Past events are both denounced and glorified by political agents of the present hoping to weaken their enemies. (verfassungsblog.de)
It thus places emphasis on «surface, image and display,» while rendering us «passive consumers and impotent political agents.» (aqnb.com)
But by the third century A.D. it was a practice focused not on shaping virtuous political agents, but rather on preparation for that conversion of soul which would bring religious knowledge of the divine. (religion-online.org)