Issue 120 处女作，求拍~！

Silky2007UID: 2389414

“so much is new and complex today that looking back for an understanding of the past provides little guidance for living in the present."





As we areexperiencing a “changes in every fleeting moment” society, with boomingknowledge everywhere, the ability to continue to learn new things isundoubtedly important. However, if this becomes the excuse of the ignorance oflearning and exploring history, I personally consider it very inappropriate.

What is history exactly?It is not simply the aggregate, or a record or narrative description of pastevents, but that it is the continuum of events occurring in succession leadingfrom the past to the present and even into the future. As far as I amconcerned, history is indispensable to understand why such changes occur, and tohelp us better explore the unknown future.

To begin with, theimportance of history in explaining and understanding change in human behavioris no mere abstraction. In fact, learning about great human achievements of thepast provides inspiration. Take Newton as an example, everyone is aware of hisfamous “three universal laws of motion” and “the law of universal gravitation”.But he could not have such inspiring achievement alone. Greek philosopherAristarchus had come up with the idea of “heliocentric theory” as early asbefore Christ, but unfortunately without detail discussions; then after yearsof careful observation and calculation, Copernicus finally solved each mathematicproblem which was in the theory, and turned “heliocentric theory” into a theorythat could be used as prediction by publishing his great work “DeRevolutionibus Orbium Coelestium”; after that, Johannes Kepler made a complete,accurate description of motion of the planet and the sun by studying a Denmark astronomer’sobservation records; it is by then did Isaac Newton had a chance to prove hislaws of gravitation. And he knew it by saying, “If I have seen further thanothers, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”

In addition, historyis like a mirror, as we see into it, we prevent ourselves from our mistakes ofthe past. It is true with individuals, and with a nation. As the invader,Germany repents for the crime it committed during the World War One and WorldWar Two on every anniversary. Confessing and remembering the history keepGermany out of same mistakes again, keep the world out of wars, and meanwhile,keep Germany strong. As the victim nations, the insult was because of poverty,and it should be remembered as the propulsion to move forward, as medicine tokeep sober. Remember the disasters wars can bring, and help to solve worldproblems with peaceful ways. As the president of People’s Republic of China Hu Jintaoonce said (and I paraphrase): “The past, if not forgotten, can serve as a guidefor the future. By emphasizing the need to always remember the past, we do notmean to continue the hatred. Instead, we want to draw lessons from history andbe forward-looking.”

To sum up, it istrue that we can hardly find explanations to the newborn things in today’ssociety directly from the past, but dig deeper, you may find that actually theanswers are not far away.