Today is the yesterday that'll damn tomorrow

The Anasazi act as a salve on the American conscience. The Ancient Ones provide a way to talk about the disappearance of a culture without having to admit culpability. Kind of like an Englishman talking about the railways in India as a way of deflecting the past.
The past will not just go away because we refuse to look at it.
Many years ago, when I was much younger, back in the late 80s, I was in Tanzania. Hadn't been there long when we went to visit a village. I was with four others: two from Poland, one Vietnamese, one Australian and me. An equal number of young guys from the village started asking where we were from; the usual introductory routine. They'd never heard of Poland, couldn't say Vietnam, and were very interested in Australia. Then it was my turn. I'd deliberately hung back. Ever had one of those moments when you know what's coming next? Eventually, when asked, I said England. (Curiously, England isn't listed in the CIA's World Factbook.) They said not a word, neither did they look at each other. In unison, they simply turned their backs to me.
It was a grand, but futile, gesture.
To those guys, I represented a past that they were not yet ready to look upon. But, like the past, I had no intention of going away.
I felt no personal guilt over the past they chose to shun. Why should I? It was long before my time, and we had no stories of Great-grandfathers who had gotten rich off African diamonds. Was I responsible for what others had done a hundred years before I was born? Should I be ashamed of a country with such a small geographical presence in the world striving to become the richest and most powerful?
Actually, I don't know the answer to that question. I imagine any half-decent American must have similar feelings about their own nation. Except for the size issues, of course.
With England's growth came better education, better medicine and huge leaps in the advancement of technology. It also brought degradation, humiliation and annihilation to far too many. Is the human cost ever justifiable?
It isn't possible to make amends for the crimes of the past. It is only possible to be mindful of them and commit oneself, individually and as a nation, not to commit the same crimes in the future.
Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom traipse around the world, sticking our flags in other people's territories any more. We don't need to; we just sell arms in the direction we want the power to shift.
It seems we are learning from our pasts, it's just that we're learning the wrong things.
The present is the past we'll have to learn from in the future.

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