If we don't have historical consciousness we can't really understand problems in all their dimensions, and if we can't understand problems than we can't find solutions.

People with long memories and a vivid sense of the past have an immediate understanding of politicians like Donald Trump. They are not surprised by the behavior of Google, a corporation that notionally (until recently anyway) espoused the slogan "don't be evil" and then runs over individual people and even entire nations in the pursuit of profit.

In the last few centuries we've managed to reduce how much we kill each other, we've learned some basic lessons about public health, and life is relatively good for more people than ever before.

We think of history as another specialization, like philosophy of language, rather than as something that informs everything we do and think.

We're highly adaptable and have developed some powerful systems of representation.

Since we're not very good at something as basic as controlling our reproduction, life is really bad for more people than ever before.

The Enlightenment is not a nightmare, nor is it something that comes easily to us. It is an aspiration - and a good one!