Our Society Condemned to Relive a Bill Murray Movie?

The philospoher George Santayana once famously observed that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." If this observation is valid, polymath-cum-LAT-columnist David Gelernter thinks we are in trouble:

Not knowing history is worse than ignorance of math, literature or almost anything else. Ignorance of history is undermining Western society's ability to talk straight and think straight. Parents must attack the problem by teaching their own children the facts. Only fools would rely on the schools.

Read the whole thing. If you think Gelernter is exaggerating, I dare you to go visit the children's section of any public (or school) library and look through some of the books on the shelves. You will be amazed by what you see -- and don't see. Needless to say, history these days is a whole lot more (and less) than stories about the achievements of "dead white men."