Haynes Johnson interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

Photo by Jane Scherr

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Advice to Students

Students might watch this tape in a course or read this interview. What advice would you like to put on the table for them about preparing for the future? What insights have you drawn from the story that you've just told us about your own life and work?

Being informed is very hard work. There is enormous information in this society, across the board, about events that are occurring that are shaping our lives, whether it's scientific or technological or economic changes in the world. Cloning, the disparities between the have and have-nots, global warming -- the information is there if you want it. It's there in even the most mediocre of the media outlets. But it's hard work. It is a test to our citizens whether they can fulfill the responsibility -- and they have a responsibility -- to inform themselves, to pay attention to things, because those things are going to affect them. [Being uninformed] creates the opportunity for people to float through the times [until] the bubble bursts, or it creates another opportunity for making mistakes and stumbling into tragedies like 9/11, not paying attention to threats that we face. So I think that's number one, that's a big one.

The other is, going back to what I tried to say earlier, I just can't imagine not reading. It's wonderful to have the internet and the ability to reach information. It's great to have television transporting us in our living room, seeing scenes around the world and from space, that's magnificent. But there's nothing like the labor of words that might help you give a little deeper context, and I hope we don't lose that.

I assume that in that reading, there should be history, right?

Yes. If you don't know the context of the times you live in, and what happened before, how you got to here, it's the old quote, you know, "Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them." That's the mistakes and tragedies. If we don't learn from the lesson, then we'll just repeat the mistakes, and that's not in anybody's interest.

On that note, we want to thank you very much for taking the time to come to Berkeley and talk to us about your life and your work. Thank you, Haynes.

I enjoyed it.

And thank you very much for joining us for this Conversation With History.

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