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Those Who Cannot Remember the Past are Condemned to Repeat It
50 Plays3 months ago
Is this episode Patrick and Andrew are joined by Sean Oborn to discuss the importance of learning history generally, as well as understanding your own personal and family history.
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Transcript
Introduction and Inspiration
00:00:00
Speaker
and the brave new world begins when all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins as surely as water will wet us as surely as fire will burn the gods of the coffee book headings with terror and slaughter returned
00:00:28
Speaker
Hello everybody. And thank you for joining us for another episode of the copybook headings podcast. If you're a new listener, just joining us for the first time. This show is inspired by the poem by Rudyard Kipling called the gods of the copybook headings. And every week we take an old saying proverb or maxim and we break it down to see what we can learn from it and see if there's still any ancient wisdom that's relevant today.
Meet the Guest: Sean Oborn
00:00:47
Speaker
I'm your host Patrick Payne. And with me as always is my co-host Andrew Stevens. Andrew, how are you doing buddy? Hey, I'm doing all right. How are you? Good, man. Just got back into town. I was on a business trip, and now I was like, I just flew in a few hours ago, and now I'm sitting down to record. So it's been a little bit of a whirlwind, but it's a good episode because we've got good friend, ah Sean Oborn has joined us. We've got a guest. Sean, how you doing, man? What's going on, man?
00:01:12
Speaker
So I made you record on such late notice after you've been traveling. but That's OK. No, this is the time we normally do it. So I'm glad I made it back in time for our normal regularly scheduled. That's true. Technically, you scheduled this. So I'm not to blame. That's right.
History in Music: A New Podcast
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah. So um it for those of you, I don't know if you follow us online or on Twitter or anything, but I have actually been on Sean's podcast as a guest. When was that like last year? I think it was late last year, yeah. Mid last year, I'll have to look it up, but yes. So yeah, you want to tell tell people about about your podcast?
00:01:47
Speaker
Yeah, so um my name is Sean. um I like long walks on the beach and getting caught in the rain. And I have a podcast with my friend Scott, ah also at Twitter Mutual. And the podcast is called History in Music. And it was Scott's baby, but he kind of brought me on as like a co-host. And basically what we discuss is we have about a one hour-ish um episode that we put out where we discuss songs that are about that they have a historical context. So in other words, songs that are about something historical. So for example, our most recent episode was ah born in the USA, ah Bruce Springsteen. And essentially, like if you go through the lyrics of that song, it's about a Vietnam vet coming home from the war, not having a job, you know those kind of things. So we kind of go we kind of go over
00:02:34
Speaker
Not necessarily old songs, which is a common misconception, but songs that are about something historical. Famous event, battle, what have you. And it's really enjoyable. I suggest everyone like and subscribe. I also suggest, it's a good one. and we It's a really interesting podcast and kind of a unique ah premise. So we like that. um We got a good- You're trying to get Andrew on there, but he won't he won't come on the show. I keep trying to think of a think of a song you know that would be good. My my wife you know suggested something from like from opera, you know like, oh, that's that's a bit loftier than I was thinking. I was thinking of like something from
00:03:11
Speaker
like you know viking death metal but that's that's uh you know so something here or there i'll pick a good one for you guys okay well if you do opera it's all going to be like in latin or italian or something but hey we've done ah we've done a couple of them they were all in german and they're actually our most listened to episodes i don't know why all right ah Andrew's your guy for Latin. so Let's do it, man. I don't speak Latin, but you do and that works for me.
00:03:39
Speaker
Awesome.
Proverb Spotlight: Learning from the Past
00:03:40
Speaker
ah Well, we've got a good got a good proverb this week. This is one that Sean selected. I love it when our guests pick their own proverb because it's not just us telling you what we think you should hear, but it's like someone bringing another perspective. So ah Sean, you want to you want to lay it on us? Yeah, so the quote that I picked for today is, um those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. It's a great one. Thank you. Yeah, obviously a common one. Probably everyone's heard this one in some iteration or and or another. what What did you like about it? What made you select this one?
00:04:18
Speaker
So part of the reason I selected it was so I could kind of give you an excuse to research like the history of this quote because everyone's familiar with this. Everyone repeats it in some variation, right? And number one is I didn't actually and know how old this um this quote was or even who said it. And so, but it's just one of those things that's passed into like the the collective consciousness, right? That like everyone knows this quote or some variation of it, but where did it come from? Why is it important? What's the context behind it? And um i I got my bachelor's degree in history. Some people know it listed on my show. And while I'm not a historian, I'm certainly a history enjoyer. And I wanted to come on your guys's show, but also pick a quote that had some, some, some, some, something historical about it, if that makes sense. And so I, that was the only quote I could think of from top of mind that was referencing history, because that's my passion.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, awesome. I want to throw it over to Andrew. Andrew, did you have any thoughts on this one? we were what What was your initial impression? Yeah, I mean, I think my initial impression was, oh, that's not like the version I am most familiar with, right? That's not the one that that I feel, at least for for my age, I don't know, um was the one because I think maybe the formulation is something like those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Yeah. and I think that's maybe the more common one.
