We read history books and boil with indignation. We tsk-tsk at the medieval Church that put Galileo on trial for defending heliocentrism, and we mock the ignorance of the Medici family for exiling Machiavelli—a statesman centuries ahead of his time—to a rural corner. We wonder how the people of those eras could have been so utterly foolish, and we lament why they failed to recognize and embrace those magnificent geniuses.
But what about us, the moment we close the book and step back into reality?
We still subtly ostracize colleagues whose thoughts differ from ours, and we throw warnings at juniors trying to change the existing organizational culture, telling them "not to stand out." After despising the fools of the past so intensely, we look at the outsiders right in front of our eyes with the exact same gaze held by the Medici bureaucrats 500 years ago. What a bizarre and foolish contradiction.
Praise Is Cheap, Coexistence Is Hard
The reason we live as these double-standard fools is because praising a genius of the past costs us nothing, whereas acknowledging a living outsider right in front of us requires us to slice away our own flesh.
Lauding Machiavelli or Galileo—men already verified by history—is incredibly easy and safe. It serves as an excellent accessory to flaunt how sophisticated our own intellect is.
However, a living outsider standing right beside us, shouting, "This system is wrong," or "We need to work differently," is a massive headache. To acknowledge them, I—as a member of the mainstream—must admit that I am wrong. I have to shatter the familiarity and comfort I have been enjoying and adapt to change. Because humans instinctively crave stability over change, it is far more comfortable to dismiss the raw wisdom of another person as "foolishness" and push it away to keep our lives undisturbed.
The Generational Hand-Me-Down: Blinders Named "The Mainstream"
Ultimately, humanity has passed down this exact foolishness—praising yesterday’s maverick while persecuting today’s—for thousands of years.
We like to think we live in a highly rational and intelligent society, but the moment we are trapped inside the perimeter of a collective group, we invariably go blind. Terrified that the order of the "mainstream" to which we belong might crumble, we unconditionally reject the signs of the future appearing right before our eyes. The citizens of Florence who exiled Machiavelli 500 years ago never thought of themselves as "fools." On the contrary, they firmly believed they were the "sensible, smart people" defending the order of their city. Exactly like us today.
Concluding the Essay
Hegel was not wrong when he said, "We learn from history that we do not learn from history." We still put on a sophisticated show of hypocrisy by preserving and praising the crusaders of the past, while living out our actual lives exactly like the stupid mainstream that starved those very crusaders to death.
The only way to break this vicious generational cycle is to open a history book every time we encounter an uncomfortable existence right in front of us.
We need to harbor a radical suspicion: "The person I am pointing fingers at right now for being ‘eccentric’ might actually be the true genius whom posterity will revere as a pioneer ahead of their time." Only when we hold that disruptive doubt can we finally take a single step out of the parade of fools that has repeated itself for 500 years.
Rather than offering cheap praise to a dead hero of the past, we need the tiny shred of open-mindedness required to listen to the unfamiliar voice right beside us today. That is the only way we can sever ties with the fools of history and become truly wise human beings.
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