The unwise mind is heavily influences by the emotions of the past. That is why a people does not progress in peace.
A majority of a people tend to try to reconstruct the past, instead of trying to get better. Then, the peoples or nations do not improve their lives.
Many colonists did not try to take the advantage of being under the foreign rule. Instead, they tried to repel the foreign power and they happened to try to get themselves in the worse life.