Past and Present - Gramsci and Critique

Recently I acquired the Joseph Buttigieg translation of Antonio Gramsci's Quaderni del carcere, which was published in 1992, and which updates the Quentin Hoare/Geoffrey Nowell-Smith Selections from the Prison Notebooks, published in 1971, on which so many of us were dependent for decades.    Buttigieg's work is a prodigy of translation, and a beautiful and valuable contribution to political thought generally and to the Left in particular.

Just opening the first volume and looking at random at Notebook 1 (work written in 1929 and 1930), it's almost impossible not to light upon passages intriguing, inspiring and penetrating.    Here is note 156:

Past and present: How the present is a criticism of the past, besides [and because of] 'surpassing' it.  But should the past be discarded for this reason?  What should be discarded is that which the present has 'intrinsically' criticized and that part of ourselves which corresponds to it.  What does this mean?  That we must have an exact consciousness of this real criticism and express it not only theoretically but politically.  In other words, we must stick closer to the present, which we ourselves have helped create, while conscious of the past and its continuation (and revival). 

Conor