To the ancient, traditional mindset, bravely holding your post while the world collapses around you is seen as noble while using your position to transform the system is seen as subversive. To subvert the system they serve is 'treasonous' and undercuts their own authority. The emergence of a new consensus, if it happens, is the only thing that could vindicate their actions.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

The short answer is most people don't handle change very well and will not change their conclusions or actions based on new evidence.  The process is:

1.  Ignore the New Evidence
   
2.  Deny the New Evidence
   
3.  Reject that the New Evidence will affect them in any way
   
4.  Reject that the New Evidence will affect them to the same degree

Now add the fact political and other Decision Makers are highly addicted, physically and mentally 'attached,' to the status quo and it's easy to see why the EU is in a Real Mess©.


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Migeru:

What is it, the fact that people in positions of responsibility prefer to ruin the institutions they are running than lose face by admitting a mistake and changing course?

they've starved any other neural pathways than the canon they have espoused, they were selected for their capacity to be single minded 'true believers' and now that's all they know how to be, especially as that attitude is reinforced every time they open a E1000 bottle of wine and feel like they're getting away with the heist.

any critical thinkers (not team players) were thrown under the bus long ago, the filtering so efficient, now their bubble of delusional denial is as hermetic as is possible, and only the most gamechanging of events can irrupt it.

since the universe abhors stasis, that's exactly what they'll get, unless enough wise heads unite in a message that could be strong enough to capture mass attention and steer the ship away from the shoals.

heavily armed, extremely paranoid psychos have taken over the asylum, now it will take a correspondingly high level of survival intelligence to wrest back the control from them.

it is a very tricky, difficult situation.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

The reason why they don't change course is because there are multiple actors involved and a few of them go along with the powerful who they believe have the wrong proscription out of hope that eventually they will come to their senses.

But this is a fool's game.

Even Varoufakis believes (with his constant beating of the drum for Eurobonds) that eventually Germany will change course. But it will never happen, not until it is way too late.