Denigrating past doctrines creates a verbal illusion of superiority

Evidence

The treatment of the question of teleology brings out even more blatantly the Manual’s weakness for presenting the philosophical doctrines of the past as all equally trivial and banal, so that the reader gets the impression that all past culture was a phantasmagoric sequence of Bacchantae in delirium. The method is reprehensible from various points of view. The serious reader, aiming to broaden his knowledge and deepen his understanding, believes that he is being fooled and extends his suspicions to the whole of the system. It is easy to think one has got beyond a position by denigrating it, but this is a pure verbal illusion. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1659

Categorization

• APHORISMS: A genuinely reusable piece of intellectual advice: you do not surpass a position merely by belittling it.
• XREF: connects to: Historical-evolutionary criticism reorders present perception by politicizing thought about the past — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 23; Dismissing past thought as irrational reduces to smug presentism; Positivist truths are linguistic illusions grown canonical through use

Broader Connections

• Dismissing past thought as irrational reduces to smug presentism #corroborates (0.90)
• Historical-evolutionary criticism reorders present perception by politicizing thought about the past #expands (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 23
• Positivist truths are linguistic illusions grown canonical through use #qualifies (0.72)