Imagine a Mary-Go-Round. Each time it completes a full circle, it travels the same point over and over again, but, with different people. The world works on similar bases. As the above quote explains, there is nothing in world but a continuous and tiresome repetition of events. The things that have happened in the past are happening right now and will occur in the future, and since no one has yet received complete satisfaction from the world, the affairs of the world and displeasures of the men will always be a core part of the society. Throughout the years, history has witnessed myriad instances when humans have tended to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. First, a generation makes mistakes. The mistakes are eventually remedied as that generation realizes its mistakes and becomes green and ripened with knowledge. Then comes the next generation – raw and ungreen – which takes over the responsibilities. But, instead of bringing a ray of hope of a better future, the new generation instead coerces humanity to repeat the same mistakes as their ancestors. Humans seldom learn from their mistakes, and this naivety of humans gives a rise to insurgent and cantankerous actions. A generation becomes docile and mellow with wisdom and experience, but, all this knowledge is forgotten and discarded with the threshold of a new generation – bringing humans back to their “inborn mindset”.
           
Human evolution, according to the definition, is “the emergence of modern human mind, triggering a creative, technological, and social explosion.” This theory of evolution is widely accepted and now has become one of the core believes of science. However, have humans really achieved this definition of evolution? No one will deny the fact that humans have physically evolved from early primates, but has there been any significant psychological change? As ludicrous as it may sound, the truth is that humans, “the smartest animals on Earth”, have demonstrated scarcely any change in the social field of life. Throughout the past thousands of years of history, from the times of Lord Krishna to Jesus and Menes to Elizabeth II, the issues concerning humanity have always been present; many of which issues were repetitive.  An example of this can be seen with Slavery. Slavery, one of the biggest crimes against humanity, is a catastrophic “ghost” that has wandered around humanity for years. From the Code of Hammurabi of 1760 B.C. to the American Slavery in 19th Century – this ghost has been recognized by many civilizations as “devastating”, and yet has empowered their understanding by lurking in numerous civilizations – Egyptian, Roman, Persian, Islamic, Greek and many more. History demonstrates that this ghost has not poisoned every civilization simultaneously, but from time to time. A civilization, shattered by the affects of this ghost, has demonstrated to other civilizations the extent to which humanity can plunge. But humans have ignored this call and have allowed this ghost to shatter several other civilizations. An example of this can be seen in the Great Civil War in U.S, fought in the midst of slavery. The issue of slavery had created a rift between the two sides of U.S. – the North and South – engulfing them with an everlasting and deadly war which had buried many men into the grave. Men had been warned about the grave consequences, but they had still yielded to the ghost. This issue was eventually resolved, and people had become more docile and mellow with experience. However, as Abraham Lincoln had stated in his Gettysburg Address, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” Humans, instead of learning, merely treat the past events as another chapter of history and enclose it in a book; but, only if humans learned from history, many civilizations could have been prevented from this wandering ghost of slavery.
           

The affairs of the world are bound to repeat. But, as Karl Marx once said, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Every time humans neglect the evil behind humanity and continue the same mistakes, the results become worse and worse. One of such issues is race and religion. Throughout the past thousands of years of history, intolerance and ignorance of the “other” kind have resulted in dire consequences. The Holocaust of 1940s, the Second World War, Terrorism – these are some of the few events led by racism in the past fifty years; the history of humanity goes back thousands of years. In the past years, humans have foolishly walked on to battlefields due to issues as negligible and indecisive as race and religion. In this rage, many have lost their lives and many have “sacrificed” it. But is not such a war as foolish as two children fighting over whose toy is better? This issue is explained by Alan Paton in his novel Cry, the Beloved Country. In this novel, the author depicts a mid-1900s South Africa where the blacks are oppressed by the white and devoid of many social rights. As a result of this, the country suffers a social turmoil, marked by fear, crime and racism. In this novel, the author Alan Paton describes his views about such racism through Arthur Jarvis, who writes, “As long as we continue to apply a double standard in South Africa, we suffer as a nation from what Plato would have called the lie in the soul.” Through this quote, Arthur Jarvis envisions a world where people do not identify themselves by different races but by one united race – the human race.

Mark Twain once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” The universal issues like crime against humanity have repeated in the past as slavery, are repeating right now as terrorism and may repeat in the future in some other form. An example of this can be seen in Star Trek, which demonstrates a fictional universe in mid-21st century. In this science fiction, Bruce Maddox, a cyberneticist who wants to create more androids (robots) at the cost of Android Data, pleads the court for permission. However, Piscard argues against Bruce, stating that taking the life of Data for human interest is a type of crime against humanity. To prove this point, Piscard argues that Data does exhibit the three qualities that characterize a human – self-awareness, consciousness, and emotion – and that Data deserves all the rights that a human holds. Piscard further states that the creation of more androids would put their lives in danger from the self-centered nature of humans and that it would reinforce the slavery of 1800s as humans would be bound to once again repeat a mistake.

Throughout the years, humans have tremendously progressed in the fields of technology and creativity; however, humans, on social grounds, have demonstrated little progress and have remained as barbaric as they were thousands of years ago. Either blame it on the humans’ inability to learn or either blame it on the naivety of the new generations, the human experience throughout the years has little changed and is bound to remain the same until the humans look back at the events of history not as mere chapters but as lessons important to life and mankind.