IRL (TOK)

TOK QUESTION: Can history provide a guide to understanding contemporary affairs? Can it provide a guide to the future? What might be “the lessons of history” for future generations?


History can provide an understanding to many contemporary affairs, because human nature follows patterns: we will always seek survival and profit for oneself. It is our nature to form opinions and to trust them no matter what others say... Hence the battles such as that between capitalism and communism.

As seen in my first IRL (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/39528.stm) about Communism in Cuba and the incident in 1997 of how the Christian Liberation Movement was not allowed to stand for election, it is evident that in Cuba (as well as in China and other places around the world) Communism, and control over parties and opposition, still exist in our world - almost 60 years after it was invented by Carl Marx and implemented (not too successfully) in China and other places. This is because some people will probably always be convinced that central ownership etc. is the best way to run a country.

My fifth IRL (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/coll.html) showed Stalin's plans for carrying out his Communism (collectivization and central industrialization). While I don't know any countries that are really doing that now, I know that the government of America took over GM (the car company) when they had to bail them out of the recent recession ~2009. I can imagine in the future, that an attempt on the part of the government to create jobs could lead to them owning many businesses etc. and we only being employees... And the current issues right now with Obama and his wanting to impose healthcare plans/laws, follow a sort of socialist path. Maybe the 'Change' we think we're going to get is really just a revolution back to old historical patterns that they tried in the last century.

The clear racism expressed in the source for my third IRL (a poster handed out by Nazis) (http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~rar4619/Images/chart.jpg)
is still very present in some societies; even in America many African Americans suffer injustices such as court charges/accusations because of prejudices against them and their supposed criminal tendencies, and I still find it fairly unusual to see a married couple of different colors.

I think it is hard for history to provide a "guide to the future" because yes, it makes us aware of past mistakes and possible future ones, but it is rare that actual answers to past problems were ever reached, and it is likely that any answers had some sort of consequence that someone didn't like (for example, Germany's unhappiness after the Treaty of Versailles). In addition, events here and now feel very different than something read about in a history text book, so we are inclined to feel differently and make different choices when it is our problem. Further, the world is changing so quickly with the development of technology, growing of populations and environmental effects, that it is hard many times to make an accurate comparison between a current condition and a past one.
I think "lessons of history" that I've learned from this class and these IRLs are 1) what I said before about there being patterns in human nature and behavior that will probably always result in close ideas and solutions to our problems, 2) you always have to think about many different aspects: the viewpoint of each party in a deal etc. has to be considered and understood, and there is more to "history" than dates and events - there is humanity, emotion, culture... A more specific lesson might be the failing of extreme Communism, seeing as the Cubans protested against the law against opposing parties --> Ideals are nice but they almost never function so well.