Santayana reprised

Posted by TheFallen on March 13, 2003

In Reply to: Chinese asking for help! posted by Chinese on March 13, 2003

: In general, the more remote a thing seems in time, the less its reality, and w
: ith this goes naturally the assumption of its relatively sharp separation from
: anything concerning our personal lives.

: can you explain it for me, thanks!

People (mistakenly) tend to believe that events which happened a long long time ago cannot have any significant relevance to them personally, simply because they happened so long ago.

The statement coincidentally ties into a recent thread here dealing with Santayana's assertion that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."