If knowledge or intelligence is not combined with memories of the past and honest analysis of history, then it cannot be helpful for the future.
Today in the Catholic Church is the feast day of St. Thomas More, the English statesman and scholar who would not sacrifice his conscience to please his corrupt king. But More's political and philosophical writings, especially his satirical Utopia, have remained influential among Westerners of many religious affiliations for centuries, and some of his observations are as incisive today as they were in the 16th century. Among these is his statement, "In the things of the soul, knowledge without remembrance profits little."
Now, More was speaking rather particularly here of spiritual growth, of a man who is self-aware about his past mistakes as he strives to expand his knowledge and virtue in the present and future. But as More's critique is true for individual men, it is also true of whole societies. Let me explain what I mean.
We have all heard the warning "those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it," which experts attribute in various forms to several different thinkers. In a sense, the warning expresses the message of More's statement about the connection between knowledge and remembrance. If a man refuses to assess his own faults, failings, and sins, that man will never make progress in any branch of his life, whether moral, professional, or relational. And if a society or country is likewise not honest about its own failures, vices, and vulnerabilities, it cannot make political or cultural progress.
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This is all rather abstract, so let's use our own modern American society as a concrete example. We suffer from historical and political amnesia that our elites deliberately inflicted upon us. The Democrat Party has always rewritten its own history in real time, for about two centuries now, but when Marxists began to grow powerful in our educational, entertainment, and political institutions in the 20th century, the process accelerated. It is impossible for Communism to succeed as promised, which is why countries that experiment with Communism always end up as cesspools of mass murder, tyranny, extreme poverty, and intellectual stagnation (except in very narrow applications such as bomb or surveillance tech).
Therefore, the only way for Commies to sell their ideology to Americans was to change the way Americans think (e.g., condemning individualism and personal responsibility) and erase honest history. So now U.S. public schools and universities are little more than propaganda mills, places for brainwashing youth into radical LGBTQ, CRT, and DEI ideology. Meanwhile the "educators" are condemning or ignoring Shakespeare, Washington, Lincoln, Bell, Vergil, Michelangelo, Euclid, Kepler, Reagan, Twain, Douglass, Edison, Hamilton, Mozart, and countless other great men who shaped our world. As for practical skills like carpentry and cooking, forget it.
So, for instance, lefties screech nonstop about slavery without admitting that Democrats were the party of slavery, that hundreds of thousands of white men died to abolish slavery, and that black men could vote when the first American states ratified the Constitution. Similarly, lefties treat every historical figure as an uncomplicated villain or hero based largely on his skin color, sex, and attitude toward wealth redistribution, instead of as complex individuals.
How true it is that there is a connection between the usefulness of knowledge and remembrance. Commie countries often have high literacy rates, but only so that citizens can read state propaganda. Our country is dotted with schools and educational institutions, and yet widespread ignorance of history threatens to send America down the path of national destruction.