00:05:45
Speaker
um But yeah, also, I mean, like like Sean, I'd never thought about really how old this one, where this one comes from. I'd never looked into it. um but But Sean, you did look into this. So what what did you find?
Santayana’s Quote in Context
00:05:59
Speaker
um it's I mean, it's a lot more recent than I would have thought. But yeah, I had the same thought I thought for sure this one will be old but this this might be your most recent quote on your guys's show because I maybe not but I feel like a lot of your guys's quotes are you know, 1500s and it was in Middle English or whatever but um So when I was researching this one, I guess there was like some some misunderstanding as far as who actually said it some people say Winston Churchill said it some people say Edmund Burke
00:06:25
Speaker
But the actual originator, at least from what I could find, that said this was a guy named George Santayana, um who I heard his name before, have not read anything he's ever written. um He's like a Spanish American, like philosopher, poet, author guy. And he wrote a book with that exact quote verbatim, like I said, in it. And it's from 1905.
00:06:52
Speaker
And um the actual, the actual like full quote, the name of the book is the life of reason or the phases of human progress. And in a chapter titled flux and constancy in human nature, he says, this is the full quote, progress, far from consisting and change depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute, there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement. And when experience is not retained as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life, the mind is frivolous and easily distracted. It misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This in the condition of children and barbarians in whom instinct has learned nothing from experience." I think I already put myself to sleep on that one, but philosophy is a little hard to get through sometimes.
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah. ah Well, um yeah. You want to kind of run through what that what you got out of that or what that means to you?
Philosophical Insights on Mistakes
00:07:53
Speaker
Yeah. And I think what he's what he's referring to here is is it's not so much history or remembering the past, but basically what it is saying is learning from your mistakes. you know If you can't learn from your mistakes, if you can't learn from your own errors, then you're basically doomed to to remain in ah in a state of infancy perpetual forever. you know yeah and he And what he says here, and it may not be PC to say that, but he's referring to savages. like I guess i'm I'm assuming he means like tribal peoples. or I don't know. But he's referring to people who, like it because they because they don't know what's happened before them or or the the experiences of people that came before them, they haven't been shared, haven't been passed down, they just keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again.
00:08:35
Speaker
Yeah, because he refers there like to to children and stuff, right? like And children you know famously live in the present and um don't think of mistakes from the past and really don't plan for the future, right? so Yeah. Well, there's even a stage of childhood development called object permanence, right? Where they learn like if something's there and I cover it up, it's still there. It's just covered up. It didn't disappear forever. You know, yeah. ah Yeah, and I hadn't really thought about that with a lot of the kind of these, you know, indigenous tribes that are all over the world, but those who didn't have a have written history, really had a hard time progressing and a hard time advancing because they didn't, you know, they say they talk about standing on the shoulders of giants, right? Well, if you don't know what the giants are doing, or don't know where they are, how are you going to stand on their shoulders? So that written history was super crucial for the advancement of of any people, I think that's kind of part of what his point is.
00:09:28
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I agree. And a lot of these people would have like like an oral history, which I think is is probably beneficial as well. I don't know of any of the like yeah and i don't know of any i don't know any prior like ancient civilizations or whatever, or or peoples that had no written history, no oral record at all, maybe it exists. but um ah Maybe he's just kind of committing a thought exercise here where it's like in order to progress you need to look back on Things you've done wrong or the experience of others learn from it and improve yourself Because the the the the long version of the quote I read starts with progress. That's his first word, right? So he's talking about growth essentially this makes me feel guilty that I don't do better at journaling and
00:10:13
Speaker
That was actually my intent for coming on here. I knew you weren't journaling Patrick. Mission accomplished. You got me. um No, but like I like that there's the personal aspect of it that you dear listener, you know whoever you are, you will not progress if you don't learn from your own mistakes. But then it this saying is kind of ah also taken on a life of its own as like an you know advocating for learning history writ large. right And like this is an important topic and important subject to study.
00:10:48
Speaker
So <unk> I'll confess the first time that I heard this quote um it was in a context of George Orwell's 1984 Fun fact, George oriwell Orwell wasn't his real name. His name was actually Eric Blair. But he I always thought that it was him that said that in 1984, or Animal Farm, or one of his anti
Orwell's Influence on History
00:11:09
Speaker
-fascist pro-socialism books that he wrote, and I thought that that's what he was referencing. And he kind of toys with that idea in, um I was quoting it before the show. I was quoting that the Rage Against the Machine song, where he says, who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the future controls the past. And so it's the idea that like you can
00:11:25
Speaker
you basically can control a narrative if you can if you can rewrite history. you know And so I always, that's kind of, I feel like that's the context this quote's always used in is like, we need to learn history so we don't have fascism again. So we don't have communism again. So we don't have slavery again. things It's always like this, you need to learn history so you can't repeat whatever the boogeyman is, you know socially speaking. yeah And so that that was kind of like what led me to think about this is that that's kind of how everyone uses this quote. But when I read about it, it looks like he's not even referring to that. He's basically just saying like it's ah it's a very personal thing. you know like You need to learn from your own experience or the experience of your parents, forebears, whatever, so you can improve yourself, which I thought was kind of interesting.
