Patriotic reverence for the history of a nation often does more to impede than to

encourage progress

History always brings with itself lots of experience. People always learn from their past. But
is relying on the history nation the right path to progress? Does our past always teach us the
right lessons? What we do today will be past someday. Does that mean we will always end up
doing right if we follow our history. The answer is no. Showing high patriotic reverence
cannot always be the right path for a nation’s progress.

Relying on history for our current needs would be nothing more than intuition. The situation
we have at our hands can be very different from that experienced in the past. The demand
then becomes to handle it with new ways and techniques. For example maintaining peace in
the world today is the most important factor for any country’s progress. If we look at history,
nations earlier had a tendency to acquire and conquer as much as they can. The Germans in
the World War II killed millions of people in their neighboring countries in thirst of more and
more power. The world has witnessed many wars that have hampered progress. Thus the
need of the hour for all nations is to sit down and talk. Nations now need to have a friendly
attitude towards each other for maintaining progress. Nations have signed peace treaties,
which includes the nuclear proliferation treaties. The nations have now started thinking of
progress on a global prospective.

The economic progress of a nation particularly developing countries has also been very
different from the past. The trends and graphs are very different from that in the past. The
corporate world has been developing and expanding exponentially. The economic market is
now governed by new rules with no excerpts from the past.

So, the demand of the hour cannot be met by completely relying on the past. But just learning
from our experiences. If we refer to our past, we need to draw proper analogies between the
two time variant situations. But this can be a very difficult task as the scenario and the
essence of things for todays world are completely different.
As a famous author in China said ”one can progress when he reverence the history of his
nation”. People can learn success and failure from history; people can know shame and honor
from history. Patriotic reverence for the history of a nation can inspire one to attribute his all
enthusiasm and wisdom to his nation. This is improper to aver that patriotic reverence for the
history of a nation often lead to an impeder.

History of a nation is not only a part of a nation’s culture but also a part of a person’s spirit.
Our sense of personal identity demands roots in the past that are sought in the first instance in
genealogy and family history. Our sense of what is practical in the future is formed by an
awareness of what has happened-or not happened-in the past. We learn, in short, by
experience. Furthermore, history is collective memory, the storehouse of experience through
which people develop their future prospects. Our political judgments, whether we are
deciding the rebuking claims of political opponents or taking the feasibility of political
policies, are permeated by a sense of the past. We are all curious about how our society came
to be the way it is, the answer often is from history.

To be more specific, patriotic reverence can lead to our further search our history. The study
of history has grand implication. In the first place, the effort to recapture the essence of every
epoch in the past alerts us to the enormous faults when the boding of something at present is
same as that of something baleful in the past and teaches us to know how to handle with it.
History, after all, offers us insights into a very wide range of human mentalities. From
example, at the beginning of Song Dynasty of China, king song learned from decadency of
Tang Dynasty that a king must have the preponderance over the leader of military for troops
lest generals usurp his place. He also learn from the history to effortless gain the military
from generals. From this point of view, the broader the scope of historical study, the better. In
the second place, history can serve, in a sense, as a source of precedent and prediction. That
is why history is often compared to a “mirror” in Chinese culture. Although history seldom
repeats itself, it conveys the awareness of what is enduring and what is ephemeral in our
present circumstance: this is what means “history perspective”. Finally, the study of history
can help us understand better other societies as well as our own society.

Patriotic reverence for the history of a nation often is a powerful force to enhance the national
cohesion and economic strength. For example, the Japanese invasion on China imprints the
every Chinese who attribute all his wisdom to establishing his homeland in order to prevent
the Japanese tramples on his home once again. So China has developed at the highest rate of
economy in the world since Chinese economical reform. It is history shame that teaches
every Chinese people a lesson: one country will be trampled by other country if economy
lags.

However, too much patriotic reverence will impede the progress of a nation. Too much
patriotic will lead to chauvinism which can cause tremendous tribulation. For an instance,
Germany full of over-pride of its history in World War II invaded many countries and
slaughtered millions of innocent people in order to realize big Germany dream.

To sum up, moderate patriotic reverence for the history of a nation will accelerate the
progress rather than impede it.