Generational changes in attitudes, popular culture and lifestyle are obvious, but how do they come about? Perhaps our lives are forever ‘morphing’, being affected beyond recognition by technology and commercialisation. Perhaps we’re mesmerised by ‘modernity’, left unable to think for ourselves and carried along by the latest values and trends. Eloquently, Nicholas Malaos argues that it’s impossible to examine the present objectively when we’re absorbed in it; we can only ever scrutinise distant history with any sense of detachment. Yet despite being unable to fully appreciate ‘modernity’ – or even ‘truth’ – we remain products of our vast and inescapable past, swept along by the pace of the present.