[Ohiogift] Temporal Provincials

[Edward A. Hawks III]

Amen, Will!

 

Chip

 

Edward A. Hawks, III

  _____  

Gifted Intervention Specialist | Exceptional Student Education

Kent City School District

  _____  

What he seemed, he was-a wholly human gentleman, the 

essential elements of whose positive character were two and 

only two, simplicity and spirituality. 

(Douglas Southall Freeman on Robert E. Lee)

 

From: Ohiogift [mailto:ohiogift-bounces at lists.osu.edu] On Behalf Of Will
Fitzhugh via Ohiogift
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2015 9:33 AM
To: ohiogift at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
Subject: [Ohiogift] Temporal Provincials

 

 

 

He had a term for people like this: temporal provincials-people who were
ignorant of the past, and proud of it. Temporal provincials were convinced
that the present was the only time that mattered, and that anything that had
occurred earlier could be safely ignored. The modern world was compelling
and new, and the past had no bearing on it. 

 

Studying history was as pointless as learning Morse code, or how to drive a
horse-drawn wagon. And the medieval period-all those knights in clanking
armor and ladies in gowns and pointy hats-was so obviously irrelevant as to
be beneath consideration.

 

Yet the truth was that the modern world was invented in the Middle Ages.
Everything from the legal system, to nation-states, to reliance on
technology, to the concept of romantic love had first been established in
medieval times. These stockbrokers owed the very notion of a market economy
to the Middle Ages. And if they didn't know that, then they didn't know the
basic facts of who they were. Why they did what they did. Where they had
come from. 

 

Professor Johnston often said that if you didn't know history, you didn't
know anything. You were a leaf that didn't know it was part of a tree.

 

 

Crichton, Michael (2003-11-04). Timeline: A Novel (p. 71). 

Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

[Michael Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College.

His M.D. was from Harvard Medical School]

 

 

 

 

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