this a Pyrrhic victory, because the present is merely the past of the coming future, and as "past" it will be judged accordingly by the next generation. we always find ourselves in a space/time box (what historians call weltanschauung).
2. what happens is that our world/view supervenes on our particular subject/view.
one is simply not aware of one's social embeddedness until later -maybe never. as time flows, difference sets in the world/view as a shift. we call this entre-temps. in a sense, we're always entre-temps, though we don't realize it -incidentally, presentists don't belabor these details.
here's a nuanced statement a presentist would disagree with:
Thomas Jefferson had slaves and yet, he was still enlightened for his times.
but for the optic of 1800s America, Jefferson was by no means your average smarty. he was -politically speaking- ahead of his time. make no mistake: slavery is wrong, but this was not entirely clear in early 1800s America (for the reasons explained in 2.)
3. presentists's black-and-white optic ignores these necessary color gradations. they are not ready to wear 1800s glasses to understand Jefferson's times because their motto is "my time rules."
their thinking is unidimensional.
PC only adds a layer of partisan avouchment. PC's problem is not its content, but its delivery.*
____________________________________
* take these silly recommendations. transgender people ought to be protected, but you don't have to create a new sub-grammar to achieve social justice. if "she" and "he" don't fit this particular case, we still have "it." why should a non-binary transgender be offended that i use "it" or "this person" to refer to their non-binary status? this constant preempting a "possible" offense ends up causing the very problem it tries to solve.
No comments:
Post a Comment