What bothers me aside from the prejudice and assumptions of any human group is that history and the study of it is supposed to help us "never forget." But we do, or worse - we never learn in the first place. Humans seem more comfortable with mythology than fact. That troubles me.

I've been thinking about this too. I think part of the problem is that our brains simply aren't capable of grasping reality in its entirety. The best we can do is come up with a mental model.

I think the problem is that for most people, it's more important that our mental model of reality makes us feel comfortable about our place in the world, than that it accurately reflects reality. In other words, humans are driven by emotion, not reason.