00:12:11
Speaker
That's a really interesting take on it. and um um I'm curious to know what your opinion is on on the history side before we kind of delve more into the personal side of it. Do you do you kind of agree with that generally speaking that it and understanding history can prevent you from making mistakes again or take history cyclical kind of no matter what we do? I think history is cyclical no matter what we do, um but history doesn't necessarily repeat itself. I took a class in college one time. We're at a history professor that talked about this. week Well, history doesn't repeat itself, but there are repeated themes or I forget the exact way he worded it, but basically you'll see the same sort of
00:12:46
Speaker
threads of understanding or threads of of behavior in all human beings, even if you know your own history. So in some sense, I think it it can be um like not it's it's it's not it's not preventable.
Narratives and Historical Manipulation
00:12:59
Speaker
But at the same time, and sometimes people will will look back on the past and use that as an excuse for their actions. you know, or will take past experiences, past histories to suit their own their own ah methods, their own their own um intentions. So famously, the the Nazi party borrowed a ton of
00:13:23
Speaker
um like ancient like iconography of like dramatic peoples right and some mysticism stuff some esoteric stuff they created some of their own and also famously borrowed a bunch of roman imagery yeah right and the idea was is like at least at least from my understanding for the for the the the bear mocks and whatnot is the idea was is oh we're a continuation of these peoples we're a continuation of the dramatic tribes we're a continuation of the romans that that roman Like we we inherited that Roman history if you will. Yeah um So yeah, I to be honest. I don't I'm not even entirely sure where I was going with that but um It's it's it's just interesting how People I think people tend to think like oh if you don't study history then these things are gonna happen no matter what but there's Documented cases all over the course of history where people are using history on purpose to sort of
00:14:22
Speaker
change their future, if that makes sense.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yeah, it seems like also when you, I mean, just knowing history isn't enough. I think, I mean, are i mean obviously we believe in history here on the Copybook Headings podcast. but So these proverbs are old and historical, but um sometimes I've noticed people have a tendency to, if they understand a piece of history, which, and nobody understands at all, they can try to force that lens through on a on um to a modern um scenario and be like, well, this is just like whatever. So we have to do, We have to have this solution to it, which it may or may not be be correct. So I've noticed that's just one thing I've noticed. Well, and one thing, i'm and i'm like I said, I'm not up sorry. I had to go ahead. I've been talking a lot. but No, you're good I just yeah, it seems that that um that history divorced from experience. um You know, is you really can't learn from like, that's ah that's why I think I agree that it you know it's cyclical because you
00:15:22
Speaker
um I don't know there's just something about the experience aspect living through things that actually is the teacher um and so like you know which I think goes and along with something like um Germany borrowing older you know other symbols from other civilizations that really aren't connected like so they're they're trying to borrow it's divorced from experience so they're they're they can twist it to their own designs to their own propaganda but so you know a people or a person just has to connect to it experientially uh connect to history in that way and so you in a sense still are kind of doomed to to repeat history because you you need
00:16:08
Speaker
You need to learn the lessons yourself, you know, like the kid, every kid needs to touch the hot stove. Um, you can, you can tell the kid, oh you know, they can be told a hundred times, but they're still going to touch it. So I think you just, um, where we are a little stuck. I think there is a subset of people, and it might just be how your brain's wired, but there might be some children who never will touch the hot stove because dad said no. but We all know there's a large portion of kids that you could tell them no a million times, they have to know for themselves. and Maybe it's a personality quirk. um but
00:16:47
Speaker
i think I think you're right. is like there's There's always going to be a large portion that that it is cyclical like that and it doesn't matter if you know the history of someone else or not. They're going to live in their own way. It kind of reminds me of the saying that you know hard men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times, bad times create hard men. you know so The cyclical nature, you see that thrown around online. That that reminds me of that. Yeah, it's a and and from like borrowing from the scriptures from the the church we all go to is like the pride cycle, right? It's exactly the same is essentially what that's communicating is like as as you kind of forget who you are and what made you what you are then you you lose that that edge if you will
00:17:29
Speaker
and um And then you have to kind of relearn it. And oftentimes, it's a traumatic relearning, if you will. um There's a saying um that um I actually heard on a podcast I listen to a lot. It's the Hardcore History Podcast with Dan Carlin. I'm not sure if you guys ever have listened to that. But yeah you got to dedicate some time to listen to it, like four-hour episodes. But um he he was talking about the Mongol Empire. And he's talking about how there's this this concept of um the woodshoes the wood shoes go up the stairs and the silk slippers go down with empire. And so what he's talking about is you look at someone like Genghis Khan or Chinggis Khan is how he would pronounce his own name. And this guy was like hardened on the steps, right? They're they're riding their step ponies for hundreds of miles. They're drinking mare's blood in the desert to survive, like living on virtually no food. And they're conquering their known world at the time. And he conquers this vast empire and then his descendants within a hundred years
00:18:28
Speaker
have almost, they're're're they're so removed from the life that he grew up in, that they're not even the same caliber of individual anymore. And then the first thing that happens with his death is his ancestors, who can't even hold a candle the to the guy, start breaking apart his empire. And so that's the whole concept is the the um the the wood shoes, right? You're a little bit more um austere, a little bit more stoic, a little bit more uncomfortable, a little bit more rough. you know That's the ascending up the stairs of of of empire. And the silk slippers, once you have like all the you know the money, the the resources, so forth, is when the empire starts to collapse because what made it great in the first place has partially been lost by the success of that empire. Does that make sense?
