Most people who live in the industrial world at present are convinced, or at least act as though they’re convinced, that the modern world is something new and unique in human history, because unlike all others, our sciences really do tell us the straightforward objective truth about nature, undiluted by social processes. They are also convinced, or act as though they’re convinced, that the same thing is true of everything else in our culture. When authorities in the modern world claim that something does not exist, in other words, that claim implies that it never existed and never will exist, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar or a fool; when those same authorities claim that something is morally right, that implies that it has always been right and will always be right, and anyone who disagrees is evil.