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Contemporary humanity seems to be torn between “iconoclastic barbarians” and “profaning blasphemers”. In this conflict we could find an example of the aporia that Paul Ricœur described between the (weak) hermeneutics of traditions and the (strong) criticism of ideologies. Ricœur offers a way out, which is achieved through a transaction between expectation and memory, where the act of promise is central. This perspective remains metaphysical, and therefore almost theological, and highlights the truth of parousia. After having analyzed this final attempt to understand “a single humanity” that would be at work in the narrative communication, I consider the problem of educational and generational transmission through the category of absence, with the support of a text by François Wahl. It is the idea of educational spectrality that guides the reflection on the ways in which ghosts haunt us, from Comte to Derrida, especially when they cannot be (re) presented.