Studying the past to help us live in the present

The speaker claims that since so much in today's world is new and complex the pastprovides little guidance for living in the present. I agree with this assertion insofar ashistory offers few foolproof panaceas for living today. However, I disagree with thespeaker's claim that today's world is so unique that the past is irrelevant. One goodexample that supports my dual position is the way society has dealt with its pressingsocial problems over time.Admittedly, history has helped us learn the appropriateness of addressing certainsocial issues, particularly moral ones, on a societal level. Attempts to legislate moralityinvariably fail, as illustrated by Prohibition in the 1930s and, more recently,failed federallegislation to regulate access to adult material via the Internet. We are slowly learningthis lesson, as the recent trend toward legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposesand the recognition of equal rights for same-sex partners both demonstrate.However, the only firm lesson from history about social ills is that they are here tostay. Crime and violence,for example, have troubled almost every society. All mannerof reform, prevention, and punishment have been tried.Today, the trend appears to beaway from reform toward a "tough-on-crime" approach. Is this because history makesclear that punishment is the most effective means of eliminating crime? No; rather,the trend merely reflects our current mores, attitudes, and political climate.Another example involves how we deal with the mentally-ill segment of the population.History reveals that neither quarantine, treatment, nor accommodation solvesthe problem, only that each approach comes with its own trade-offs. Also underminingthe assertion that history helps us to solve social problems is the fact that, despitethe civil-rights efforts of Martin Luther King and his progenies, the cultural gap todaybetweenAfricanAmericans and white Americans seems to be widening. It seems thatracial prejudice is a timeless phenomenon.To sum up, in terms of how to live together as a society I agree that studying thepast is of some value; for example, it helps us appreciate the futility of legislatingmorality. However, history's primary sociological lesson seems to be that today's socialproblems are as old as society itself, and that there are no panaceas or prescriptionsfor solving these problems-only alternate ways of coping with them.