How to cope with the feedback loops from history?

“The­re are feed­back loops, but with a long delay.” said a Hun­ga­ri­an col­le­ague yes­ter­day while a work­shop at the World Forum of the Socie­ty of Orga­niza­tio­nal Lear­ning in Paris. She empha­si­zed that we can’t under­stand the cur­rent deve­lo­p­ments in Euro­pe wit­hout try­ing to learn from histo­ry. Alt­hough today’s ratio­na­li­ty is inter­wo­ven with emo­tio­nal ener­gy at least from the last 100 years, we move into new trans­for­ma­ti­ons wit­hout lear­ning from (or at least asking about) the unfi­nis­hed trans­for­ma­ti­ons of the past. The 20th cen­tu­ry was full of fear and con­flict, and today the­re are con­se­quen­ces, that are obvious all over the eas­tern part of Euro­pe. But we rather igno­re them. If you take a clo­se look, you will find sto­ries of des­ori­en­ta­ti­on, of uncer­tain­ty. The souls got stuck somehow, no mat­ter how much money was pou­red in. You can see this for exam­p­le in Hun­ga­ry, in Bos­nia and Her­ce­go­vina and in Eas­tern Ger­ma­ny as well.