Past Imperfects and Present Indicatives

Abstract

As John Berger and others write in Ways of Seeing (London 1972, p. 11):

History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystifications of the past. The past is not for living in; it is a well of conclusions from which we draw in order to act. Cultural mystification of the past entails a double loss. Works of art are made unnecessarily remote. And the past offers us fewer conclusions to complete in action.

it is not the literal past, the ‘facts’ of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language … we must never cease renewing those images; because once we do, we fossilise.

Translations ¹

If we had really cared enough would places like this exist?

Savage Amusement ²