The Nations Are Still Not Learning

“If men could learn from history​—what lessons it might teach us! But Passion and Party blind our eyes, and the light which Experience gives is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us!”​—Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

DO YOU agree with English poet Samuel Coleridge? Is it possible that we can be so blinded by passion for a cause that we repeat the tragic mistakes of past generations?

The Crusades

Consider, for example, some of the things people did during the Crusades. In 1095 C.E., Pope Urban II urged “Christians” to take the Holy Land from the Muslims. Kings, barons, knights, and commoners in all the nations under the control of Urban II responded to his call. According to one medieval historian, there was “hardly a people living according to the law of Christ” that did not rush to support the cause.

Historian Zoé Oldenbourg states that the majority of crusaders had an “absolute conviction that in taking the cross [they were] enlisting directly in the service of God Himself.” They saw themselves, she says, in the role of “destroying angels falling on the children of the devil.” They also believed that “all who died would win the crown of martyrs in heaven,” says writer Brian Moynahan.

Perhaps the crusaders were unaware that their enemy believed something similar. Islamic soldiers, says historian J. M. Roberts in his book the Shorter History of the World, also went into battle with the conviction that they were fighting for God and “that death on the battlefield against the infidel would be followed by entry to paradise” in heaven.

Both sides were taught that theirs was a just war​—approved of and blessed by God. Religious and political leaders nurtured these beliefs and fanned the flames of their subjects’ emotions. And both sides committed unspeakable atrocities.

What Kind of People?

What kind of people did these terrible things? The majority were ordinary people​—little different from people today. No doubt many of them were fired by idealism and a desire to right the wrongs that they perceived in the world of their day. In their emotionally charged state, they seemed oblivious to the fact that in their fight for “justice,”  they brought nothing but injustice, pain, and suffering to hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children who were trapped in the battle zones.

Has that not been the pattern throughout history? Have not charismatic leaders repeatedly moved countless millions of people​—who would never normally have contemplated such conduct—​into savage and barbarous wars against their religious and political opponents? The call to arms on both sides of the conflict and the claims that God was with each side legitimized the violent suppression of political and religious opposition. It was part of a well-established pattern that has served the interests of tyrants for many centuries. This, says Moynahan, is the standard that “would serve the architects of the Holocaust and modern ethnic cleansers as surely as it launched the first crusade.”

‘But sensible people today would no longer allow themselves to be manipulated in that way,’ you may say. ‘Are we not now much more civilized?’ That ought to be the case. But have the lessons of history really been learned? Who can honestly say that this is true when contemplating the history of the past hundred years?

The First World War

The pattern set by the Crusades was repeated, for example, at the time of the first world war. It is “one of the paradoxes of 1914,” says Roberts, “that in every country huge numbers of people, of all parties, creeds and blood, seem, surprisingly, to have gone willingly and happily to war.”

Why did huge numbers of ordinary people go “willingly and happily to war”? Because they, like those who so willingly went to war before them, had their values and beliefs molded by the philosophies of the day. While some may have been inspired by principles of freedom and justice, there is little doubt that many were moved by an arrogant belief that their nation was superior to others and thus deserved to be dominant.

These were conditioned to believe that war was an inevitable part of the natural scheme of things​—some kind of “biological necessity.” “Social Darwinism,” says writer Phil Williams, fostered the idea, for example, that war was a legitimate means of “eradicating those species not worthy to survive.”

Each one, of course, thought that his cause was just. With what result? During World War I, “governments,” says writer and historian Martin Gilbert, “beat the drums of racism, patriotism and military prowess”​—and people blindly followed. Economist John Kenneth Galbraith grew up in rural Canada during that war. He said that all around him, people spoke about “the manifest stupidity of the conflict in Europe.” “Intelligent men . . . did not lend themselves to such insanity,” they said. But once again, they did. With what consequences? Some 60,000 Canadian soldiers were among the more than nine million military men who died on both sides in  the obscenity that came to be called the first world war.

No Lesson Learned

Within the next two decades, the same spirit began to manifest itself again with the rise of Fascism and Nazism. Fascists began to use “the traditional propaganda tools of symbols and myths to arouse peoples’ emotions,” writes Hugh Purcell. A particularly powerful tool they used was the potent mixture of religion and politics, praying for God’s blessing on their troops.

One who was “a master of crowd psychology as well as a brilliant orator” was Adolf Hitler. Like many demagogues of the past, says Dick Geary in Hitler and Nazism, Hitler believed that ‘the masses were swayed not by their brains but by their emotions.’ He played on this human weakness by cleverly exploiting the age-old technique of directing people’s hatred against a common enemy​—as when he “turned the fears and resentments of Germans against the Jews,” says Purcell. Hitler vilified the Jews, saying, ‘The Jew is the corrupter of the German nation.’

What is horrifying about this whole era is that millions of seemingly decent people were easily incited to mass murder. “How could the people of a supposedly civilised country not simply tolerate but become implicated in the horrific barbarism of the Nazi state?” asks Geary. And it was not just a “civilised” country but also supposedly a Christian country! They were drawn into this because they preferred the philosophies and schemes of men to the teachings of Jesus Christ. And how many sincere, idealistic men and women have been led into horrific atrocities since then!

“What experience and history teach is this,” says German philosopher Georg Hegel, “that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.” Many may disagree with Hegel’s philosophy on life, but few will disagree with that statement. Sadly, people do seem to have severe difficulty learning anything from history. But must that be true of you?

Surely, one clear lesson to be learned is this: We need something far more dependable than fallible human philosophies if the tragedies of past generations are to be avoided. But if not human philosophy, what should guide our thinking? Over a thousand years before the time of the Crusades, disciples of Jesus Christ demonstrated what the true Christian course​—and the only reasonable course—​should be. Let’s examine what they did to avoid being sucked into the bloody conflicts of their day. But is it likely that nations today will learn how to do that and thus avoid conflicts? And regardless of what nations do, what will God’s solution be to bring an end to all this human misery?

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Barbarism and suffering have marked human conflicts

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Top: Refugees in war-torn area

How could supposedly civilized people become involved in such acts of unspeakable violence?

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Rwandan refugees: UN PHOTO 186788/J. Isaac; collapse of World Trade Center: AP Photo/Amy Sancetta