Laudator Temporis Acti

K.J. Dover, "What are the 'Two Cultures'?," The Greeks and their Legacy: Collected Papers, Vol. II: Prose Literature, History, Society, Transmission, Influence (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), pp. 314-326 (at 325)

I gave an interview to the newspaper Asahi Shimbun, in company with a Japanese professor of Greek — an interview which was intended to last twenty minutes but actually went on for an hour and a half — and the journalist asked me why people in Japanese universities should study the ancient Greeks and Romans. I demurred slightly at the word 'should'; they do in fact study the Greeks and Romans, and the main question is why they do. I suggested that when one surveys the human past one is likely to find that a particular culture makes a particular appeal to oneself; different people will respond to different cultures, and remoteness of place and distance in time does not necessarily affect the issue at all. The Japanese professor put in, 'You mean that in the history of culture children can choose their parents'. I liked the expression, and the interview appeared in the paper under the headline, 'Children can choose their parents'.