We cling to our own heritage and hold sacred its unique merits. Ardent advocacy affirms the worth of every legacy—but at the same time incites others to beleaguer or belittle it. Here I show how heritage foments conflict between rival claimants, rival visions of past and present, and rival views of truth and error. Its very sanctity needs belligerent defense. That heritage now serves as a panacea for so many ills and evils aggravates the acrimony noted in Chapter 4. Conflict over cultural relics and rights to ancestral emblems embroils rival claimants. Rhetorical bombast inflames animus, and myopia blinds partisan rivals to their underlying affinities.

Too much is now asked of heritage. In the same breath we commend national patrimony, regional and ethnic legacies, and a global heritage shared and sheltered in common. We forget that these aims are usually incompatible. Heritage more and more addresses similar goals with similar strategies. But possessive passions largely fuel these goals and direct these strategies; heritage is normally cherished not as common but as private property. Ownership gives it essential worth: though heritage is now more convergent and like-mindedly cherished, it remains inherently exclusive. “You never Enjoy the World aright, till you Perceiv yourself to be the Sole Heir of the whole World,” observed a moralist three centuries ago; but we need to remember that other “Men are in it who are evry one Sole Heirs, as well as you.”

GLOBAL LEGACIES

World heritage is an ideal today ritually proclaimed by global agencies and national states.