The Importance of Looking to the Past

Historicism views history as eternal and views all events equally, like a clock. The historical materialist takes their present as a starting point in order to situate themselves. So we see how they both constitute and shape one another difficult to locate the starting point but it doesn't need to be one or the other. We are nuanced beings in that respect. It's not totally outlandish to think of us as being just one continuous present which also has negative connotations depending on who you read. There is a book called Perpetual Present by an Italian philosopher I'm not going to look it up. Whatever. Whatever whatever.