Three immense forces, Heilbroner contends, transformed the Distant Past into Yesterday — science, capitalism and the revolutionary belief that people might become masters of their own fates. For the first time, mankind saw the future as a beckoning prospect. The growth of technology and science, in particular, rapidly transformed the world for the better — a process that everyone assumed would stretch forever into the future.
“Knowledge and beauty; pleasure and delight; the contemplation of truth, irrespective of its instrumental uses; the intimate encounter with another human consciousness offered by the best works of art — these are among the things that make life worth living. If we set them aside until we have made it safely through our present emergency, we will never return to them, because our present emergency will never be through.”
Tim Carpenter | “To Photograph Is to Learn How to Die”