Recently, I was shocked to read Mr. Wu Xiaoru's article "Taking History as a Mirror" (hometown, 3rd edition supplement of China Reading Newspaper on June 5th, 2002). Because Mr. Wu clearly pointed out: "Some people are never willing or disdainful of' taking history as a mirror'; People who know how to learn from history are often people who can never control their own destiny. Therefore,' taking history as a mirror' has also seen' two different' standards and' two different' understandings. " From Mr. Wu's words, I was greatly inspired: it turns out that "taking history as a mirror" is only useful to some people, and we can't expect everyone to do so.
According to Mr. Wu's thinking, I think it's not just that some people are "unwilling and disdainful to learn from history", but that they look at history from the opposite side and learn some useful "knowledge" and "skills" from it, so that they can be more treacherous and worse.
History not only teaches people to learn well, but also teaches some people to learn badly-I don't mean to blaspheme history by saying this. History is indeed a mirror, no matter good or bad, you can see your own shadow. The question is who reads history. There is a saying: "Don't read the Three Kingdoms". This is not to say that the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is not good; On the contrary, The Three Kingdoms is really a good book. The problem is that some people (in fact, not all old people) are more sophisticated. If we read the Three Kingdoms again, we may learn more treachery, fierceness and malice. The Three Kingdoms is a novel about history, so it is not like this for the whole history!