Recently, some economists predict the current ecomonic situation will continue for a time being because many factors that are attributed to the current ecnomic recession are comparable to those which happened in 1930s. Likewise, if you say that past is just past and it does not have any value in the modern world, it is way absurd because you are absolutely unaware of how much the past gives us insight into the present and the future, and it also presents a useful barometer to judge current situation, not to repeat same mistakes our ancestors made.
The first value that the past can provide is that you can predict the future based on the past. As many parts of the past history tend to repeat themselves, they become valuable tools to foresee the future because it is not uncommon to see the same history comes back again in our present time. For example, as I have mentioned in the above, it is well-known that the current economic situation is similar to 1930's the Great Depression in many ways, becasue many stock prices plummeted and many banks and companies went bankrupt. Consequently, some economists predict that the present economy will be worse and worse as time goes on. However, other economists diagnoses that current econmic curcumstances are different from the Great Depressions in that present financial infrastruture is different from the past. No matter how much different their arguments are, the common point is that they all try to predict the future economy based on the past history. Likewise, in our everyday lives, it is easy to find out that regular people also try to predict their own future based on the their own history whether theirs were good or not. It is evident that the past serves as a kind of important barometer for predicting the future.
Prediction toward future based on the past is beneficial, but the more important advantage of the past history lies in the fact that it can be a useful tool for reflecting current way of life, resulting in making efforts not to repeat same mistakes. Although some do make the same mistakes as many ancestors did, it is undeniable that people at least try to avoid making the same mistakes. No matter how much different the past and the present are, I do think our ancestors were as intelligent as we are now. Therefore, the ancestors's history gives a lot of lessons that guide our current lives. For example, though it was so tragic history of the United States, 9.11 gives many lessons to the States in many ways. Due to the history, Americans came to how to protect their homeland and how to cope with the catastrophe. Moreover, they came to know what to do and how to deal with foreign policy toward the hostile nations. It is reported that many people can handle emergent situations far more effectively and systematically after the tragic history. Why do they try to do such endeavour? The answer is not to repeat same mistakes. If it had not been for the tragic history, it is not clear whether Americans can now cope with emergent siturations better than before.
All things considered, the past is not just the past. It is very useful lessons that pave way for our future and mirror our current situations, thus urging us to make better future. |