Things Fall Apart: Does History Repeat Itself?

History doomed to repeat itself?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge once stated, “If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind.” (1). Knowledge, it is power but what is done with that power makes all the difference. Does history repeat itself, or as the above quote alludes to, does humankind ignore the lessons learned, allowing the experience of those before to become nothing more than a light showing the path to what was already known.

History relies on many different elements such as, the memory and firsthand accounts of the events that took place; the finding of artifacts that become pieces to a puzzle that eventually tell a story of what might have occurred. These lessons are documented for a reason, not only to recount what took place but also to learn and gain valuable knowledge from those recorded events. History repeats itself when those lessons are ignored, when decision are made and/or acted on with emotion instead of knowledge.

Do you feel that people listen to it?

The militaries doctrine is founded in lessons learned from the past, and what is believed to be the best way to accomplish a specific task. Taking it from a macro to a micro level, Soldiers after completeing a training event conduct a review. They will discuss what was supposed to happen, what did happen, and what changes need to happen in order to not make the same mistakes. This information is then collected and put in the units standard opearting procdures, commonly refered to as an “SOP.” The SOP is a living, breathing, document for leaders to constantly refer to ensure they are maximizing the knowledge and experince of their