Those who remember the past are condemned to repeat it

Yes, I know that this is the opposite of Santayana's famous quote (OK, I admit I didn't know whose quote it was and had to Google it). But after two weeks in ONC (Our Nation's Capital), I am beginning to feel as though it is at least as apt this way.

It seems as though every discussion about an idea begins with a description of how that idea was proposed (and in most cases, failed) in bills introduced in [fill in the blank - the 1980's, '90's, 2000's]. Institutional knowledge is coin of the realm around here, and since I have none, it is natural that I should be somewhat impatient with it.

I'm not suggesting, mind you, that it's not a bad thing to know what happened in the past; clearly it would be foolhardy and ineffective to try to do anything without an understanding of what's been done (or in most cases, not done) before. I am saying, however, that it is all too easy to be trapped by what happened (or in most cases, didn't happen) in the past.

It reminds me of someone who worked for me who would respond to every idea that I presented by saying, "We tried that in [fill in the blank--the 1980's, '90's], and it didn't work, was unpopular, etc." Finally I took to replying, "Yes, well I wasn't there then, so we're going to try it again."

There is a variant of this which I think of as "Round up the usual suspects." (Epstein, Epstein & Koch, 1942). Which is to say that the steps that are taken by everyone involved in response to any particular proposal are so well-ingrained that it seems that no one seems to recognize how bizarre they are or able to imagine that things might be done differently.

And of course when the other guy is using the rules to stop things from getting done, it is always unfair and an abuse of the system. Should we think about changing the rules to make it harder (or impossible) to use them to gum up the works? But wait, one day we're going to be "the other guy," and what then?

"Round up the usual suspects!"