{"id":8098,"date":"2014-03-03T12:14:18","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T12:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/03\/03\/putins-sudetenland\/"},"modified":"2014-03-03T12:14:18","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T12:14:18","slug":"putins-sudetenland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/03\/03\/putins-sudetenland\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin’s Sudetenland?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It occurred to me this morning that there is an ominous parallel between  Putin's occupation of the Ukraine and Hitler's of the Sudetenland, and on a similar pretext, namely, the protecting of ethnic Russians\/Germans.  The Sudetenland was the German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia whose annexation by Hitler in 1938 was part of the run-up to the Second World War.  But I'm no historian.  So let me ascend from these grimy speluncar details into the aether of philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n

George Santayana is repeatedly  quoted<\/a> as saying that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  Although this may be true individually, I cannot see that it is true collectively.  I have learned from my mistakes, and I don't repeat them.  But a collection of individuals, with its ever-changing membership, is not an individual.  Collectively, whether we remember the past or not<\/em> we are condemned to repeat it.   That is how I would go Santayana one better.  Or to put it in less ringing terms:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Collectively, knowledge of the past does little to prevent the recurrence of old mistakes. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One reason for this is that there is no consensus as to what the lessons of history are.  What did we Americans learn from Viet Nam?  That we should avoid all foreign entanglements? That when we engage militarily we should do so decisively and with overwhelming force and resolve? (E.g, that we should have suppressed dissent at home and used a few tactical nukes against the Viet Cong?)  What is the lesson to be learned?  What is the mistake to be avoided?  Paleocons, neocons (the descendants of old-time liberals) and leftists don't agree on questions like these.<\/span><\/p>\n

One cannot learn a lesson the content of which is up for grabs.<\/span><\/p>\n

What did we learn from Hiroshima and Nagasaki?  That the wholesale slaughter of noncombatants is sometimes justified and may (as it actually has) usher in a long period of world peace? (There hasn't been a world war in going on 70 years).  That this is a case in which the end justified the means?  No adherent of just war doctrine would agree that that is the lesson.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another reason why knowledge of the past is of little help in the present is that, even if there is agreement on some general lesson — e.g., don't appease dictators — there is bound to be disagreement as to whether or not the lesson applies in particular circumstances. Is Obama an appeaser?  Is Putin a dictator?  Is the Ukraine sufficiently like the Sudetenland to justify an action-guiding comparison?  Et cetera ad nauseam<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Related:  George Santayana on the Three Traps that Strangle Philosophy<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Philosopher as Rhinoceros<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
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\"\"<\/a>On a Saying Often Attributed to George Santayana<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Bill O'Reilly, Mungo Jerry, and Immanuel Kant<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>What is Putin?<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It occurred to me this morning that there is an ominous parallel between  Putin's occupation of the Ukraine and Hitler's of the Sudetenland, and on a similar pretext, namely, the protecting of ethnic Russians\/Germans.  The Sudetenland was the German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia whose annexation by Hitler in 1938 was part of the run-up to the … Continue reading “Putin’s Sudetenland?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,199,39,599],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-history","category-human-predicament","category-santayana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}