At one point in his career, Marshall McLuhan was fond of using the analogy of the rear-view mirror as a metaphor for humanity’s propensity to live in the past. He would say that many of us live in the rear-view mirror, meaning that we are out of date. But later on, as you can see in the video below, he modified the analogy. He came to see that the rear-view mirror not only shows us the past (where we have been), but it also shows us the the present and the future. It tells us what is coming up behind us; what will displace us, or pass us, in a few seconds.
This ties in to the necessity of the reading of old books (of all sorts). They serve as a rear-view mirror as they have the capability of not only showing us the past, but casting light on the present and the future. This does not change the fact that you should not attempt live in the past, but, as an analogy, it makes the case for the vitality of the past in the present, which impacts the future.
See previous posts in this series HERE.