00:19:13
Speaker
Yeah, totally. um We were just doing some family history recently and I read a story that I never read about one of my great, great, great grandfathers who was living in Oslo, Norway. like a block from the palace, like the wealthy neighborhood. And he actually made silk shoes for a living. That's what he did, which what reminded me of that. Until till the missionaries came and knocked on his door and he converted and you know sailed across and gave up everything. um ah So he he started that all over again. He was probably on the comfortable side. He's like, you know what? we're goingnna We're going to start from scratch. We're going to go back up. And
00:19:50
Speaker
And um i mean I'm glad he did because here I am. But but yeah, that's that's pretty cool imagery of the the shoes the wooden shoes going up and the silk shoes going down. Yeah. When you think of something like silk shoes, they're not designed for a tough flight. They're designed for and being indoors. You take silk outside and walk in your yard, it's going to get all shredded. yeah right So again, it's just it's the imagery there. but um i Don't know I that that's speaking of like actual lived experience and I think you could understand like using the same Genghis Khan reference you could you could understand that Yeah, my great-grandfather went through x y and z these difficult circumstances in his life that made him who he is But if you can't live through those same experiences yourself Even if you're just reading about them, I think you'd have a hard time recreating that needed experience Does that make sense? Yeah, I think so because I think if um
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah, ah you can you can relate to someone else's hardship if you have a similar degree of hardship, right? But if your life is such that you really never hit that that same level, you really can't appreciate it. You really can't fully understand it. Like you can you can go as far as as to analogize, but once you is once the degree is so different, it's really almost impossible. And maybe for most people, it is just completely impossible to to relate Yeah, I could have i can have all the love and and respect and reverence for my pioneer ancestors walking barefoot in the snow a thousand miles to get to the Utah Valley, but I will never be able to do that myself. I mean, I could, but it'd be crazy. but
00:21:25
Speaker
so to to have that same like level of hardness and commitment and dedication, I can only larp basically at that kind of dedication because they they did it. and and the The world is such a place now that I can't i can't even recreate that experience.
00:21:48
Speaker
what what do you guys think can be done about
Character Building Through Hardship
00:21:51
Speaker
this. like Let's say you notice that your society is on on the downward escalator wearing your silk shoes, but you don't want your kids to end up you know you know have being the weak men that create the hard times or living in the hard times. ah Sean, you mentioned that you can't recreate those physical hardships. Are there things we can do? I'm curious to know what what both your thoughts are. I'll let Andrew pine first, cause I've always got thoughts. Yeah. I think, I don't think maybe we've, we've talked about this is, but it's been a while. Um, cause I think there is some value still in, in the LARP, um, because you're, it's all you can do. So you you can, you can try and, and impose some artificial hardship or at the very least more hardship, perhaps than, than the other people your kids are growing up around.
00:22:44
Speaker
And that will give them the leg up in in that regard, even if it's, even if they're not going to be as, uh, as tough as, as their great, great grandparents, um, you can. you can give them a little bit of hardship because at at at the very least there's some character building there if not actual, you know, experience of shooting and skinning their own squirrels or something, right? Which you could still do if you wanted to. Yes, you could still do that but you know you could do that but maybe you can't do the you can't do the ah herd of bison or uh or you know something something with a
00:23:21
Speaker
primitive bow and arrow or that the crossing the planes that are, you know, there's no such thing as ah unobstructed territory like that anymore. but But there's, you know, you can do these some of these things in a and a smaller scale and still learn some valuable things. So that yeah i think I think it's still worth trying to make things hard just for the character building. Yeah, I think that I think there's kind of a, a lot of movement, if I can even say that, like, in our in our sphere online, because we're all we're all like x mutuals, right, Twitter mutuals. And I think there is kind of at least for for men, in our sphere, there is kind of that whole return, right? It's a meme that return return to to tradition kind of thing.
