wrathofgnon: ‘“How can anybody be interested in history at a time when men are walking o
wrathofgnon: ‘“How can anybody be interested in history at a time when men are walking on the moon?” someone said one day. The answer is easy. What was the first act accomplished by man once he was on the moon? He bent down to pick up a rock. The gesture of the archeologist. The first reflex of the first astronaut was also that which bring out the very material of history. Nothing is more natural; history is life; beyond any definitions or abstractions, man is expressed by his history, and if a rock can have so much interest for him, it is because it is, literally, a “sign of life”. The Cartesian tabula rasa is perhaps the greatest philosophical lie of all time. It is in any case the one whose application weighs most heavily on our own time. The idea of “wiping the slate clean”, of “starting from scratch” always constitutes a seductive temptation. But it is precisely an impossible enterprise: it is impossible except in a totally arbitrary view of the mind, taking no account of concrete realities. Because everything that constitutes a life is given, transmitted. One never starts from zero.… It is striking to think that every time it has been transposed into facts, the temptation to “start from zero” has ended in death, in multiple deaths and destruction, and that in all domains. In the wish to make a “clean slate”, how many times have we stupidly destroyed what might have been a support, a foundation stone? But it will perhaps be given to our era to rediscover the importance of tradition… This could be done by rediscovering the importance of history, which is the search for actual experience, that actual experience on the basis of which we lead our own life.’— Regine Pernoud, 1909-1998 -- source link
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