"Those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it" -- George Santayana
I felt both of these quotes were a perfect addiction to the topic discussed in class today; that is that "history is bunk" and everything repeats itself. One of the points that Sexson has been trying to get us to realize is the notion of "precedent behind action"; that there is no such thing as originality; that myths have already written history; and that nothing is novel because it has all been done before!
The quote by Satayana was one of my friend's senior quote, but I doubt she even knew what it meant. To me it almost a contradiction with myth, because you must know your history of mythology but this is because you WILL no doubt repeat it. But I guess the "catch" lies in the word doomed. For those that respect the myths of origin they are granted the power to control these things, but for those who ignore the origin myths and forget where they came from then these people will have very little control over what's around them and are therefore doomed.
This is a good lesson to all of us because no one wants to be doomed! We need to learn to respect the myths/history because in doing so we gain power and control. This power may not be the ability to walk through fire without it burning or to make rain, rather this power may come in the subtle form of knowledge. As T.S. Elliot said "The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and knew the place for the first time."
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