00:24:05
Speaker
But I think that's the idea is like we've grown so soft nowadays that we do need to return to how our forebears lived, eat the raw meat, drink the drink the raw milk, you know, like return to the Bronze Age, you know, a lot of that stuff. um And in some ways, it's a larp, but I do think it's better than nothing. And it's better than what's currently offered to us, because what's currently offered to us is a life of luxury video games, foods full of chemicals and fats and things like that. um But what when i the first thought I had Patrick with your question is like, what can we do now is it actually reminded me of um something that um Theodore Roosevelt used to do. And from the same era that this quote was written by 1905, that I was like Teddy Roosevelt's heyday, right? And I think it's roughly when he was president. And so when he was just like the brief history on Teddy Roosevelt is
00:24:54
Speaker
Number one, he hated being called Teddy. But he um he he was when he was born, he was apparently, kind of ah he was born in in New York on the on the coast, I think on Long Island. And he was kind of a sickly child. like he I think he didn't breathe very well, had some problem with his lungs or something. So he was kind of a sickly child. and So he kind of grew up as a sickly child. But kind of as a young ah young adult, young man, he decided to make a change and to on purpose do hard things to sort of push his body and test his limits. And he called it living a strenuous life. That's what he called it. And so he would on purpose do strenuous things. And that's why nowadays we'd call him like an adrenaline junkie, right? He'd go do these crazy things. I'm going to go live on a dude ranch and hunt buffalo. You know, and no one was hunting buffalo in 1905, but he went and did it, you know? And like, I think right before he died, like one of the last things he did before he died is
00:25:45
Speaker
He went to go hunt manta rays in the ocean, you know, like with it with a spear. and And like no one did that anymore. It was a very primitive thing to do. But in his mind, this was, no, I'm pushing my body. I'm i'm on purpose living a more difficult, austere life to to kind of just, I guess, I think he looked at it as like a manhood kind of a thing. Like this is what real men do. I need to be a real man. Yeah. so that's I think that's something you could do. Kind of like what Andrew was saying is like maybe you're not hunting the bison on the Great Plains, but you can still take your kids shooting. You can still go to the gym. You can still go camping. You can still go on a hike. I mean, you can't you can't walk a thousand miles from Iowa to Utah, but you can go hike a 14er in you know the Sierra Nevadas. Yeah.
00:26:33
Speaker
it what what What came to my mind when you were talking is that it's oftentimes harder to do hard things intentionally than when the hard things are thrust upon you. Whereas, so, I mean, to to me, that that's in in some ways, that I feel like we should give ourselves a little bit of grace because if if to for our kids to survive, we had to walk a thousand miles. All of us would probably just do it. you know and we'd we It might be difficult, but we'd we'd find a way to make it happen. What's hard is to go out of your way to step out of this life of luxury to go do those hard things intentionally for no other purpose than to build that character and to build that toughness and to and to inculcate those those good strong values in yourself and in your kids. So that's the kind of the the challenge that we're faced with, which is not easy to do.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I think a difficulty with that too is like you said, because of modernity, it's, you could walk a thousand miles, but the whole time after mile 400, you're like, dude, I could drive a car, ride a bike. I have other options. You know, whereas anciently there was no option. So it was out of necessity. I'm doing this and that's a very good motivator. Yeah, so you know, so so yeah it's it's now it's almost like I'm doing these things in spite of all the benefits I have in my life and all the other like methods of travel available to me You know, there's that reminds me. I'm sorry Andrea Let's just talk a second. There's like there's a clip and there's a part in the movie back to the future Part three where Marty goes back to the yeah to the the wild West one, right? Yeah. Yep. Yeah goes back to the Wild West and I
00:28:12
Speaker
yeah know People are talking to Doc Brown about and he's telling he's drunk and so he's like telling him about the future how there's cars they'll take you everywhere. And there's like, well, do does anybody like walk or run nowadays? They're laughing at him. He's like, yeah, they run. But you know, for recreation for fun, like run for fun. What the hell kind of fun is that? You know, and and it was pretty funny line. um But people do. They will run marathons, ultra marathons, Ironman for fun because they need something strenuous in their life and they go out and seek it. And you see it all the time. People are riding their bikes super far. They do triathlons. They go get strangled by guys on a mat like me. you know We do something because we feel like we need something like that in our lives.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yeah. And can I go back? Oh, sorry, Andrew. It was your turn to talk. I know. you oh I was just going to say that, um, yeah, it seems the, the stakes, you know, or the consequences are, are, are minimal to quit things. Right. So you can, so any, any difficult endeavor you might, you know, launch, you really can just always in the back of your head is like, Oh, I can just quit this and go back to the easy thing. Right. you know which is I think you know people we've known who've done something like start a business, the the guys who've done it because they got fired, you know they've they've succeeded maybe better than the guys who are just trying to do it on the side and keep their nice job until things are good. right That not having that escape hatch really does push you in a lot of endeavors.
00:29:41
Speaker
yeah well Bootstrapping is a lot easier when you don't know where your next meal is coming i mean like versus like, oh, I've got a steady job. y I'll take like three years, try and get this other side gig off the ground. No rush. Yeah. So I get that. um can i Can I switch gears and go back to something you brought up before, Patrick? Sure. Okay. So you were talking earlier about um you know this idea of of the past and remembering the past. ergo like in In other words, studying history. and there There is a common misconception that when you when you go to study history, at least in an academic ah type of endeavor, that it's kind of there's no judgments being made. And it's just like, let's just like learn the narrative of, hey, here's what happened during World War II. There's no judgments being made. There's no um there's no bias being being added in here. there It's just learning the names, the dates, the facts. Here's what happened, you know and that kind of thing.
