Another year of overlooking history can teach us huge lessons. Whether we learn from them, is doubtful

It feels every year that I find myself lamenting end-of-year reviews for their clichéd and banal nature, for after all the calendar is an artificial concept - somewhat influenced by astrology - and needs little celebrating. I suppose it is an excuse to drink, which is why you're not reading this a few days earlier! Perhaps it is best for me to put that cynical perspective aside, because as with all of history, last year taught society a lot.

Or has it? As I reflect back at what unfolded in 2021, politically and socially, I can only draw a single conclusion. That humankind continues to repeat its mistakes.

With each passing rotation around the sun, we have more knowledge and power bestowed upon us on a world full of enrichment and opportunities for progress. The advent of technology has only accelerated that growth exponentially, through a combination of accessibility and sheer capability. As these ever-increasing complexities continue to dominate, we have become so attached to innovation and singularity. So attached that we are ignoring history and all the lessons that have come with it.

It's ironic, no, that we should have so much more knowledge (= power, as another cliché goes), and yet make so many more fundamental mistakes? Perhaps the surfeit of opportunities we have make this inevitable, but even so, it is damn infuriating.

Examples of this begin no closer to home than the life-changing pandemic that has engulfed our lives over the past two years. For one, people and governments have shown that they will, time and time again, ignore science.

Not only will people ignore science, but they will actively reject it and the proponents of it. Scientists supposedly "in favour" of lockdown (though that is a stupid phrase because you'd have to be overly naive and misanthropic to believe that any person wants their lives restricted), have received an abundance of abuse through emails, social media, even letters. I have seen that first-hand, and to downplay the impact of this on any person's mental wellbeing - as many have - is plain and simple gaslighting.

COVID-19, for all the heartache it caused, also fostered our compassion and togetherness - at least at its outset. Anecdotally, I can remember the small smiles people gave to me while out on our single form of permitted exercise, and the examples of camaraderie countries, cities, towns, neighbourhoods realised by a strangely united suffering.

Fissures have developed in this, through human nature no doubt. Once again, these small acts of kindness seem the exception rather than the norm. No further is that shown than that abuse.

Ironically, pandemic misinformation is a pure example of how history has been disregarded. It's easy to cite the 1918 Spanish Flu, but it's necessary. Some of the most basic methods used then, see masks, social distancing and quarantine, have been up for debate in the current pandemic. 

Not only that, but our reticence to acknowledge the continuing severity of COVID-19 is saddening. Perhaps that sentiment is born out of understandable tiredness at the upheaval in our lives, as many of us didn't expect an calamity this long-lasting. History though, again, tells us that the Spanish Flu lasted over two years. Notwithstanding our medical and vaccine achievements, the interconnectedness of the modern world always suggested more scope for a virus to spread than 1918.

The lessons we learn from misinformation are perhaps not felt by all, and least of all by the most privileged. Because these lessons come in the cost of the countless people lost to the virus, many of which were avoidable. The pain of their grieving loved ones is a stain upon the governments and people who refused to listen. That is a pain that will never be rectified and one can only wish that it haunts the consciences of those culpable, though we all know that is a miniscule possibility given that some were dining on wine and cheese throughout.

That a similar type of misinformation will eventually come to haunt our globe is the second dispiriting takeaway from 2021. Climate science suffers from the same subversion as epidemiology, and far from singularly impacting our own species, its ramifications extend to the whole ecosystem on earth.

I'm not much of a film-watcher, but I found Don't Look Up extremely powerful, as was its intended effect. Only after that do I realise how analogous the pandemic and the climate crisis have come to be. When you watch films of similar plotlines, you expect it to be fantasy. You expect to come away not thinking about the realities of the world. Yet while it immerses you in the story, the film entrenches the crushing reality of hopelessness that many feel about misinformation currently circulating.

For in the aftermath of COP-26, hyped up by the media and politicians as a landmark in the fight against climate change, that feeling is more pronounced than ever. Political agreements have already been reneged upon, and the aims are so vague that those in charge can claim victory no matter how little the progress. In some ways, this is symptomatic of global promises, for the Millennium Development Goals and birthchild Sustainable Development Goals, have similar ambiguity. Once more, history shows the bare-faced for all their falsehoods.

While we hope for future leadership to better these problems, while we campaign for more action to be taken, that sense of hopelessness continues to nag away. It is impossible to trust individuals who only care about short-term gain, electoral politics, and advancing their millions. 

For sure, the last year produced positives and they are to be cherished. Yet those positives feel hollow if we are going to make overshadowing mistakes that impact us as individuals and as a collective. I will continue to lament the continuing neglect of long-term problems on this blog, for I feel they are more important than all the day-to-day mania we get so caught up in. But that doesn't make me immune, for the idealism this piece craves is somewhat lost when my mind gets distracted.

It would be nice if the calendar wasn't that artificial concept that my cynicism perceives it. Because if we were to start again this year with all the people and planet reset and all the knowledge we gained, maybe we would do differently. Possibly though, we would continue to ignore history.