We must also seek out the good and right, the ageless wisdom and courage and faith that have always stood against evil, the virtues that have cultivated our world, the convictions that have built up and beautified it. Our ancestors have shown us many ways to fall and fail, certainly, but they have also at times shown us the path of grace and glory. Let us not only learn from their problems. Let us learn from their wisdom.

It’s often said that those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. The unstated assumption in this saying is that the past is full of problems—which is obviously true. Learning from the mistakes of the past is a big job because there are just so many to choose from. Our learning is also complicated by the danger of over-correction—of fixating so intently on avoiding one problem that we fall easily into another. After all, we’re just as susceptible to cultural blind spots, overlooked abuses, and self-serving justifications as anyone who went before us. Have you seen the internet lately? So we must learn from the mistakes of the past, and we must apply our lessons carefully. But I think we sell history, our ancestors, and our own selves short when we only see the past as a litany of problems to avoid. Our forebearers certainly had their issues—plenty of them—but they also had their successes. They were often wrong, but sometimes they were right. And what if we were humble enough to admit this? What if we learned from history not only by critiquing it, but also by letting it critique us?

We live (like everyone before us) on the edge of history, the culmination of the ages. Our tools are better now than they have ever been, thanks to the accumulated knowledge of our ancestors.

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