Why do we sometimes decide that the things our ancestors have made, and kept, and cared for are suddenly too many mouths to feed, or of bad character and a menace to society? Why, for instance, is it unremarkable that we have warehouses full of garden furniture and running shoes and bails of bubble wrap, while public libraries are “rationalising their collections” to make space? Why does that happen? Well, one thing I think is that it’s related to the defunding of the humanities in our universities, a refusal of one of the great conditions of history: that today cannot know what tomorrow will
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