Abstract

Western societies are risking, as never before, their relationship with the past, and the place it occupies in the public discourse of our time, that is, of what has been a keystone of their functioning and their very existence throughout modernity. The present helps to understand the past much more than the opposite; but, without knowledge of the past, critique of the present is not possible, and neither is that distancing from his events, which alone allows us to plan for the future. This directly calls into question the work and function of historians, exposed in the first person to changing, and in some way involves their responsibilities. Some trends of the moment, such as that of the so-called cancel culture, are only the loudest and most visible manifestations of something that is being consumed much more deeply, the consequences of which are difficult to predict. And it is precisely what is happening behind the surface of things that is worth focusing our attention.