Condemned to Repeat the Past

By Daniel Cano                                      

                                                                                      

Appreciating the past, the present, and the future

      I agree that we can't really understand the present without knowing the past. The problem is many people don’t want to know the past, or they only want to know enough of it to benefit their thinking. Of course, there are those who could care less, which then gives some credence to George Santayana’s statement, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

     I am assuming Santayana meant to remember as much of the past as possible, and why presidents often turn to scholars for advice, which, often, they ignore. It kind of reminds me of a quote by Elinore Roosevelt: “There are those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what has happened.” I find a lot of people in the last category.

     Today, I hear people argue vociferously about politics, and I can tell by the evidence they present to substantiate their positions, they depend on limited sources, mainly their favorite television news stations on online programs. So, inevitably they go round and round. They also fail to adhere to the main tenet of argumentation: if you know you can’t change a person’s mind about a topic, and he or she won’t change yours, don’t argue. You might end up saving a friendship or relationship.

    Then, there are those who want to know as much as possible, to form an educated opinion about a subject, even if it means, gasp, changing their minds. It’s like people arguing about the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians and only going as far back as October 6. If you don’t understand the history of the Ottoman Empire, Zionism, and European intervention and colonization in the 19^th and 20^th century, you can’t understand the position of the Arabs or Jews, or, for that matter, get the most out of the movies Exodus or Lawrence of Arabia. Some argue, to truly understand the conflict, you need to understand the Bible.

     I asked my grandson if he watched the Super Bowl half-time show, featuring Kendrick Lamar. He said he did, and it was great. I told him I didn’t think the majority of fans had ever heard of even knew Kendrick Lamar. He disagreed. “Do they live under a rock,” he said, more a statement than a question. He said they might not know his music, but they know his name. I told him a lot of people didn’t like the performance. He said, “That’s because they don’t know the lyrics or understand the context.”

     That answer surprised me. It was like he was telling me to best understand the performance, you had to understand the history and culture of rap, hip-hop, African Americans in the U.S., and the personal feud going on between Lamar and Drake.

     I asked, “Do you know the lyrics?” He replied, “Yup, all of them. That’s why I thought it was a great show.”

     I’m sure he had a limited knowledge of Lamar’s music, and the context, but, it seemed, he had a lot more than I did and that was enough for him to see the performance in the different light than others. Personally, I like Kendrick Lamar’s music, but like many, I too was lost during the performance, but I don’t blame Lamar, I blame my own lack of knowledge and context.

     Even if country singer Chris Stapleton had been up there singing, and I enjoyed his show, I might not have had the context since I don’t understand the deep South, but I do know Stapleton attended Vanderbilt University to study engineering, which helps me understand the sophistication to his song writing. Just like it helps me to understand Kendrick Lamar a high achieving student at Centennial High in Compton, and earned A grades in poetry, so he understands poetry and lyricism, which led to his being the first rapper awarded the 2018, Pulitzer Prize in music.

     As a former teacher, a voracious reader, and a self-proclaimed lifelong learner, I know context is crucial to understanding any subject. When I see what is happening with immigration, for example, I’ve studied enough history of Latin America to know much of the problem lay with the past policies created by the U.S. and Latin America, even going much further back than Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor,” policy, maybe even further back than James Monroe’s Manifest Destiny, which opened up all lands to U.S. adventurism and exploitation.

     The genocide (and I don't use the term lightly) of Indians in Central America, especially Guatemala, by U.S. trained death squads, from the 1930s to the 1990s, devasted Indian farms, hamlets, and complete regions, opening up their lands to corporate cultivation of cotton, cattle, oil, and the exploration of other minerals. Where do they go? They come to the U.S., whose employers welcome them with open arms.

     Yet, when too many come, then there is an economic crisis, or a politician needs a scapegoat to win an election, we demonize them, identify them as the root of the problem, and, the same old answer, generation after generation, deport them, bound in chains, like slaves in a galley, but like Santayana tells us, since we don’t remember the past, or worse, choose to ignore it, we are condemned to repeat it, generation after generation, until we welcome the next wave, and hail them “essential workers,” while they toil and the rest of quarantine, isolate, and lockdown during the next pandemic.