00:30:37
Speaker
And that is exactly what history is not. And I i was like, what I learned in when my first history classes is it's not just memorizing names and dates. It's learning how these things are connected. How did X lead to Y? And why is that? Why does that matter? And what can we learn from that? And you almost actually don't learn any names and dates, to be honest with you. um it's It's more of noticing, I would say themes of, of human experience, if you will, and how they how they sort of relate to each other. And so I um know, understanding it from in that lens,
00:31:12
Speaker
Then the quote kind of makes a little bit more sense with the study of history because you're studying history to not make the same mistakes that your forebears made um versus just studying history just because it's like fun. you know It's like, hey, what did these guys do that worked? Can we replicate that in our modern society or you our version of what they did in the past? you know yeah yeah And what you'll learn is nothing's new under the sun. Yeah. My wife and I have had this discussion because I i loved history growing up, and she didn't. She was like more of a math student, a very good student. But she was always like, oh, the dates would always get. I hate the dates and whatever, like you said.
00:31:49
Speaker
And um I agree that the memorization of specific dates isn't super crucial. But yeah, I 100% agree that history starts to make more sense when you can start piecing things chronologically. So I do think it's kind of important to know roughly when something happened, maybe even just the decade or whatever, because you're like, OK, so this happened directly after that. Oh, and now I see why this is kind of coming together, because these people were just coming out of World War I, for example, and they're cities destroyed or whatever, and then this happened, now it's making more sense. So yeah, but understanding kind of a chronology is is is super important to to piece together the story. Yeah. And that's kind of the meme behind, and one day for no reason at all, people elected hitler Hitler into power. It's like, well, it wasn't for no reason at all. Go back and like you said, look what happened to the German people in World War I and immediately after, and it it doesn't justify it, but it makes a lot more sense, you know, how how one could lead to the other.
00:32:43
Speaker
um and Actually, I had a ah professor in history um who um he he he kind of talked about that as how we're not the math and sciences. History history is this is ah is a social science, right? It's not it's not one of like the hard like math classes or or science classes where two plus two is four, it will always equal four. There is one right answer. History does not have a right answer. In fact, it may not even have an answer at all. it's just trying It's just seeking to understand why did this happen? What can we learn from it? And how is what this how is this event related to this event? What led to the other and and so forth? And so sometimes folks have a problem have i shouldn't have a problem, have difficulty with that because they want to know like, but why? Like why did it happen? Well, we don't know, man. yeah Write an essay on it. We'll try and figure it out. And you can you can you can sort of put forward your theory, but there is no right answer.
00:33:37
Speaker
All right, so I want to before we run run out of time, we got to spend some time talking about the the personal aspect, I think, of of learning from from your history. And, you know, maybe we should bring bring Adam back on because I wonder, like, the utility of um you know trying to forget maybe things that, are there things ah that you've done or or or things that that have that hang over your head that you but you'd be better better off forgetting, right? That you can move past it um versus like dwelling on things. you know like I guess that's just one aspect. But generally, let's talk about,
00:34:17
Speaker
um you know that the personal history and and learning from from our own past. the first thing that came to my mind, Andrew, when you were talking is repentance, like from a religious context, yeah right? So ah essentially what you're doing is I made a mistake, I have sinned against God, and I make amends for that, whatever that entails, and I try never to repeat that mistake again. And in in in some sense, you're actually trying to forget that it happened. And God says he actually will forget that it happened. but Scripturally, he says that, right? So that that was the first thing that came to my mind. But I don't know
00:34:51
Speaker
how realistic that is in practice for a human who can't just erase, you know, men in black, like erase, you know, mind white. You know what I mean?
00:35:02
Speaker
Yeah, I, from a personal perspective, I mean, i I mentioned that we had done a little bit of family history, I feel like that's an under discussed part of history, because you can learn about World War Two, you can learn about the ancient Romans, but I feel like it's really impactful if you can get some family stories from your grandparents, your great grandparents, or even earlier.
Family History and Personal Growth
00:35:23
Speaker
um and I mean, these these are the people that came before you. These are the people that, that I mean, genetics do matter and and they do play a part in who you are and your personality. and and Maybe some of the things you struggled with, you might see some similar
00:35:40
Speaker
some some some commonality with some of your ancestors that can be of benefit to you. i I have in certain areas in my life. So I think that's super important if you have that available to and um and being able to kind of create your own family story as well with your kids. How is that transmitted to you? um And how do you transmit that to your kids, like that interest in in the family history and the family stories? um We try to do it all like ah ah on like on a Sunday afternoon. we'll I'll pull up some family stories and like I'll like you know stream stream it to my TV so everyone can see it from my computer and I'll just read some of these stories. I'll look at some of the old pictures and I'll just ask them questions. I'll be like, you know, like that that blanket on the name of my ancestor here, but um the one who was living in in Norway. I was like, what what do you think it was like to live two blocks from the palace?
