Issue 120
"So much is new and complex today that looking back for an understanding of the pastprovides little guidance for living in the present."
The speaker claims that since so much in today's world is new and complex the pastprovides little guidance for living in the present. I agree with this assertion insofar ashistory offers few foolproof panaceas for living today. However, I disagree with thespeaker's claim that today's world is so unique that the past is irrelevant.
One good example that supports my dual position is the way society has dealt with itspressing social problems over time. Admittedly, history has helped us learn theappropriateness of addressing certain social issues, particularly moral ones, on a societallevel. Attempts to legislate morality invariably fail, as illustrated by Prohibition in the1930s and, more recently, failed federal legislation to regulate access to adult material viathe Internet. We are slowly learning this lesson, as the recent trend toward legalization ofmarijuana for medicinal purposes and the recognition of equal rights for same-sexpartners both demonstrate.
However, the only firm lesson from history about social ills is that they are here to stay.Crime and violence, for example, have troubled almost every society. All manner ofreform, prevention, and punishment have been tried. Today, the trend appears to beaway from reform toward a "tough-on-crime" approach. Is this because history makesclear that punishment is the most effective means of eliminating crime? No; rather, thetrend merely reflects our current mores, attitudes, and political climate. Another exampleinvolves how we deal with the mentally-ill segment of the population. History reveals thatneither quarantine, treatment, nor accommodation solves the problem, only that eachapproach comes with its own trade-offs. Also undermining the assertion that history helpsus to solve social problems is the fact that, despite the civil-fights efforts of Martin LutherKing and his progenies, the cultural gap today between African-Americans and whiteAmericans seems to be widening. It seems that racial prejudice is a timelessphenomenon.
To sum up, in terms of how to live together as a society I agree that studying the past is ofsome value; for example, it helps us appreciate the futility of legislating morality. However,history's primary sociological lesson seems to be that today's social problems are as oldas society itself, and that there are no panaceas or prescriptions for solving theseproblems---only alternate ways of coping with them.
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