home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Understanding McLuhan
/
Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
/
pc
/
mcluhan.dxr
/
08421_Field_TCGG T186.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-10
|
898b
|
16 lines
known.
The idea of the past, discovered by means of the new visual
chronology as an area of peace in a distant perspective was,
indeed, a novelty. It would have been impossible save by
phonetic literacy, and it is a vision which is quite difficult for us
to imagine today as ever being accessible again. Van
Groningen’s analysis of the reasons for the Greek obsession
with the past, as scientific and as psychological security, helps
to explain the natural literary bias of all humanist ages in favor
of ruins. For nowhere does the past speak so eloquently to the
solitary musings of the scholar as from the midst of ruins.
There is another feature of the time which bridges from the
Greek present into the past: “The time discussed is clearly
homogeneous. It bears the character of an uninterrupted
sequence of occurrences in which everything is in its right