We are reaping results of ignoring history

Arthur Schlesinger Jr., an American historian and author of the 1960 book "The Making of the President," once stated, "History is to the nation as memory is to the individual."

Imagine what happens to an individual once his memory is lost. He no longer understands who he is or where he comes from. He can easily be a target for predators who seek to take advantage of his amnesia.

During the past 50 years, we have witnessed a rise in emphasis on math, reading and science at the expense of history and civics. There are only a finite number of minutes in a school day and the architects of the current core curriculum among many schools have declared that history and civics are of lesser importance than the other three.

The current presidential campaign is symbolic of what happens when we collectively lose our sense of who we are, where we've been and where we are going.

The current choices confronting us are a woman plagued with scandals, an authentic but aging socialist who is most attractive to the young who have been denied through their educational institutions an accurate summary of the countless nations who currently live in poverty because they either chose or were forced to live under a system that glorifies meritocracy and an apparent politically enigmatic narcissist who attracts the angry disenfranchised by insulting women, Muslims, Hispanics and anyone else who dares to ask him to provide any details on just how he intends to make America great again.

In a democracy we deserve what we get because we chose through negligence or apathy to disregard the past and simply live for today.

Gerald Wester

Mount Prospect