"The Only Thing They Learn" -- does anyone else find it irritating?

"The Only Thing They Learn" is a title of a short story from 1970's or
early 80's. A highly civilized and rather decadent society is under
attack -- with most citizens unaware of it, -- by tough and vicious
"frontier tribes" who scoff at comforts of civilization and rules of
civilized warfare. The reader knows the society is doomed. Much of the
story takes place in a university classrooms where students are
studying an millenia-old saga composed by their ancestors when THEY
were brutal barbarians overthrowing the civilization of the time. In a
flashback to that time, a military officer asks a historian "How did
you know this would happen?" The historian answers "I know it from
Rome"

The implication, of course, is that same line of events happens over
and over, and people never learn.

That trope is fairly common in SF, and I always hated it. The worst
example, IMO, is in Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love", where Lazarus
Long opens a bank on a newly colonized planet, and some ten or twenty
years later some Marxist/populist demagogues in the planet's
government nationalize (i.e. take away) his bank. Lazarus Long fully
expected it to happen, and prepared for it. He knew it would happen
because it happened time and time again in the past -- and none of the
people involved (except Lazarus himself) knew about the likely results
of nationalizing banks, nor had any clue about the trap Lazarus set
for them -- again, apparently done many times before! WTF??

In Heinlein's universe (that one, anyway) people somehow NEVER learn
from history. The long-lived ones like Lazarus learn from personal
experience, and even they seem unaware of -- and incapable of
applying, -- examples that happened before they were born. Granted,
such shortsightedness ("Those who do not learn from history are doomed
to repeat it") is common, but hardly universal. Indeed, the proverb I
just quoted would not exist if learning from history were
*impossible*.

Does anyone else find this trope irritating and unbelievable?
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: "The Only Thing They Learn" -- does anyone else find it irritating?
    ... A highly civilized and rather decadent society is under ... were brutal barbarians overthrowing the civilization of the time. ... example, IMO, is in Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love", where Lazarus ... such shortsightedness ("Those who do not learn from history are doomed ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: "The Only Thing They Learn" -- does anyone else find it irritating?
    ... A highly civilized and rather decadent society is under ... were brutal barbarians overthrowing the civilization of the time. ... example, IMO, is in Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love", where Lazarus ... such shortsightedness ("Those who do not learn from history are doomed ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: "The Only Thing They Learn" -- does anyone else find it irritating?
    ... A highly civilized and rather decadent society is under ... were brutal barbarians overthrowing the civilization of the time. ... example, IMO, is in Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love", where Lazarus ... such shortsightedness ("Those who do not learn from history are doomed ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: Wouldnt want Ludo to get lonely....
    ... All subsequent writings on the philosophy of history may ... Spengler, having formulated a universal history, undertook an analysis ... Spengler's cyclic interpretation of history stated that a civilization ... noble culture -- the spiritual strength of the West that can know ...
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  • Re: Kilimanjaro ice cap disappearing
    ... The first lecture with the title "What is Civilization?" ... I still like my Penguin Atlas of History books ... ... I do not know anyone who believes that the universe is only 6000 ... I disagree with humans collectively decided to forget prehistory. ...
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