Past Is The Key To The Future Philosophy Free Essay Example

The things and deeds we did in past are now to give us fruit in present and also in the future. And our present which is going to be our past will give us its fruit in the future. The topic “To look to the future’ One must study the past” revloves in the region of past present and the future of all mankind. It covers the whole story of human being. Some think it is essential to study history in order to make their future bright but some think past has no concern with the future.

Other thinks that future is related to present, the things they have in present remain same as in future. Different people have different believe on the same the topic. Why is it so? Due to the different experiences they have in their past life. In some way or another experience is second name of past.

What actually affect the future? Experience affects the future.

Future can never be predicted but we can strive to make it better by mean of the past experiences. Without knowing the past we repeat mistakes made in the past, and destroy our future. We can’t say that we are guessing future upon the past, but in some way we can perk up our future by relating it to the events take place in past, and work to make it enhanced. No one knows what will happen in the future but the past lend us a hand and lead us to our destiny.

There must be some reasons why past contribute a lot in building future. It is vitally important to study history and keeping the past in mind to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and understand why things are as they are! We study history to learn where we were in the past and where we are now, to learn what worked for people in the past. We study history in order to remember the great achievements accompolished by our ancestors to make our future shine bright like diamonds and to remember the worst things happen in past and make sure not to do these things happen again in future. We study history to know what is the right thing to do and what is wrong so that we can understand what to do in life and how the wrong things happen and how we can be prevented.

Just think, if we do not have a past what would we be today? Obviuosly nothing, if we don’t know the hard works of our ancestor then how can we realize their great achievement, and what we can learn from their achievements and hardships and how can we pay respect to them. The biggest example is the achievement of Paskistan, if do not study history then how we could be able to compete with others and maintain or moral value. How could we realize and feel proud on our country, culture and faith. Without a past we couldn’t go through life. Our personal life is also interrelated with past. We can call our past as our memory it can be good or bad. It depends upon us with whom we want go either with bad one or by good one. We can take experience from bad memory furthermore good memories give us courage to live. It’s all about experiences. The more you know about history, the more you will be ready to build your future.

The famous philosopher George Santayana wrote in 1896 in Reason in Common Sense, the Life of Reason, volume 1.

“Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.”

No one is strictly doomed to repeat it. But Yes! History repeats itself because no one pays attention for the first time. But if someone forgot the past they will surely repeat in number of manners. The game remains same but the player changes. Of course if we forgot something which we have to do then certainly we will some face outcome and consequences. There are many interesting events in the history which indicates us and enlighten with the truth about the words said above. Learning regarding the bad things in history is a way to prevent them from happening again. Furthermore, sometimes we even know the history we repeat it because we have not learn anything from it. It can be discussed by some examples which are taken from the link given below.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/history/1023429-does-history-ever-repeat-itself-ww2.html#ixzz2EucrunZh

(See the exact words from the link given above)

“In World War I Germany lost to France. In World War II Germany defeated France. When it came to the French they learned their lesson. They failed in other areas, particularly the invasion of Russia, where I could point out that they should have taken a page from Napoleon’s book and re-thought the campaign.

When we debunked Vietnam vs. Afghanistan but, we can find examples to put them together. Though the wars are different, they also contain some similarities. Both were being fought to combat an idea; communism in one, terrorism in the other. As we all know, we can’t fight a concept. Both were essentially nation building efforts that paralleled the war. Both were reliant upon corrupt and ineffectual local central governments who were needed for success. Both contain indigenous guerilla forces opposed to our presence. Both have little geo-political value outside of combating the “concept” that the area is spreading. Both are being fought essentially unilaterally with little support from other allies.

So, while not everything is the same one can infer that based on the lessons of Vietnam (some of which we learned from and are using to effect in Afghanistan) the entire war is essentially doomed to failure as it is by definition unwinnable.

Sayings often have root in reality. Sometimes we need to look hard and be a little more liberal in our interpretation, but they are valid in some cases.”

Some times for some people in some ways past acts as a greatest enemy of them. That who had a worst and most awful happening in their past life and couldn’t cope up with them for such people past is the greatest enemy. They rely on their past and start blaming other things that they came from this background and so on and start asking their self that why this happened to them and think if it would not happen then they would be in pleasure instead of working for the future they humiliates their past. They do not even try to come out of it and to deal with other and this will how they lose with the fear of defeat, after some time it become impossible for them to come out of this and to glow and rise again. In some ways their society won’t allow them to learn from their past, they keeping on repeating their past and let them feel bad and make them realize their mistakes and make them feel ashamed. This will lead them to disappointment.

We study history to think and feel proud on our country and on our motherland. History also introduces us to the important people of past they may be our idol or evil who contributed a lot in the structure of our country. There are loads of other reasons why do we prefer to study history. It tell us where were in our past life and where we are going to be in the future. It tells us our originality where we came from and how things, people and times change, how the culture and belief developed and then how suddenly with the passage of time they changed. History takes us to new era where we can judge our selves. Similarly if we can judge and understand our selves by studying our past, then simply we can guess, judge and understand other by analyzing their past. By mean of studying history we can understand about people behavior when they acted and how they behaved in such manners. If we do not understand them then how will we make interaction with them and develop relations with them. It also develops our thinking and relating skills that how we can relate one thing with another and then get better result. Many philosophers, scholars say to gain and learn from your past experience in order to understand your life and move towards golden future and to learn lessons, wisdom and intelligence. Therefore, history leads us to understand the past and use this fact and figure to work in present and get better result in future.

“A person with no sense of the past is a person who is a stranger both to his or her own roots and to the human condition more generally. For human beings are not creatures of nature; we are inheritors of the history that has made us what we are. Not to know our history is not to know ourselves, and that is the condition not of human beings, but of animals. And even from a practical point of view, to be ignorant of the past is to make us impotent and unprepared before the present. How can someone without a sense of medieval history have the slightest inkling of the meaning of the current impasse the West finds itself in its dealings with Islam? The Crusades were not, as is often implied by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, a unique moment of anti-Islamic aggression. They were actually but one blip in the astonishing growth of Islamic empires in Europe and elsewhere, from the time of Mohammed onwards, right up to 1683 when the Turks were turned back from the gates of Vienna and 1686 when they were expelled from Budapest. But who now remembers any of this, or ponders its consequences? It is not, needless to say, taught in National Curriculum history, which prefers to dwell on the Aztecs, about whom we have only the vaguest knowledge in comparison, and (endlessly) on the rise of Fascism (not communism) in Europe, studied by pupils who know nothing of the history of Italy and Germany before the 20th century.

Is it any wonder that, with no sense of our past or identity – as, in other moods, politicians increasingly complain – we are a culture obsessed with celebrity, football, and reality television? Most of our population knows nothing else, and they have no yardstick from either history or culture with which to judge. “

(- Anthony O’Hear, “The Telegraph”)

By the mean of understanding our history and looking into the future, we can conclude in a general sense where we were and we are going to be. Then, looking into the future, we can act in ways that built our future in the direction and ways we would like to see it and make it shine like a diamond.