It afflicts those who don\u2019t know history in the sense of actually paying attention to what was going on, those who know nothing more than the names of rulers and generals and the dates of battles. Chronocentrism is, like ethnocentrism, usually an unconscious approach to life: it is taking everything for granted without even realizing that\u2019s what you\u2019re doing. <\/p>\n
Our children can no more imagine a time without color television, five hundred channels, and microwaves than we can imagine a time without antibiotics and fast food. And they don\u2019t even think about it. We don\u2019t comprehend a world where most people were peasants, without rights or freedom, who spent most of their time worrying about whether they would eat today. We don\u2019t think about our lives at all. Our lives, our reality, is unexamined for the most part.<\/p>\n
Obesity in the middle ages wasn\u2019t a problem for anyone. Starvation was. <\/p>\n
For thousands of years, if a person anytime in human history before the middle of the twentieth century got a cut on their finger, there was a very real probability that they would die from infection. Conjunctivitis blinded millions\u2014something that a few eye drops cures easily today. If you were nearsighted, had astigmatism, or were farsighted, well you just had to live with it: there were no eyeglasses, contacts or surgery to correct it. You were unlikely to have any teeth in your head by the time you were forty\u2014if you were lucky enough to live so long.<\/p>\n
You probably barely noticed the lice, fleas, and other multi-legged creatures that shared your dwelling, clothes, and body.<\/p>\n
Cholera, tuberculosis and any number of other easily curable or preventable illnesses slaughtered thousands, if not millions, every year. Only one out of four children lived beyond the age of five. Women regularly died in childbirth and spent most of their brief lives pregnant. And they did what their fathers or husbands or brothers told them to do, or else.<\/p>\n
You worshipped what the king told you to worship. You were lucky if you even knew how to read, let alone actually had ever been to school in your life. You didn\u2019t even know what the word \u201cvote\u201d meant. The only news you heard was neighborhood gossip.<\/p>\n
Civility was when it wasn\u2019t really all that out of the ordinary that the Vice President of the United States shot and killed the former Secretary of the Treasurer in a duel. After Pearl Harbor, concern for civil rights meant you felt bad that you\u2019d beaten up a Chinese gentleman you\u2019d mistaken for being Japanese.<\/p>\n
Those who long for the good old days, who believe that today is worse than yesterday, suffer from chronocentrism. They believe that the problems they face must be worse than the problems anyone else has ever faced before. Today\u2019s crisis must of necessity be the most horrible thing that has ever happened: because it is the most horrible thing that has ever happened to me. <\/p>\n
A five year old who stubs his toe knows that his pain is the worst pain that the world has ever known. He is starving to death, because the potato chips are gone and there is nothing else in the house to eat\u2014despite a pantry and refrigerator stuffed to overflowing with other edibles.<\/p>\n
Those who suffer chronocentrism have the understanding of children when it comes to the world as it was, is, and could be.<\/p>\n
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Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve probably all heard of \u201cEurocentrism\u201d or \u201cethnocentrism,\u201d the affliction of those who believe that the way things are in their own neighborhood must be the way things are everywhere. We talk to our neighbors and colleagues, our workmates, our … Continue reading