[Redbook1:162-163][19700622:2330]{History
and Politics}[22nd June 1970]
11.30pm
The major
problems of politics involved causes which one knows to exist and results of
those causes in the future which one desires to discover. Some minor problems involve results which one
wants, and causes which one must find for them and make effective.
History has
many results but few certain causes, save that the results of the cause before
are the causes of some results to come.
It is for
this reason that history is helpful, not in text-book politics -- if there is
such a thing -- but to the individual politician who is answerable, on the
whole, for the results of his actions rather than the reasons for his
decisions. He is less likely to say ‘because in history, this, so now, that’ than
to let the knowledge of history affect his whole decision-making process which
in turn affects his final decision -- on an irrational and instinctive rather
than the rational and logical level beloved of critics, historians and some
scientists. But, of course, there are
politicians and politicians.
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