Those who are entirely caught up in the present moment, in the bright, glittering ephemera of the hour, cannot see what is before them because they have forgotten what is behind them. They are in the pitiful condition of the victims of Korsakoff’s syndrome, a neurological disorder that renders its sufferers incapable of retaining any memory for more than five or six minutes, so that no matter how many times they are introduced to the same person, they will invariably greet him as a total stranger. Similarly, those who suffer from historical amnesia will be shocked by events that they take to be new and unprecedented, when in fact they are seeing a historical pattern that has repeated itself over and over.

Lee Harris The Next American Civil War. The Populist Revolt against the liberal Elite.