Dummies' world

Why do we read history and teach it in our schools? Choose from the options below:

1.    It’s good entertainment

2.    It makes us understand who we are and where we came from

3.    It makes us understand mistakes of our past generations so we may learn from them and avoid repeating them in future

You will agree that we don’t consider the last option when we read or teach history.

It may come as no surprise to know that most of our current problems are of our own making. Name any problem – hunger, poverty, sickness, war – you will find that our behavior is the root cause of most problems.

For example, we produce enough food to sufficiently feed the current world population. But we goof up in food distribution – with waste, protectionism and price distortions. Our current economic systems have not served us well, as evident from the fact that majority of the world’s people are poor. Our current political systems have not served us well either, as we draw imaginary borders around us, declare war on other humans and kill each other, as if they do not have a right to live. We pollute the environment with little regard to the adverse impact on our future generations.

All such problems are of our own making. We also have the ability to make everything so incredibly complex, that with the passage of time, we lose sight of our original intentions in doing any particular thing.

What distinguishes us from other species is that we are self-aware. With our intellect, we have the ability to unmake our problems, only if we make conscious choices to do so. Our intelligence is far superior than is reflected in our current state. We have learnt to become individually brilliant and accomplished. We have to do the same collectively.