I think one reason humans refuse to learn from the past other than just being too dumb to make analogies is that the past is depressing. The lessons of the past are usually depressing ones. We are supposed to take some depressing truth from the past and apply it to the present. But people don’t want to do that because it’s depressing, we are genetically programmed to be a bit optimistic, and plus depression is no fun.
Everyone wants to think that this time it’s going to be different, that the rules of history have been overturned (the run-up to the Internet stock boom), or that history itself is now dead and there is no more history (the neoconservatives). Yes, humans are often blind, but that is because they choose to be. Being blind feels good. Opening your eyes is painful, like a mole thrust into the light. That shining sun of history is awful bright when you are used to having your eyes closed. It hurts to squint at it. Better close your eyes again, look at the pretty patterns and pretend they are real.