Laudator Temporis Acti

Christopher Lasch (1932-1994), The Culture of Narcissism (1979; rpt. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), p. xviii:

Far from regarding it as a useless encumbrance, I see the past as a political and psychological treasury from which we draw the reserves (not necessarily in the form of "lessons") that we need to cope with the future. Our culture's indifference to the past—which easily shades over into active hostility and rejection—furnishes the most telling proof of that culture's bankruptcy. The prevailing attitude, so cheerful and forward-looking on the surface, derives from a narcissistic impoverishment of the psyche and also from an inability to ground our needs in the experience of satisfaction and contentment. Instead of drawing on our own experience, we allow experts to define our needs for us and then wonder why those needs never seem to be satisfied.

Id., p. 5:

To live for the moment is the prevailing passion—to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity. We are fast losing the sense of historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future.

Cf. Plato, Laws 4.721c (tr. Trevor J. Saunders):

Thus mankind is by nature a companion of eternity, and is linked to it, and will be linked to it, for ever. Mankind is immortal because it always leaves later generations behind to preserve its unity and identity for all time: it gets its share of immortality by means of procreation.

γένος οὖν ἀνθρώπων ἐστίν τι συμφυὲς τοῦ παντὸς χρόνου, ὃ διὰ τέλους αὐτῷ συνέπεται καὶ συνέψεται, τούτῳ τῷ τρόπῳ ἀθάνατον ὄν, τῷ παῖδας παίδων καταλειπόμενον, ταὐτὸν καὶ ἓν ὂν ἀεί, γενέσει τῆς ἀθανασίας μετειληφέναι.