Philosophic reductionism, the rabid commercialization of culture and recognition of minority rights has led to qualitative losses in ideological and cultural coherence. But this has not led to the discontinuance of history as an active format of individuation and cultural integration. This founding myth of Western culture appears to be resistant to the ravages of nihilism. Behind the web of history's causal chronology, modern man is bound by a mimetic bond to his ancestral past. That is to say, history is legitimized by a psychological identification with our ancestors through the encounter of their artifacts and not by the persuasion of causal ideals alone.
History gives shape to the human experience.
It lets us know who we are and how we got here. Significant artifacts acquire transcendent value as symbols of the historical myth that personifies the genealogy of consciousness. The projection of ontological value by the participant in the encounter with the artifact denotes a class of experiential knowledge that falls outside the reductive assessment of history. History is substantiated by transcendent experience as well as by logical explanation. It provides a transcendent means for stabilizing and maintaining autonomous self-image.