What Have We Learned, If Anything? (By Tony Judt)

“…the past has little of interest to teach us.”

In Tony Judt’s “What Have We Learned, If Anything” article, Judt argues that America struggles to learn from our past mistakes and move on but rather we “forget rather than remember” (16). By disregarding past mistakes we hinder ourselves from learning how to help ourselves in the present and future years. Another problem he says we have is that when we do look at the past we tend to us the past to separate ourselves, although we are all human beings. “The resulting mosaic does not bind us to a shared past, it separates us from it” (17). What he is trying to say is that we look at our past mistakes and think that has nothing to do with us, but in reality it has everything to do with how we live our lives today.

Additionally, I like how he points out that we have hordes of information available to us today, but like the pasts that we choose to remember or forget, so too do we choose the “infinity of data” that we want to look at based on our “multiplicity of tastes, affinities, and interests” (18). We have that choice because we’ve never really experienced the same hardships as other countries that have gone to war have faced. We’re spoiled in a way. That’s why the US is “the only advanced democracy where public figures glorify and exalt the military” (20).

Finally, I really like how he pointed out the “triple confusion” that we have here in the US (21). He accuses us of over generalizing (true), confusing motives (true), and “defining all the various terrorists and terrorisms of our time, with their contrasting and sometimes conflicting objectives, by their actions alone” (22). However, he comes to the conclusion that we should teach ourselves (since we’ve never experienced like others have) that war demonizes, degrades, and brutalizes people and so too does generalizing our enemies.