History and its relevance to culture

History repeats itself..one of the most golden proverb you would hear time and time again.. civilizations rise and fall..only to be grown better next time they rise..If you believe in Darwins theory of survival, every generation is born smarter and smarter than the previous one. Which means that today we are much smarter than my ancestors. The lives we live in present is a part of history for a future generation, so as we live, we are creating out history. Given the fact that we are smarter and creating our own history, why do we still repeat the same mistakes that lead to downfall of our civilizations, arent we smarter than our ancestors so why dont we learn from our history to avoid the same pitfalls which led to downfall of our ancestors. So if we still repeat our mistakes even after learning history, what is the relevance of it? Should we just burn the books of history? I think the relevance of history is in its value to retain culture and present historical facts. Interpreting them is where each civilizations differ. To quote 'Hitler' who thought that the history is not mere dates and names to remember but is forces which created those dates and names. Coming back to culture, what is culture? Is it the way a man/woman handles himself in front of a bunch of upper class stiff noses? Is eating with knives and fork more cultural than slurping with hands? How do we define a civilization is more cultured? In the end you will be amazed that it doesnt mean any of the above material things, it is the way people in a civilization treat humanity on whole. Culture adds value to meaning of life. the importance eachs own culture is quite apparent when one is placed in other country. It makes its importance stand out more because his identity is his culture then. The way he does things. The way he makes his decisions are all influenced by his culture. It is the important unkowing part of his soul which differentiates him from others. Man is born in this world clean slate. He is his influenced by his parents, by his society, by culture of society. You are born in this world naked with no jewels, no money and eqo, he earns all the materialistic things in life, he also earns his culture, but when he dies he can only take with him his culture with him. so doesnt it become imperative to respect one's culture and his heritage. I am in midst of seeing one of the best serials ever created on India's most cuning diplomat Chanakya, we are talking about BC's now. If i can recommend anything out of this blog, it is to buy those DVD's and watch it. Its just amazing when the world around him was waking up to civilization, kingdoms in India were talking about taxes, state welfare, etc. One of the things which i want to bring in relevance is his statement on various kingdoms in India. Land can be divided into kingdoms. people can be seperated by kings, but in the end we are allbinded with common culture. You can create 100 partition of land but in the end people to people contact is invariable. If they are binded by same culture, you cannot keep them apart for long. Well i think this is good enough to think about for future.