History Gives Principles, Not Playbooks

The article argues Hegel’s famous line is misused: we can’t lift concrete, time‑bound 'lessons' from past episodes, only abstract principles. Treating antiquity or Rome as a how‑to guide misleads; history’s value is pattern recognition at a high level, not policy recipes. — This reframes how leaders and media cite history in arguments, discouraging cherry‑picked analogies and pushing debate toward general mechanisms and context.