History is now

The best part of history, Goethe said, is that it inspires. This is a maxim by which all creative people have lived and worked, including those who become creative because they have no choice. Willful destruction obviates the burdening weight of history, leaving only the liberating elixir of its inspiration. History is now. The accumulated remnants of the past are important elements in culture, and in the individual's existence, but exist only to be transformed into the material of the present. Willful destruction is an attack on history that at the same time drives its survivors to react by elevating history to a near-religious importance. Whenever this happens, history becomes pernicious, infecting the present with the odor of the dead.

Lebbeus Woods, Radical Reconstruction (Princeton Architectural Press, 1997) p. 29