inamidst.com · patterns

Ancient Knowledge

The tendency, and usually fallacy, that the ancients have some advanced knowledge that the moderns no longer posses. Umberto Eco writes about this in Serendipities: Language and Lunacy, on p.127:

If we take a look at the text in which Maistre discussed at greatest length the nature of languages, [...] we see that the first declarations simple repropose what is found even today among authors who hark back to tradition as the source of all knowledge, opposing the degenerate learning of a secularized culture, 'modern,' 'enlightened,' or 'scientistic.' "Listen to wise antiquity on the subject of the first men; it will tell you that they were wondrous and that beings of a higher order deigned to favor them with the most precious of revelations. On this point all agree, the initiates, the philosophers, the poets, history, legend: Asia and Europe have a sole voice.

When Eco mentioned that it's "found even today", he's presumably referring to new-age spin-off authors such as (the actually masterful) Graham Hancock and imitators. You don't have to look too hard to find other examples: the Elizojacobean poets looked to Greek and Latin writers as their models and Latin was considered the perfect tongue. Indeed, the renaissance was almost predicated on the rediscovery and translation of the classics. Classics still remain an almost reverent subject in universities.

Type: Anti Pattern, History Pattern.


Sean B. Palmer, inamidst.com