drugs leads to potent dangerous adulterations that increase the risk of addiction and death.  Illegal guns will just increase the chances of cheaply made weapons, as likely to kill the shooter as the target.  And do I really have to explain what happens if we make abortions illegal?