I have a discovery
Quiet! I have a secret here: I got a big, if not great, discovery in the last couple of days.
That is: history repeats itself.
This has been the current world in the last days:
This was written by Lin Yutang in 1943, in his book Between Tears and Laughter:
“The question which we must solve once for all, by some sort of new philosophy of peace, which we may not leave unsolved, is really this: does Force work? All over the world men and women should ponder this question.”
Are we not to ponder this question today?
Stated by Lin Yutang in 1943, in the same book:
“Who will make plain to the world the law of the spirit, and demonstrate that Force generates Coercion, Coercion generates Fear, and Fear generates Hatred, as definitely and as accurately as one billiard ball sends another rolling? Who will write a philosophy and psychology of Force and its reactions and determine their characteristics? Who will be the consummate fatalist to tell the world in plain, convincing, forceful terms that actions generate emotions and emotions in turn generate actions, that the fruit of Force is Fear and Hatred, that thoroughgoing Force generates Fear and Hatred and unthoroughgoing Force generates Hatred without Fear? Who will say, even as in a classroom in physics, that the greater the Force, the greater the Hatred, and that the greatest Force is the most hated of all? And who will say, as clearly as the prophets of the sky say that a thunderclap presages a storm, that Force is inevitably followed by Hatred, and Hatred is followed by Revenge? For Hatred divides, and the structure of power must sooner or later fall.”
Why I am elaborating so much to type this out here is that I only want to prove my theory. There is no intention to educate people of today that this old crap from 1943, surprisingly, actually works today. Nor is there intention to remind people of today that this truth, told in 1943, holds true today, and asks and answers the why question.
So my theory stands!
So everything does repeat itself: brutality, darkness, bloodshed, war, terror, and the like.
How wonderful is the theory! How logical is it!
Lin said in the same book: “We cannot escape history, nor can we learn from history.”
When I put it the other way it turns out as valid as the original: “We cannot learn from history, nor can we escape history”. Does it not sound even better?
And it is not far to the other saying by whomever: “We learned from history that we never learned anything from history.”
Good luck, people.
