The fields of politics, art, education, and corporate business are now all marked by an aggressive negativity toward the past and its values and beliefs. The political drive on the left to overthrow traditional notions of sexual morality and human identity and that on the populist right, with its rhetoric of contempt for traditional democratic institutions, both witness to a deep commitment to tearing down the values of the past. Burn the past to the ground is the underlying mantra of political radicals on both sides.
