“Confronting time out of joint. . . – On economic rationality and imagination”

Abstract

It is often suggested that today we are living in the “end times.” Confronted by a perpetual incursion of major global crises, we increasingly find ourselves incapable of meaningfully relating to the present, let alone to the future. The forever deferred “end” throws the very idea of time out of joint. Unable to advance, our imagination retreats, with retrograde tendencies taking over both culture and politics. From incessant movie prequels and sequels, through the re-emergence of populist fascist politics, all the way to the return of Cold War rhetoric, we witness our reality becoming increasingly substituted by a string of peculiar rehashings and reunions. History, as we knew it, is no longer “made”; we strain to cling to the past, equating the future with dystopia. Crucially, this problematique of the fading of temporality is not new. In fact, it has got a history of its own. This paper explores our current (a)temporal whereabouts by reflecting upon them from the perspective of their historical trajectory. It does this by revisiting the work of André Gorz—a thinker whose contributions equip us with the insights needed to confront time out of joint effectively and embrace the idea of future. The article argues that the roots of today’s temporal malaise can be found in the process of “economicization,” which subordinated the notion of utopia to its principles, thereby nullifying it. Examining the effects of the unbridled reign of economic rationality over our imagination, it calls for a temporal intervention by means of ecological rationality.