The past appeals to us and must be assumed, not idolized or denied

Evidence

The past is an appeal; it is an appeal toward the future which sometimes can save it only by destroying it. Even though this destruction may be a sacrifice, it would be a lie to deny it: since man wants there to be being, he can not renounce any form of being without regret. But a genuine ethics does not teach us either to sacrifice it or deny it: we must assume it. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 95

Categorization

• DEFINE: Caps the chapter’s three-fold typology of attitudes to the past — idolize (serious man), destroy (rebel/nihilist), or assume (genuine freedom) — directly applicable to the reader’s goal.
• DEEPTHINKING: The insistence that destruction is a real sacrifice (not a ‘play on words’) despite being necessary, and that authentic ethics must assume rather than deny it, is a dense, non-obvious dialectical move.