00:36:31
Speaker
you know Think about that. The king lived there. You probably saw him riding in the carriage, waved to him. at you know like You probably knew these people. You ran in these circles. he was a He made silk shoes. You guys ever seen silk shoes before? My kids were like, no. you know And then what what were they like? We'd look them up and we'd be like, these are the pictures of them. they're like They laughed and thought they looked really goofy because they kind of do. And then we'd be like, well, what was his life like? And then he had two missionaries knock on his door and preach him a gospel that he'd never heard before, but he felt in his heart that he needed to do it. And he left everything behind and he got on a boat to go across the country and travel to through the desert to to Utah. um Yeah, I mean, that's I ah want them to understand what they what they went through so that when they're having a hard time,
00:37:15
Speaker
they you know if they're going to lose something maybe temporal lose something physical something monetary maybe maybe they'll remember that story maybe it'll help them to understand that there's more important things I like that. I actually, speaking of family history, I actually had an epiphany um about family history specifically. And I don't know why it took me so, like, why this had not dawned on me after so many years. I mean, I've been born and raised in the church. I've been hearing this my whole life, right? and the
00:37:46
Speaker
Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints 101 is genealogy, aka family history. and um and i And I shared this, I think it was like a spiritual thought in church or something, but it was talking about doing your family history and specifically the the spirit of Elijah that's that's mentioned in in the book of Malachi, right? Where it says, you know um to paraphrase, I was sending you Elijah on the last day, and he shall turn the hearts of the children to their fathers and the hearts of the fathers to their children. And I always thought, oh, that just meant like, yeah, do your family history, you know, do do your temple work vicarious baptisms and the other things we do in the church for our our dead ancestors um who didn't have the opportunity. But then I realized that, at least in in in ah in a scriptural sense,
00:38:29
Speaker
The words they use are intentional, right, in the scriptures. So why did Malachi say, turn the hearts? Not the minds. He didn't say it's a commandment. You should do it. He didn't say, you know, turn the spirits or something. Hearts. Why? And what I came up with is exactly what you said, Patrick. As you learn about the things that your forefathers have done, you learn, you learn, you get to know them and you quite literally learn to love them, having never met them because of the experiences they went through for you, for your posterity, knowing that if your ancestors are in Norway, hey, I am going to go
00:39:09
Speaker
because I believe in and and and in this church. I am going to follow my new people, the Church of Jesus Christ, to America and build a new life for my posterity. And you are the direct result of that. And so you can look back on that with your children and you can love this man as your ancestor who you've never met because of what he did.
Preserving Family Stories
00:39:30
Speaker
And that was like really powerful to me. And I'm like, I had never thought of that before. I always thought when he says turn the hearts, he's meant like, Oh, you'll think about him. Like, you'll, you'll just, you'll, you'll be aware of them. You'll you'll'll be aware of their existence. Like, you know, okay, I have this guy's name, his date of birth, date of death. I know he existed. Let's get him baptized.
00:39:48
Speaker
versus but versus like, no, this was a guy just like me. He saw the world in color. This was not a black and white photo. He lived a life just like me with the same hopes, dreams, fears, pains that I have. Yeah, we have that that family tree app that we use that's ah kind of run by the church. And and I always skim through. And I'm always sad when I see the didnt name and the date, but there's no nothing under the Stories tab. That's where I like to go to see if there's a picture, to see if there's a um ah a journal entry from them, or even even like oftentimes it's like something that their kids or grandkids wrote.
00:40:29
Speaker
because they didn't have any written writings of their own. But it's like, I remember this about about Papa or whatever. and And he was like this when I was a little girl. And and they would write down stories about him. And then you could get kind of get to know this person through that. So yeah, that's my favorite part is is getting to know the people that came before you. I would say, to go back to the quote, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. And we kind of talked to this earlier. how are How do you remember the past? So in order to not repeat the past, how do you remember it? That keyword, remember, how does that happen? Well, it's implied that you'll have to you have to reflect back on it in some way. And so if you're not writing things down or at least keeping like a like a um you know like ah like a verbal you know oral history of some kind or oral memories alive,
00:41:15
Speaker
then you will then you will repeat the past because you have no way to remember it. So just, again, further condemning you, Patrick, for not keeping your journal. we Andrew and I have talked about this too. We're like, does this podcast count as journaling? Because at least our ancestors will have this to listen to as long as the internet's still around. I think it does. I honestly, I think it does. And I've actually thought about that with my own podcast is like one day, I mean, who knows? This is like, sounds crazy, but maybe my grandkids can listen to it, you know, out of podcasts won't even be a thing. But as we know, the internet never forgets. And a lot of these things, I mean, you can, you can look up like old, old timey videos and movies and music from a hundred years ago, 150 years ago. So why not something from the 2020s, you know? Yeah.
00:42:02
Speaker
So Andrew, what do you got for us? You look like you're like you get deep in thought over there. and Yeah, yeah, absolutely. um Well, yeah, I think I really like, um Sean, what you focus there on with with the remembering the past. um I think that's crucial and especially it's that's what makes this formulation, this this quotation important ah over other ones that you might hear because remembering implies an internalizing of that information. that that it is known to you, it's in your head and you you're recalling it. It's not just like you learned from it, but you are remembering it. um you know and And so, yeah, just the the importance of of really absorbing the
00:42:49
Speaker
but your own past that you're learning from in in the journal that you're all keeping and returning to regularly. um And also, you know, family history stuff and just broader history, but really, um that you're, you're making sense of it, and you're, and you're applying it, I think that's really gets to the heart of of remembering.
00:43:11
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. um Well, last thing we like to talk about is we we usually like to talk about society at large, the gods of the of the of the marketplace. How does society treat this one? Is this one that one of those copybook headings that's beat up and and dragged around? Or is this one that's more or less respected? You hear people pay lip surface to it all the time, I feel like. But what do you guys think? Is it is it genuine?
