Monday, November 15, 2021

Why We Fight the Last War

 I've written before about my Harshaw rule--we never get it right the first time. 

I just realized this morning that there's a logical corollary: we always fight the last war.  Why? It's what we know, and when we're in a crisis, a new situation with high stakes, we revert to what we know.   The Harshaw rule says we don't get it right the first time because we lack the understanding and the habits needed to deal with newness.  

(This was spurred by an article in the papers saying that we responded to the pandemic recession by doing what we did for the Great Recession.)

[Updated with link]

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