This common phrase is what the literati would call an oxymoron - a phrase which contradicts itself.
The concept of wisdom is about making decisions which will improve our future. Critical commentary on past decisions does not in any way qualify as wisdom.
Notwithstanding this self evident proposition there are whole professions devoted to this futile pursuit and claiming wisdom as their enduring quality.
These include journalists and their allies the critics, auditors and some historians.
Most historians are hard at work trying to unravel and understand the past and present their findings to inform our decisions about the future. This work is essential.
There are some however who approach their work with different agendas. They scrutinise the past and select and describe their findings, decrying most and praising their selected few, solely in order to defend and protect their current paymasters and their intellectual antecedents. The bookshops bulge with history books defending and extolling assorted dogmas political or religious. We may safely disregard their conclusions. Wisdom is elsewhere.
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