Abstract

"Do we stand sufficiently above traditions that we can manipulate them and make them from some detached point of view as if they were tools for other purposes", as modernists have claimed? Or are postmodernists right to criticize "the attempt to institutionalize an individual or social subject free from traditional restrictions"? But neither the modernist refusal of the authority of tradition nor postmodern play with historical contents takes history seriously enough. Kolb insists that we are more essentially placed in history, even as he refuses to grant history such authority as would stifle our need and ability to change and adapt.