On Millennial Ignorance of Totalitarianism

I will not go over the details of a recent poll revealing ignorance about the Holocaust among Millennials.  By now most of my above average readers are well aware of the poll, and it is readily available.

I will point out that this ignorance is surely one reason for the revival of totalitarianism amongst Millennials.  That those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it is a partial truth and something of a cliché, but there is truth to it.  Knowledge of past evil can make current evil less likely. When we are tempted to do evil, it helps to have a learned reminder not to be like past evildoers.

To be more specific, when a young man is tempted to put on an arm band and raise his arm against Constitutional rights and to viciously attack and slander opponents and attempt to disarm and silence them, it helps for his education to whisper in his ear, “Hey bud, that would be acting a bit too much like a Nazi, don’tcha think?”  When youth are instead ignorant of the basics of historic totalitarianism, we are more likely to get . . .  well, to get David Hogg.

And given the bias towards the Left in public and secondary education, ignorance of Communism and its atrocities must surely be even greater, likely much greater.  So the little Communists running amuck are blissfully unaware that they are acting a bit too much like the 20^th Century Communists who murdered tens upon tens of millions.  I see how some of the youth act and am reminded of the Cultural Revolution.  Meanwhile most of them have no idea what the Cultural Revolution was, thanks to their failed education. . . .  Or maybe their education was intended to create Leftists with little memory of Leftist atrocities and little respect for democratic values.

So, yes, I have little doubt that ignorance of 20^th Century totalitarianism is assisting a revival of totalitarianism in the 21^st. Poor education and ignorance has consequences.