Transition

Historians of what’s called the longue durée are not prophets but at best note-takers of thematic regularities or, if the phrase isn’t too grand, cultural physicians à la Nietzsche. He also believed he was living in a transitional era symbolized by what he called the death of God or the decline of the absolute in all its various forms, the consequences of which he thought would be with us for a few centuries or more.

We may well, I think, characterize the historical present in certain very general terms, evidenced by certain undercurrents and watchwords, signs of the times. We see these in countless variation: science, technology, instrumental rationality, utilitarian institutions, corporate democracy, information economy, existential anxiety, and, of course, globalization, much of which Nietzsche did manage to foresee.

A worldview and a way of life are contained in these terms, and a progressive ethos continues to animate them. In a globalized world, Oakeshott’s conversation of humanity assumes a new aspect and scale, and its shadow still accompanies it.

The constellation of modern science, technology, and rationality appears as predominant in the heavens as any medieval deity ever did, with a difference undoubtedly, and the differences should never be minimized. But the current constellation is as alternative-less as any ancient or medieval worldview ever was. It predominates utterly and globally.

The conversation of humanity and its shadow have taken us here. A system of inter locution can resemble a steamroller, and globalization is its present name. This isn’t a condemnation but an interpretation of the present historical moment, simplified to the extreme. These signs of the times are often asserted to be unprecedented

and to see that they’re not we need to look beneath the surface of current affairs in the way that any cultural physician would attempt. Conversation of humanity talk has a certain validity, as long as we speak of any truly global interlocutory network as an aspiration of whose dark side we never lose sight.

Gogol’s troika is on the move. But when wasn’t it? And doesn’t the current stretch of steppe bear an uncanny resemblance to what preceded it and what’s likely to follow from it? Its pace has likely quickened, but its trajectory changes in the manner of Nietzsche’s eternal hourglass.

There’s truth in the old saying, the more things change, the more they don’t. And to see this, we need to study the past in some depth and with an eye to its connection to the present. The back and forth of conversation and the will to power is endless, like the changing of night into day or the rise and fall of the tides.

It doesn’t proceed in any kind of linear way but is cyclical. It’s a river that we step into not once or twice but an infinite number of times.