presentism

(ˈprɛzəntɪzəm)

a partiality towards present-day points of view, esp by those interpreting history

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

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Noun

presentism - the doctrine that the Scripture prophecies of the Apocalypse (as in the Book of Revelations) are presently in the course of being fulfilled

doctrine, ism, philosophical system, philosophy, school of thought - a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school

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References in periodicals archive

* Dale Eisler suggests that social workers may well have apprehended too many Indigenous children and placed them in non-Indigenous families in the "sixties scoop," but to criticize this as intentional denial of Indigenous culture is "presentism." Social workers were applying contemporary protocols for dealing with family dysfunction.

Introducing Inroads 44

We should be wary of "presentism" - the judging people of another time by the standards of today.

You can't judge Churchill by the standards of today

We should be wary of 'presentism' - the judging people of another time by the standards of today.

Tarnishing Churchill for something that didn't have a name

Ingthorsson concludes in chapter 7 that the paradox makes special trouble for the B theory of time, namely, "there is no good answer to McTaggart's argument against the B series," and goes on to offer a partial defense of a specific version of the A theory, presentism (the view that "only the present exists") in chapter 8.

INGTHORSSON, R., D., McTaggart's Paradox

In a modernist society, "historicism" mean chains and subordination and "its opposite is presentism" (Tymieniecka 326).

An Existential Crisis: The Significance of the Opening and Concluding Passages of Robert Walser's Jacob Von Gunten

We might look on it now with dismay, but to label it racism is to indulge a presentism that achieves nothing except making us feel superior.

Einstein was a genius of physics. But he wasn't a saint

It is also part of an ongoing post-doctoral research project (SFRH/BPD/75848/2011), funded by FCT, and dealing with contemporary forms of presentism.

Presentism and its Discontents: Cultural Translations of the Financial Crisis through Macbeth and Timon of Athens

Cognizant of one of ecocriticism's challenges when working with historical rather than contemporary material, Taylor anticipates accusations of presentism or anachronistic ideological interpretation.

The Sky of Our Manufacture: The London Fog in British Fiction from Dickens to Woolf

I regularly preach sermons against presentism and de-contextualization--i.e., about the perils of ripping chunks of the past out of the world that gave rise to them and expecting actors to behave like us or to wear modern dress gracefully.

Is Law the Solution or the Problem?