When opinion trumps 'history'

Sean Gonsalves - Cape Cod Times

08.19.05 - This week's phrase is: "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

I know the great Spanish philosopher George Santayana penned it in his Life of Reason, but I'm nominating it for Orwell's dust bin anyway.

Though it contains a nugget of truth, the phrase generates more heat than light, and is therefore not conducive to constructive conversation.

In fact, whenever you hear someone use the Santayana-line, your lie detector should go off like a smoke alarm over a stove of burning bacon.

What the phrase has come to mean is: those who don't agree with my narrow understanding of history are condemned.