Scapegoats
Old ideas are endlessly recycled, as the author of Ecclesiastes observes: ‘Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time’. In our ceaseless search for the novel we may merely invent new clothes to dress up old knowledge. In so doing we may bury more antique strata of wisdom, which if unearthed might again find utility in explaining what we think of as more modern phenomena. Continue reading