I quite agree, we do base our theories on the past too heavily and tend to draw fallible conclusions from it. This is due first to a bronze-age tendency to attribute memory, language and tradition to the act of some mythically historical or mythically fictitious cheiftain.

Dante has an imaginative view in this respect: he puts all false soothsayers into a circle of hell wherein they must all have their heads screwed on backwards for eternity. Furthermore, in a twist that isn't uncommon in Mediaeval satire, he asserts that when they cry, their tears run down their buttcracks. Marshall Mcluhan in his Canadian awesomeness asserted, and later amended, that the world looks upon themselves in a rear-view mirror. Mediaeval culture saw itself as simply another part of the Roman empire, and so on until the contemporary society sees itself as part of the nineteenth century. He later amended this to say that this rear-view mirror doesn't illustrate "which cars have gone by, but rather what's coming up."

The earliest case that comes to my mind, and I'm sure there's someone out there who can think of an earlier one (hopefully, one that visits this site), of someone thinking there was a divergence in between what we know about the past and what is possible in the future is Kant. Kant believed that we applied certain methodologies of logic, which he arranged in nice little charts, that are not necessarily applicable to the test of the real world.

Then again, it is important to point out that there is an important datum reflecting modern age, rather than postmodern age, general ignorance. It follows as such: the middle ages were much more philosophically dynamic, poetically dynamic, and literarily dynamic. This is not because Christianity is too original, but rather because people are dynamic when they are properly disciplined. The individual, as we know in the postmodern age, is not and should not be validly seen to be determined or even rational. As such, the individual should not be underestimated in his ability to renovate old technology and modernize old inspirations. Old disciplines do not exist, but rather they live on in individuals who can make it work to the general weal. Christianity for example is responsible for Methodism (impact on abolitionism), Liberation Theology (impact on Latin American democracy), and perhaps even on Chateaubriand (seen as perhaps the father of Romanticism). Even in the hands of St. Paul, the notion of Christianity changed quite dramatically.

So I believe that the emphasis should be on preserving the classics, but instead of disposing of them, we should encourage that there be creativity in shaping it that we may find a thumbprint on a work. I think it would be better for the intellectual world that we emphasize that the students outdo each other and their teachers, rather than that the students toss away their teachings.

I am sorry to say, but I was about to start yelling at you for syaing those kinds of things!!! I am a woman, nad my families religion background is jews... Thank god you didnt have to deal with my wrath!!

Any one that says that H A T E! things is an I D I O T! just like Y O U!

_______________(YOU ARE A NATZY W@NKER) & should be Hung. IDIOTS Like you are the @rse holes who nead to be Locked up for Ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"THE WARRIOR POET"

Don't be trying to trick us, get to the point please. Seriously man, some of our computers go slow and we tend to click on things that look interesting or debateable.