The idea that we and we alone discovered being smart, or maybe, at best, the people in the 19th and 20th centuries were on to something although they are still

The idea that we and we alone discovered being smart, or maybe, at best, the people in the 19th and 20th centuries were on to something although they are still nowhere near as smart as us, and everyone else in history were nasty drooling superstitious cretins in every way is ingrained surprisingly deeply into our culture, in multiple places, for multiple distinct reasons.