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Dr. Clyde N. Wilson

Whatever Happened to History?

6/30/2020

3 Comments

 
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According to a recent poll, 72 per cent of Americans think that we are now in the “worst” period of American history. Polls are dubious things and the great historian John Lukacs has questioned whether there really is any such thing as “public opinion.” But this poll simply supports what we already knew about pervasive historical ignorance, which is exhibited every hour of every day by the politicians and the minions of the “news” media.

Americans are a momentary and self-referential people. They can’t remember what happened last week unless it was on a soap opera. Few have any notion of ancestors, and, except for those of us who cherish our grandchildren, posterity is never thought of. If it is not now it does not exist. This is an unprecedented situation. In every past civilised society even common people had some idea of what their ancestors did in the great events of the past. The past was felt - it was not a theory or a slogan. And they planted trees and built houses that would only be enjoyed by their descendants.

It does not help, of course, that a great chunk of the American population are foreigners who have no connection to the American past. And no interest except in using distorted versions as weapons of extortion. Every people cherishes its own history, which is often somewhat mythical. Are we seeing a new American history for a new American people? Even people with actual American heritage have forgotten who they are and adopted the new history.

So, most Americans are not aware of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War II, the tense times of nuclear standoff in the Cold War? They think today is “the worst of times.” We, of course, already know of this widespread plain ignorance of the simple facts. The “historians” are largely responsible for this, especially the current and rising professors who have been teaching distorted present-centered history for decades now. Teachings which have become the false and ridiculous claims of aggressive minorities and revolutionaries.

But the poll tells us more than widespread ignorance of simple facts of history. The majority, if it is such, who think this is the worst of times are not simply ignorant---they have a catastrophic unconsciousness of what has gone before and the fundamentals of how societies of human beings work. They have lost all knowledge of human experience. Thus, imperious childish demands for things that are imaginary or will not work. I would go so far as to say that we are in a post-civilisational era. A large part of the population has dropped out of Western Civilisation, the highest and brightest human achievement.

History, properly understood as the study of the past for knowledge and understanding of ourselves as human beings, has been the unique hallmark of Western Civilisation. The concept of a meaningful course of human experience does not otherwise exist. We learn some things by scientific examination of ourselves and the world. We have the guidance of Scripture, which is sometimes hard to discern. But all else we really know is the past. The future is a fantasy that nobody can know. We are in the process of losing history and therefore any meaning for our life that is more than a rapidly passing moment.
3 Comments
Brett Moffatt
7/1/2020 11:53:46 am

This is an excellent analysis of what we are seeing. This world, we read in scripture, is passing away, decaying until it will finally be replaced with the Kingdom of the Lord. We are in the last days, which encompass the period from the closing of Scripture until Christ returns, whether now, or in a thousand years, no one knows. We can know that the spirit of this age, Babylon, the spirit of greed, lust, and deceit ,which wars against the God's kingdom, has already been defeated by Jesus at the cross. This should give us hope.
The Second Letter of Paul to Timorthy as some interesting comments, especially when you look at today's headlines.
2 Tim. 3:1-5
"But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people."
Seems to have hit the nail on the head.....our academics, media, bureaucrats, many so-called religious leaders, and bloated crony business class....perfectly described, Wisdom from the Book.

Reply
Kenneth Robbins
7/2/2020 06:24:04 am

Thank you Mr. Moffatt: The truth cannot be resisted forever as it is in our age. In Isa. 66:4-5 God declares he will choose their delusion so they can be destroyed. Again in 2 Thess. 2:11-12 Paul repeats Gods words about delusion. All one has to do to see this is to look at Americans

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Robert Reavis
7/4/2020 09:29:31 am

Except for technological advances and understanding in what is termed artificial intelligence (and it is artificial), the 20th century remains the bloodiest in recorded history. And not just in terms of war and instruments of war but in the sacrifice of innocent lives from infants to elders. This simple and observable fact is different from its alteration or solution. And so long as the solutions are viewed as political or social in nature the nihilism will grow instead of diminish.
They have taken our God and we don’t know where to find him.

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    Author

    Clyde Wilson is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina He is the author or editor of over thirty books and published over 600 articles, essays and reviews

    Dr. Wilson is also is co-publisher of Shotwell Publishing, a source  for unreconstructed Southern books. 

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