Barbara Tuchman on "wooden-headedness"

It may be asked why, since folly or perversity is inherent in individuals, should we expect anything else of government?  The reason for concern is that folly in government has more impact on more people than individual follies, and therefore governments have a greater duty to act according to reason.  Just so, and since this has been known for a very long time, why has not our species taken precautions and erected safeguards against it?...

Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government.  It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs.  It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts...

Wooden-headedness is also the refusal to benefit from experience, a characteristic in which medieval rulers of the 14th century were supreme.  No matter how often and obviously devaluation of the currency disrupted the economy and angered the people, the Valois monarchs of France resorted to it whenever they were desperate for cash until they provoked insurrection by the bourgeoisie.  In warfare, the métier of the governing class, wooden-headedness was conspicuous.  No matter how often a campaign that depended on living off a hostile country ran into want and even starvation, as in the English invasions of France in the Hundred Years' War, campaigns for which this fate was inevitable were regularly undertaken.

~ Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly, pp. 6-8