History Teaches Anything

Policy makers are as likely to use history as a way to validate their preconceptions, or endorse existing plans, as they are to scour it objectively for ideas. [...]

The late historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called this susceptibility “history by rationalization.” What politicians are falling prey to is what psychologists call “confirmation bias,” whereby people tend to both seek out and trust only information that corroborates their judgments. And policy makers have lots to choose from. Billions of words have been written about historical events, offering modern-day thinkers plenty of material to convince themselves of the wisdom of their thinking.

Jordan Michael Smith, "Did a mistake save the world?"