Conserving History

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” - George Santayana The Life of Reason (1905-1906) Vol.1, Reason in Common Sense

History is greatly devalued in our society. This is especially true at the University level where studies have shown that students graduating from even formerly prestigious Ivy League schools know less when they graduate than when they finished high school. Although I didn’t go to such a prestigious school as Harvard I had a similar experience with an ultra-liberal Liberal Arts university education. I believe that the reason students come out knowing less than when they started is that the schools not only teach students to have contempt for historical facts, but they also teach revisionist (i.e. wrong and/or untrue) history. It took me years to unlearn most of the crap that I learned at the University, and I am not sure I have done it all.

Since Santayana’s famous quote has many close variations, I went searching to get the accurate quote and I found the more contextual quote above. I was a little surprised (pleasantly so) that it promotes a kind of conservatism, though I suppose if I had put more thought into it before now I would not be so surprised. The famous part of the quote logically flows from the idea that progress builds on retentiveness, and constant change results in perpetual infancy.

I do not promote conservatism for the sake of conservatism, nor for the sake of progress, but only for the sake of Christ Jesus. Faithful Lutherans are natural conservatives. Dr. Martin Luther was very careful in his reformation of the Church to keep everything that testified of Christ and only to toss out those things which were anti-Christian. Luther did this while being criticized by Rome for being a radical rebel, and while being criticized by the radical reformers for not being willing to go farther and throw out everything that reminded people of the Roman church.

Luther was conservative in the best possible way because he retained everything good (Christ) and only threw away what was harmful (semi-pelagianism, works-righteousness, etc.) Because the radical reformers acted more against Rome than for Christ they (and their present day descendants) ended up more like Rome in substance (works-righteousness) even though the Lutherans seemed more like Rome superficially in their liturgy and worship practices.
Though I am not sure that Santayana would have agreed, the dim view (“condemned”) of repeating history is a worldly acknowledgment of mankind’s original sin. Original Sin is the inherited corruption that all people are born with since Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden. Man is corrupt by nature so any innovation disregarding the mistakes of the past will end up in wickedness. Here history simply confirms the truth of Holy Scripture in the teaching of Original Sin.

A conservative view of history and education is nothing new. God commanded such a view going way back to ancient times. He told His people through Moses, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” {Deuteronomy 6:5-9 (ESV)} The purpose of this command was to encourage the people to remember God’s promises to send a savior to redeem the world from sin. Forgetting God’s history of salvation meant condemnation. Remembering God’s promises (and trusting in them) meant salvation and everlasting life after death.