Discuss Edmund Burke's Quote: Those Who Don't Know History Are Destined to Repeat It - Essay Example

Having been able to study history and how lives are continuously shaped through ages, I would have to agree to the stand of Burke as his argument summons us to understand the essence of history and how humanity should treat it with high honor and respect. Burke’s claim may be perceived to manifest in the event when Hitler, like N. Bonaparte, attempted to invade the Russians and the resulting incident seems an echo of Napoleon’s undertaking. Besides political aspect, unlikely repetition of history may also be found to take place within a family whereby a son or daughter does the same mistakes which the parents have committed.

Still, another instance may be concretized via the acquisition of disease as in the case of Freddie Mercury who extracted AIDS due to homosexual engagements in the similar manner Rock Hudson did in his time being a gay celebrity. At a time in French history, Napoleon Bonaparte led his grand army toward the task of accomplishing his objective to invade Russia. Along as they proceeded, however, Napoleon failed to anticipate an unseen trap in the minds of the Russians who allowed Napoleon’s armed forces to cross borders only to wait for the winter season to arrive and let the resistance of the French troops weaken due to cold weather.

Eventually, hence, the grand army and their leader met with the unfavorable plight of defeat which down the history is viewed to run parallel with the situation of Hitler in seeking to designate Russia under his control. Hitler, like Bonaparte, directed an army that was lured to take advantage of the retreating attitude exhibited by the supposed colonies. As before, Russians appeared to have learned from their past and got the better of the German operation during the winter time which projected Hitler’s failure to account for Bonaparte’s weak points of consideration (Seward, 1988).

Since history encompasses records of truth based on experiences, whether known or unknown, with concrete or abstract form of document, its repetition maybe carried out even in simple settings in which one family member inevitably lives life that is patterned after that of another. A young woman gets pregnant prior to reaching a legal age and is later confronted with the options that would either cause her child to obtain proper education, or otherwise. In the absence of quality guidance, naturally, the offspring becomes raised to follow an analogous strayed path and in this manner, a parent’s history unfortunately repeats itself in what the child chooses to experience.

Evidently, when this happens, such repetition would merely amount to the conclusion that no learning emerges in the process of dealing with the trouble of preventing the unpleasant event from taking place at a time in the future. Despite global awareness and socio-political campaigns held to combat AIDS for which the field of medicine has not yet discovered exact cure, history still finds itself being redone every time homosexuality and unsafe sex are tolerated to play their role. Such was true about Rock Hudson and the dual life he possessed as a male celebrity known to embody a ‘machismo’ image and as one whose life as a gay is kept secret from public knowledge.

The strike of AIDS revealed this truth for Hudson though it did not necessarily entail a required lesson for the entire pop culture of homosexuals in moral perversion of the period immediately after his time. Most probably,