I asked this same question to the first competent pdoc I ever went to. He said "Yes."

I hope this type size comes out okay -- I've had a lot of trouble with this cc/paste. Anyway....

Absolutely - and it was always thus. Two social history books give some sort of reality to this fact -- " The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade " by Susan Wise Bauer and "A Distant Mirror, the Calamitous 14th Century” by Barbara Tuchman." There are also books about the ongoing history of the United States, such as "A People's History of the United States." by Howard Zinn.

Knowing this history and its examples of what reality is, I have accepted the fact that the picture and myths we are told that these awful things are "recent, new, and/or correctable," are false. I just have to accept that that is, tragically and outrageously, the way things are. As Monty Python says in his wacky spoof song (which I sing), "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" -- "worse things happen at sea, you know."