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43. Examining history makes us better people insofar as it helps us to understand our
world. It would seem, therefore, that history would also provide useful clues for dealing
with the same social ills that have plagued societies throughput history. On balance,
however, the evidence suggests otherwise.
Admittedly, history has helped us learn the appropriateness of addressing certain
issues, particularly moral ones, on a societal level. Attempts to legislate morality
invariably fail, as illustrated by Prohibition in the 1930s and, more recently, failed
federal legislation to regulate access to adult material via the Internet. We are slowly
learning this lesson, as the recent trend toward legalization of marijuana for medicinal
purposes and the recognition of equal rights for same-sex partners both demonstrate.
However, the overriding lesson from history about social ills is that they are here
to stay. Crime and violence, for example, have troubled almost every society. All
manner of reform, prevention, and punishment have been tried. Today, the trend appears
to be away from reform toward a tough-on-crime approach. Is this because history
makes clear that punishment is the most effective means of eliminating crime? No;
rather, the trend merely reflects current mores, attitudes, and political climate. Also
undermining the assertion that history helps us to solve social problems is the fact that,
despite the civil-rights efforts of Martin Luther King and his progenies, the cultural gap
today between African-Americans and white Americans seems to be widening. It seems
that racial prejudice is here to stay. A third example involves how we deal with the
mentally ill segment of the population. History reveals that neither quarantine, nor
treatment or accommodation solves the problem, only that each approach comes with its
own tradeoffs.
To sum up, while history can teach us lessons about our social problems, more
often than not the lesson is that there are no solutions to many social problems―only
alternate ways of coping with them.
43. Examining history makes us better people insofar as it helps us to understand our
world. It would seem, therefore, that history would also provide useful clues for dealing
with the same social ills that have plagued societies throughput history. On balance,
however, the evidence suggests otherwise.
Admittedly, history has helped us learn the appropriateness of addressing certain
issues, particularly moral ones, on a societal level. Attempts to legislate morality
invariably fail, as illustrated by Prohibition in the 1930s and, more recently, failed
federal legislation to regulate access to adult material via the Internet. We are slowly
learning this lesson, as the recent trend toward legalization of marijuana for medicinal
purposes and the recognition of equal rights for same-sex partners both demonstrate.
However, the overriding lesson from history about social ills is that they are here
to stay. Crime and violence, for example, have troubled almost every society. All
manner of reform, prevention, and punishment have been tried. Today, the trend appears
to be away from reform toward a tough-on-crime approach. Is this because history
makes clear that punishment is the most effective means of eliminating crime? No;
rather, the trend merely reflects current mores, attitudes, and political climate. Also
undermining the assertion that history helps us to solve social problems is the fact that,
despite the civil-rights efforts of Martin Luther King and his progenies, the cultural gap
today between African-Americans and white Americans seems to be widening. It seems
that racial prejudice is here to stay. A third example involves how we deal with the
mentally ill segment of the population. History reveals that neither quarantine, nor
treatment or accommodation solves the problem, only that each approach comes with its
own tradeoffs.
To sum up, while history can teach us lessons about our social problems, more
often than not the lesson is that there are no solutions to many social problems―only
alternate ways of coping with them.
