From Nietzsche to Trump

“This explains the turn to nostalgic and resentment-driven politics to seek to elevate authority figures who will not only halt the flow of time but turn back the clock.”

Introduction

Ever since Francis Fukuyama’s seminal end of history thesis, there has been much deliberation about how we understand the relationship among time, meaning, and freedom. These are obviously large questions, and—in this short essay—I hope to provide a brief genealogy of some transitions in how we have come to conceptualize these ideas in Western societies. This essay will primarily draw on the work of Georg Hegel, who was undeniably the philosopher who took these questions most seriously—for better or worse. I also think that understanding how we conceptualize time, freedom, and meaning in what we now call post-modernity can tell us a great deal about contemporary attitudes and politics. In particular, this sheds light on why reactionary movements like post-modern conservatism (see my new book here) have gained much appeal in the early days of the 21st century.

Time and Freedom in the Classical and Christian Periods

“Lastly, why would He make any thing at all of it, and not rather by the same All-mightiness cause it not to be at all? Or, could it then be against His will? Or if it were from eternity, why suffered He it so to be for infinite spaces of times past, and was pleased so long after to make something out of it? Or if He were suddenly pleased now to effect somewhat, this rather should the All-mighty have effected, that this evil matter should not be, and He alone be, the whole, true, sovereign, and infinite Good. Or if it was not good that He who was good should not also frame and create something that were good, then, that evil matter being taken away and brought to nothing, He might form good matter, whereof to create all things. For He should not be All-mighty, if He might not create something good without the aid of that matter which Himself had not created. These thoughts I revolved in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares, lest I should die ere I had found the truth; yet was the faith of Thy Christ, our Lord and Saviour, professed in the Church Catholic, firmly fixed in my heart, in many points, indeed, as yet unformed, and fluctuating from the rule of doctrine; yet did not my mind utterly leave it, but rather daily took in more and more of it.”

St. Augustine, Confessions

Hegel made the deep observation that there are many ways to approach the subject of time. Time is obviously a concern for physicists and mathematicians, who both tend to puzzle over its physical characteristics. But it is also a concern for all living beings as they experience their life individually and communally. This makes it crucial to interrogate not just the physical concept of time—but how it temporality presents itself culturally. Hegel argues that for the Ancient Greeks, time had an ultimately unreal quality. For Plato—and to a lesser extent Aristotle—this world of time was little more than an approximation or shadow of the true eternal world, which existed in the beyond. For human beings, time was the realm of fate and fortune but never of freedom. We were driven by forces beyond our control to play out inevitably tragic tales. This was true both for individuals and civilizations. Consider the famous play Oedipus Rex where the titular character was fated to slay his father and marry his mother. Despite desperate efforts to prevent such horror, the clever and brave Oedipus, nevertheless, cannot escape his fate. After inheriting his father’s kingdom, its slow decline forces him to realize the truth, and Oedipus then blinds himself to see no more. There was no escaping such fate, which is why the world of time was not one of freedom but nihilistic tragedy—full of sound and fury but signifying nothing, in Macbeth’s famous words. The only way to overcome this problem was to direct oneself to the eternal and perfect world beyond this one, which occasionally intervened in the world of time through miracles and favoritism to temporality protect its favored beings. Hegel observed that—at the time—there was much to learn from such a fatalistic approach to time. But classicism now is invoked primarily for reactionary purposes—consider the popularity of right-wing narratives of decadent decline and fall ala Oswald Spengler through to Sohrab Ahmari. Such figures, despite their posturing to be saving Western civilization, actually want a regression to a pre-Christian concept of time as governed by fortune, strength, and will—for a while before the inevitable fall sets in.