exit 2005

Kafka:

Again and again I am drawn into the past, and the pleasure of experiencing human circumstances and ways of thinking in a finished yet perfectly intelligible manner (God knows, 1863 is only fifty years ago) and yet no longer being capable of absorbing them instinctively in every detail from within, thus being faced with the necessity of toying with them according to one’s own inclination and mood – for me this contradictory pleasure is immense, I always like reading old newspapers and periodicals. And then there is this ancient, heart-stirring expectant Germany of the middle of the last century.

(Letter to Felice , 17 Jan, 1913)

The way in which the past presents itself as 'perfectly intelligible' is partly because we read it through what it became. We are its posterity and look on it with amused condescension or infinite liberal tolerance.

These people, the denizens of the past, are trapped in a form of life whose determinants and destination they cannot know. We know more and know better, we think. As Kafka suggests, ‘instinctive absorption’ in these forms of life is for us no longer possible. This ‘absorption’ is precisely what has leaked away, leaving the props and rituals behind, forlorn and (to us) faintly ridiculous. And faintly ridiculous (it can seem) that the denizens of the past could have absorbed themselves so credulously in thse props and rituals. But here lies the false step – not so much the perception of the past but the implied exemption of the present.

For of course, there is a point of view - oh, not yet, but it's coming - from which our own props and rituals will appear equally ridiculous; they too will be left behind while ‘instinctive absorption has moved on elsewhere. And the work of critical thinking is not simply to await the work of time in sundering the props and rituals of our life from our ‘instinctive absorption’, but to do it now, in and on the present.

One of the most stubborn and spontaneous illusions, as Marx identified, was that there has been history hitherto, but no more. The present has emerged from the dust and blindness of history and now sits in judgement on the past.

And from Qlipoth:

Some twat at work today: "we've got to bring this up to 2005". His mantra. As if his only moral, intellectual and aesthetic compass is the calender on his desk. I say, no, let's bring it back to 1848. Or somesuch. We've got to escape from 2005 by whatever expedient we can, see it from somewhere else. Not only is the Present not the appropriate measure, it is precisely what stands in need of measurement.