I was reading in The Times Literary Supplement a review of Alain Finkelkraut's
L'identité malheureuse, and came across some thoughts I found interesting:
"This 'European tradition of anti-tradition' worries Finkielkraut. Self-criticism has turned into self-hatred, he contends. Quoting Clause Levi-Strauss, he denies that cherishing your heritage and customs is racist. Europe's cultural inferiority complex is not the only - or even the main - threat to national identity.
According to Finkielkraut, the modern world as a whole corrodes the chain that anchors us to our past. Technology is killing culture. Books, which allow you to focus on timeless essentials, are being replaced by devices that keep you connected to transient trivia. 'Reading a book is like walking along a path; reading on a screen is gliding along', he writes. The internet may provide free access to the treasures of mankind, but that is not how most people use it. It only 'enriches those who are already rich'.
Our wired world encourages the young to scorn the past. 'Theirs is an ethnocentrism of the present, which is no less narrow-minded than old-style jingoism'."
