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Literature is one of the most useful ways we have of achieving this “other eye,” this detached manner of seeing ourselves; history is another.
remember this history is not for the sake of keeping alive the memories of old tyrannies, but to recognize present tyranny, for these patterns are in us still. It would be strange if they were not.
Yet I think we may very well see countries that take it for granted they are democracies losing sight of democracy, for we are living in a time when the great over-simplifiers are very powerful—Communism, fundamentalist Islam. Poor economies breed tyrannies.
I think children should be taught about history not as is usually the case now, that this is the record of long past events, which one ought to know about for some reason or other. But that this is a story from which one may learn not only what has happened, but what may, and probably will, happen again.
