If you ignore history, or if you study and learn from it matters not, for history repeats itself, period. I believe history has trends or patterns which repeat over and over. There is a change of characters, languages, etc. but the patterns are the same. They are the same because history is made by people, and we humans do not change. We think we have risen above our animal origins, but we are still driven by base instincts and desires.
Perhaps a better alternative to the “Ignoring history dooms one to repeat history” line should be “One may wish to study history and learn its patterns. In seeing its patterns, one may better see their role in historical events in the making. Then one may be an active subject and not a victim of history”?
