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"Uw vaste partner in archiefvernietiging?" Notities over oude talen, Oudheid en Nachleben

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Abstract

Nietzsche vituperated the indecent haste in education. That was more then 130 years ago. "Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who just happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of their birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of their death." Inspired by these words by Chesterton this article inquires the state of ʻclassicalʼ studies today. The historian Moses Finley wrote in 1968 these profound lines about a desperately foreign Antiquity: "All art is a dialogue. So is all interest in the past. And one of the parties lives and comprehends in a contemporary way. It seems also to be inherent in human existence to turn and return to the past (much as powerful voices may urge us to give it up). The more precisely we listen and the more we become aware of its pastness, even of its near-inaccessability, the more meaningful the dialogue becomes. In the end, it can only be a dialogue in the present, about the present." Antiquity is indeed interesting because it's foreign to us. That makes it an inspiring elsewhere. Let's beware of a consumable, easy understandable Antiquity. The French historian Paul Veyne thinks that in each generation a handful of scholars will suffice to keep up knowledge, to transmit and comment Antiquity. Is he right? I fear not.

How to Cite:

Devoldere, L., (2007) “"Uw vaste partner in archiefvernietiging?" Notities over oude talen, Oudheid en Nachleben”, Tetradio 16(1): 2, 23–40. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tetradio.91771