Sneaking up on it sometimes helps: I’ve found I can be very productive for an hour before dinner, because there obviously isn’t enough time to really… - Michael Crichton

Because in the late twentieth century, you couldn't seriously ask other people to think that you believed in honor and truth, and the purity of the body, the defense of women, the sanctity of true love, and all the rest of it.
But apparently, Andre really had believed it.

He had a term for people like this: temporal provincials—people who were ignorant of the past, and proud of it.
Temporal provincials were convinced that the present was the only time that mattered, and that anything that had occurred earlier could be safely ignored.

Only assholes put a nickname on their business card.