Many people when they visit issues try and examine things from three separate potential perspectives. What’s happened, what is happening, and what will happen.
I think in general that many people are good at recognizing what happened, are bad at understanding what is presently occurring, and are terrible at looking forward.
People tend to be able to look at the past from a variety of primary sources. Over time, consensus arises to some extent because there’s a common base of knowledge. As a result, battles over what’s happened in the past are limited by history. One can adjudicate what’s already happened, while what’s real time is being fought over.
In the present, everyone is theoretically a primary source. Everyone can use their two eyes to see things. More importantly, there’s every incentive to portray yourself positively while not doing so to people who are your enemies.
In the future, everyone imagines that their vision has won, unless their vision is perpetual defeat, in which case, they eternalize the presence of the present. Future facing is harder because the world rapidly changes in ways that one doesn’t even to begin to understand with technology people haven’t imagined. As tech growth gets faster, and norms change, how are our present blinders supposed to keep up?
Also, everyone likes to imagine they improve rather than decline, and may get distracted from viewing a situation objectively. Many esteemed institutions fall apart if for no reason other than entropy. Baggage tends not to go away.
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