We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, "But how could they have thought that?"—lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H. G. Wells and Karl Barth.
Agreement and dispute
From a C.S. Lewis essay, "On the Reading of Old Books," to which AVI drew our attention at Maggie's Farm:
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3 comments:
I suppose that's another way of saying that the way 'they could have thought that' is that they never thought about it.
Blind spots, where the brain would go "tilt" if it were required to grapple with the issue. If the age doesn't absolutely force the grappling, most people will never go there. Some won't anyway.
Orwell said the hardest thing to see is that which is in front of your face.
It's not anything new, and assuming that posterity even wonders about it, I doubt they'll trouble themselves much about it.
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