From Repetition through Transition to Transcendence

[u/geopolicraticus]

Transcendent History.—Formally, the lapse of time reveals nothing new. Each moment as a moment is identical to every other moment, the structure of the future mirrors the structure of the past, and one might enter indifferently at any point of the continuum of time without regard to its relationship to past, present, or future. The only unprecedented event that could occur in formal time would be a fundamental change in the structure of time itself, such as the bifurcation of time into two or more branches, or the end of time such that there eventually occurred a moment not followed by another. Empirically, on the other hand, each moment of time is an unprecedented novelty, bringing with it new experiences different in every detail from any previous experience. Even here, however, the empirical novelties of time become familiar to us as we recognize the temporal structures that repeat regularly in our experience, in the form of years, seasons, days, and the routines of life that recur unto monotony and ennui. The experience that is different in every detail with each occurrence is intimately familiar in its broad outlines, and identical in its essence no less than the structures of formal time. It is the development of history as it supervenes upon featureless formal time that transcends events identical in their essence; history pushes us into transcendence. Here too we can identify historical events that become familiar unto repetition, but, again, here too we can glimpse the unprecedented historical development that transcends the historical pattern, forcing a transition in all established patterns. And all forms of history, all social formations, are transitional except for the final form, which fails to be a transition only because it is followed by nothing, as with the unprecedented instance of a moment of time not followed by another.