Friday Forward - Same Old (#528)
Why the word unprecedented is greatly overused
There’s a phrase I’ve heard a lot lately: “This is unprecedented.”
Whether it’s about geopolitical confrontations, strange political alliances, new technology, or economic turbulence, people reach for the word unprecedented to gain attention by sensationalizing a story. It may also be a crutch people use to avoid blame for not anticipating a certain event, as if to say: “There was no way we could’ve seen this coming.”
But the truth is most of the time you hear the word unprecedented, it’s describing something that has plenty of precedents. People just need the discipline to see them.
I was reminded of this while helping my son edit a history paper about President Woodrow Wilson and the American entry to World War I. His paper explored how Wilson went to great lengths to manipulate public opinion and build support for entering a war most Americans opposed. Wilson’s administration censored dissent through the Espionage Act and used the newly created Committee on Public Information to flood the country with pro-war messaging designed to manufacture consent.
Having largely forgotten this moment in history since my own school days, reading about it was jarring. The tactics felt so familiar because the mechanics of shaping public opinion and rallying people through emotion, rather than facts, have been displayed many times since Wilson’s era. What feels like unprecedented manipulation today has actually been done many times before.
Here’s the reality: when things feel new in the moment, we consistently overestimate how novel they actually are. While we may not have seen the exact situation before, history is filled with occurrences very much like it.
For example, people describe AI as an unprecedented disruption to the workforce. But the Industrial Revolution displaced millions of workers and changed the dominant force of the United States economy from agriculture to manufacturing. Personal computing transformed entire industries overnight, as did the internet and mobile technology. Each wave of technology brought fear, displacement, and eventually adaptation. The technology is new, but the level of disruption is not unprecedented.
Or consider the current point of view that global alliances and conflicts are shifting in ways we’ve never seen. The history of geopolitics is essentially a history of shifting alliances. Great Britain and France were bitter enemies for centuries before becoming stalwart partners. Germany once threatened to conquer Europe, but today holds the European Union together. Germany and Russia signed a non-aggression pact in 1939, but World War II turned on Germany’s failed attempt to conquer, that’s right, Russia.
Even financial panics, which always feel shocking in the moment, follow patterns. Historians and economists have documented these crises for centuries going back to the Dutch tulip bulbs, and they always follow a similar pattern: speculation, overleveraging, a triggering event, panic, and eventually recovery. The names and dates change, but the arc usually looks similar. Despite this, you can bet at some point along the way, someone with a vested interest said: “this time it’s different.”
People who frequently describe things as unprecedented are rarely great students of history or conveniently forget it. When you study history around a particular topic, patterns become hard to miss. Events that seem shocking in isolation start to look like variations on themes that have played out many times before.
The same is true of psychology. If there is one thing you can count on as the world changes and evolves, it’s that humans will tend to have the same reactions, the same biases, and the same blind spots. We overemphasize recent information, assume our current moment is uniquely important, and frequently make irrational decisions under pressure.
This is why studying history and understanding cognitive biases aren’t just academic exercises. They’re practical tools for navigating uncertainty. A leader who understands the cyclical nature of market cycles won’t panic at the first downturn. A parent who knows that every generation has faced technological disruption can have a more grounded conversation with their kids about AI. Someone who has studied the history of propaganda, from the KGB’s Cold War disinformation campaigns to Goebbels’ manipulation of an entire nation, can more easily recognize when similar tactics are being used today with the newer medium of social media.
Next time someone tells you that something is unprecedented, take it with a grain of salt. It may be new to them, but odds are, history has seen many versions of it before. The question is: have we been paying enough attention to recognize it and learn from prior generations’ response?
Quote of the Week
“When you haven't engaged with history, everything feels unprecedented.” – Kelly Hayes
Have a great weekend!
-Bob
PS: Check out my recent interview on the Tony DUrso Show, where I discussed The Compass Within and core values in leadership.
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A good reminder that studying history and patterns helps us see through the illusion of “unprecedented” events and respond with perspective rather than panic
Thank you for your weekly sanity pills 🙏🏻