00:43:41
Speaker
I think it is. I feel like, and I don't even know the best way to express this like coherently, like live on the air, but I i feel like sometimes it's almost used as like a threat. It's like, hey man, you got to learn about this stuff. Otherwise you're making the same mistakes the Nazis did or the communists or whatever. It's almost like a cudgel. You know, it's like you're yeah it's like you got it you gotta to learn you got to learn this stuff, man, because otherwise you're going to be just as bad as those guys. you know And I feel like that that's probably the some sort of a similar context as often how I see this quote shared. um But I still think it's relevant, but I'm curious to hear what you guys think.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah, it does get used to as a way to tell kids to to pay attention in school, right? That's kind of what but it comes down to. um Yeah, I think um there's There's a lot of lip service on this one, but I think people would would do well to you know listen to this episode over again and and and really think about what more there is to this and and and what but they can get out of it. because i mean i I probably just thought about it superficially as well as
00:44:57
Speaker
as just an admonition to read history books, right? But not- Which you should do, by the way. I'm always gonna show history books. But you gotta, but you need to internalize it. You need to you need to learn the lessons and and project how those lessons go into your future and and and how you apply them. I had one final thought. I know we're kind of going over on time. But it's interesting because it's those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. And in the context we're talking about now is like, do we use this now? And we do. But I feel like the kind of the general
00:45:33
Speaker
um like Consensus now at least from what I see when it comes to the past is the past was a bad dream Everything in the past is evil. Everyone was racist or sexist or homophobic or whatever and everyone that came before us more or less were Evil wicked people and we need to learn from all their experience because they were all just bad And I'm trying to figure out how that squares with this quote Because it can't all be bad I guess it is implying this is bad because it says condemned to repeat it because what if you want to learn from the past or remember the past to Build off of it something good something beautiful, you know in your in the context of your original quote, you know, it talks about progress Yeah, and you know being it was also the progressive era of politics. So um I think perhaps the the slant on the original quote is that
00:46:28
Speaker
people in the past were bad, right? That ah you do need to to learn what to to cast off so you can move forward. yeah i Frankly, I hate that. I hate the this the perspective that everyone became before you was bad. In fact, I think Many of people that came before us are probably generally better people than a lot of the people that live nowadays. um yeah And I heard somebody describe it once where they said, if you went to a third world country where people didn't have electricity and they didn't have running water and they didn't have anything,
00:47:00
Speaker
and you saw the way that they were treating their wives or their livestock or their whatever and be like, oh, that's cruelty to animals. You would probably have a little bit of grace with them because you're like, well, look where they're at. Look around you. This is just how they live. They don't know any better. Yeah, maybe they don't know any better. And i this admonition was when you travel through history, do the same thing. You're going to a different place. And the it's like you're traveling to a foreign country that that doesn't have the same you know society
00:47:34
Speaker
laws and rules and mores that you have and you're familiar with. So um understand that from their perspective and then maybe you can judge them a little bit differently based on the the the product, the the environment they're that they are a product of, right? So yeah I thought that was interesting. i'm I'm the same as you, Patrick. is I think, like you said earlier, I think we so we all stand on the shoulders of giants, right? For the most part, I mean, that everyone has a black sheep in their family of someone that you know did something bad or we should be yeah we should not magnify. But um we actually, on my podcast, we had um John Taylor, not his real name. That's the the name he gave us on the on the podcast. And he was talking about how um
00:48:12
Speaker
we owe so much to those that came before us for giving us civilization language writing everything and just to basically just crap on the people that came before us because they didn't subscribe to current year progressive politics or or opinions or whatever is is extremely ignorant and it's almost like the the whole his his his um thought that he was trying to convey is is not only do we stand on the shoulders of giants, but the fact that these progressive types, if I can even say that on your guys' podcast, is that they can have that thought is, well, the only reason you can you can have the luxury of feeling the way you do and protesting over ah Ukraine or Palestine or whatever
00:48:59
Speaker
is because men greater than you created something out of nothing, took a wilderness, a savage wilderness and created this beautiful society that allows us to live in luxury. And he compared it to fish not knowing that they're wet, because they're just surrounded in that culture, in that collective history. And it it controls and and and surrounds everything they do. And they're trying to call it bad. Yeah, man. I love it. I think that's a great way to way to end it. Remember that you're as you're swimming around, you're wet. but don't Don't be the fish that doesn't know you're wet. Yeah, this is a really good one. um ah Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. So I think it's really important to learn history generally, sure, but also ah learn your own history, learn your family history. and um And so you're not condemned to repeat mistakes that have been made in the past. Thanks so much for coming, Sean. It was really was awesome to have you.
00:49:55
Speaker
Anytime, man. It was a good time. Yeah. Andrew, thanks to you as well. All right, everybody. Thanks so much for coming and we are listening and we will see you guys all next week. I will see you. There are only four things certain. Since social progress began, that the dog returns to his vomit, that the sow returns to her mind, and the bird pulls Bandic's finger, goes wobbling back to the path, and that after this is accomplished, And the brave new world begins when all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sin. As surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn, the gods of the copy want hideous, with terrors of water.