f
remaining blankly ignorant of the human past as the animals are blankly
ignorant of _their_ past and so of drifting through life as animals do,
without reference to the experience of bygone generations. Fools of this
type may be called drifting fools or Drifters. Another way to be a fool--a
very alluring way--is that of falsifying the past by _idealizing_ it--by
stupidly disregarding its vices, misery, ignorance, slothfulness, and
folly, and stupidly magnifying its virtues, happiness, knowledge,
achievements and wisdom; it is the way of the self-complacent--the way of
those who, being comfortably situated and prosperous, are opposed to
change; the past, they say, was wise for it produced the present and the
present is good--let us alone. Fools of this type may be called idolatrous
fools, worshiping the Past; or static fools, contented with the Present;
or cowardly fools, opposed to change, fearful of the Future. A third way
to be a fool--which is also alluring--is the opposite of the foregoing; it
is the way of those who falsify the past by stupidly and contemptuously
disregarding its virtues, its happiness, its knowledge, its great
achievements, and its wisdom, and by stupidly or dishonestly magnifying
its vices, its misery, its ignorance, its great slothfulness, and its
folly; it is apt to be the way of the woeful, the unprosperous, the
desperate--especially the way of such as find escape from the bore of
routine life in the excitements of unrest, turbulence, and change; the
past, they say, was all wrong, for it produced the present and the present
is thoroughly bad--let us destroy it, root and branch. Fools of this type
may be called scorning fools, Scorners of the Past; or destroying fools,
Destroyers of the Present; or dynamic fools, Revelers in the excitements
of Change.

Such are the children of folly: (1) Drifting fools--ignorers of the
past--disregarders of race experience--thoughtless floaters on the shifting
currents of human affairs; (2) Static fools--idealizers of the
past--complacent lovers of the present--enemies of change--fearful of the
future; (3) Dynamic fools--scorners of the past--haters of the
present--destroyers of the works of the dead--most _modest_ of fools, each
of them saying: "What ought to be begins with _Me_; I will make the world
a paradise; but my genius must be free; _now_ it is hampered by the
existing 'order'--the bungling work of the past; I will destroy it; I will
start with chaos