Writings of the Ancient and Medieval periods are filled with self-deprecation. While some writers praised their own era, such optimists were rare and outnumbered by swathes of pessimists. Pessimism, then, seemed to have been the norm for much of written history. In that respect, modern people are exceptional. We demand and expect progress. We conceive of our own future without declinism, the need for a dictator to halt that decline, or an eventual apocalypse that will wipe away our wretchedness. That’s progress.
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