Presentism

Tom Krannawitter writes,

Those who don't know the past don't know how much human thinking changed to get the ideas and thoughts we have today.

That makes it difficult for those who don't know the past to imagine any ideas and thoughts other than what is popular today -- which tempts them to think that the ideas and thoughts popular today are all there are, all that's possible.
They have difficulty imagining that ideas and thoughts might change in the future, because they've never known any ideas other than what is thought now.
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Not knowing the past thereby fuels a faith that whatever the thought-leaders of today say is true, must be true.
Not knowing the past inclines one to have faith that science truly can be and is settled.

Those who don't the past are likely to be followers. And they don't have many criteria to judge who they faithfully follow, or why, because they don't know how they came to where they are.

Not knowing the past is the beginning of Presentism, the belief that what is popular in the present is synonymous with truth, perhaps the fastest growing religion in the United States today.