past comes up when there's a crisis: when the individual grows up; when there's the urge to preserve a culture, etc. New facts means psychological effort to adapt, this can cause a person to reject that new things/ situation. People go back to the past when there's the need to adapt, because they consider experiences from the past a tool to survive. Telling the past does not mean telling somebody to follow traditions. Traditions subject the individual to follow patterns which may cause more damage than good. Retelling the past is another thing. It is never pure repetition but interpretation. Transmission takes the present into consideration when turning one's attention to the past. Without transmission all we have is nostalgia. 20th-century French philosophers French psychologists Philosophers of sexuality French people of Egyptian-Jewish descent French psychoanalysts Jacques Lacan 1936 births 1999 deaths Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery 20th-century psychologists