How Western Civilization Is Experiencing a Crisis of Historical Understanding
How the oversimplification of ancient narratives and a fragmented conception of historical time have resulted in violent repercussions for modern society.
As a Western society, our grasp of historical time is both weak and flawed. There is a growing disinterest in intellectual pursuits, in-depth thinking, and genuine curiosity.
It’s a lightness that, as such, only touches the surface, leaving the depth and detail relegated to oblivion and connoted as irrelevant.
Such an approach is problematic in multiple ways: culturally, it leads to an erosion of values; philosophically, it fosters a decline in meaningful reflection; and even psychologically, it undermines our well-being, affecting both individuals and the collective.
I’ve been hearing, reading, and discussing how our way of life is driving us toward an identity and values crisis—a moment in history when both personal and collective stories and history are weaponized for political purposes, regardless of the ideological faction.
But the most worrying thing is that we tend to think only about recent history, even focusing only on the day's news.
