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Armin nassehi: contemporary concepts of time no longer seem to have such a Utopian impetus. By 'utopian' conceptions of time, I mean those aspects of time which place trust in our capacity to construct a positive future for ourselves, he says.'modernity is characterized by a partiCular semantics of time'
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Nassehi - No Time for Utopia the Absence of Utopian Contents in Modern Concepts of Time
Armin nassehi: contemporary concepts of time no longer seem to have such a Utopian impetus. By 'utopian' conceptions of time, I mean those aspects of time which place trust in our capacity to construct a positive future for ourselves, he says.'modernity is characterized by a partiCular semantics of time'
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Armin nassehi: contemporary concepts of time no longer seem to have such a Utopian impetus. By 'utopian' conceptions of time, I mean those aspects of time which place trust in our capacity to construct a positive future for ourselves, he says.'modernity is characterized by a partiCular semantics of time'
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No Time for Utopia The absence of Utopian contents in modern concepts of time Armin Nassehi ABSTRACT. Since the beginning of modernism, time con- cepts in general have had Utopian contents. Such Utopian contents were not accidental to time; rather they provided it with substantial meaning. Contemporary concepts of time, however, no longer seem to have such a Utopian impetus. On the contrary, they localize conditions in time and its structure which exclude Utopian perspectives in the future. This paper deals with the societal preconditions of early modern semantics of time and contrasts them with contemporary forms of time management. In connection with this change in time from a source of meaning to a merely formal chronos which is neutral to meaning, philosophical discussions of modern world-time and time implications of contemporary semantics of risk come to the fore. KEY WORDS philosophy of time risk societal theory. time concepts. Utopia Today, when we trace the historical development of modernity since the Enlightenment, it is apparent that certain Utopian conceptions of time have been left behind. By 'Utopian' conceptions of time, I mean to suggest those aspects of time which place trust in our capacity to construct a future which is a positive development of our present circumstances. Old ways of thinking about time, its future and its past, no longer seem to work once the eschatological hope of creating a more desirable history for ourselves has been displaced. Instead, I would argue that the future is already immanent in the present (cf. Blumenberg, 1964: 243), for as I TIME & SOCIETY 1994 SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), VOL. 3(1): 47-78. at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 48 ARMIN NASSEHI hope to demonstrate with this paper, modernity is characterized by a partiCular semantiCs of time. Here I follow Jiirgen Habermas (1985), who suggests that we need to come to terms with the problem of 'time' in modernity: Modernity cannot and will not borrow its principles from a different age. Instead, modernity must create its own normativity. It is completely depen- dent on itself without any possibility of escape. This explains its easy irritation about its self-perception and the dynamic of the continuing attempts at self-identification.(Habermas, 1985: 16)1 Attempts at finding an identity for modernity need to address the historical development of time concepts. Such concepts throw light on the specific Utopian contents of modern self-perceptions: in other words, our recognition that an imperfect present can be recast so as to create a perfect future. In this paper, therefore, I am interested in contemporary modern and postmodern conceptualizations of time, namely because I consider them to be the immediate expressions of the displacement of Utopian projects. This paper will take the following form: first, I will briefly sketch several of the societal preconditions of early modern time concepts. Second, I offer some reflections on the management of time in a func- tionally differentiated society of the 20th century. This will lead me, in turn, to take a look at postmodern time concepts. There, certain philosophical approaches to the chronos of modern world-time, and their implications for the current semantics of risk, will be addressed. I. Early Modern Time Concepts Over the course of this section, I would like briefly to sketch a historical overview, by definition quite provocative, to serve as a backcloth for my subsequent analysis of a postmodern 'semantics of time'. No attempt is made here to qualify in detail the nature of the assertions I am making: rather, it is my intention simply to bring to the fore those specific assump- tions about time whiCh form the site of postmodernist critique. While the medieval understanding of time was characterized by the world-immanent presence of God, which neutralized the transitory nature of the world, world-immanent time was invested with a meaning of its own at the beginning of the modern period. God's eternity - symbolized by a social structure organized to reproduce stability, unity, hierarchy and centralism - ensured an emphatiCally conservative obser- vation of the world. Here conservative is not meant politiCally, but liter- at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 49 ally: God's creation must be conserved. The world should not be culti- vated by human beings, but left as it is. During the Renaissance and early Enlightenment, society became more secularized. The dominant conservative conception of the world changed radically once politics, economic relations, science, education and art were no longer dominated and legitimized by religion. The different functional domains of human activity developed temporal dynamics which altered the societal management of time. The changes within these domains resembled a process of emancipation from restric- tions imposed externally, resulting in a self-referential extension of free- dom of action and specific goals. During the early Enlightenment future contingency was considered a threat, but now the future gradually became the actual aim of all actions. New developments within science, education, politics and the economy now became an end in themselves, conceived of as scientific process, the improvement of education and its conditions, the anticipation and realization of state goals, or the management of economic processes and present calculation involving future profits. A new consciousness slowly developed: the world is not fixed as it is, but is constantly changing. These changes are generally brought about by human activity in the political, economic, scientific, educational and artistic fields, and may be understood as a process of improvement and perfection of humankind: as progress (Nassehi, 1993: 304). The semantics of progress which emerge during this early period of understanding can be considered a functional equivalent of the former presence of eternity during conservative eras. All social activities must now strive towards improvement and perfection under the banner of history. The desire to achieve perfection provides a new conceptual framework for human activity. 'The emerging horizon of expectations has dynamized history. The concepts "modern age" and progress could be used synonymously' (Koselleck, 1975b: 391). On the one hand, the collective term progress, which emerges at the end of the 18th century, is meant both to describe and normalize the experiences gained in differ- ent areas of human activity. On the other hand, this term is intended to satisfy the need to be sure of one's self and find an adequate self- referential description of the epoch. The medium of this form is time, in the shape of history as a directed process. It is evident that the progressive change of social structure from rigid stratification to an increasing social differentiation according to functional codes leaves a void: namely, the semantic centre which had integrated the different functional contexts. This void creates an immense degree of complexity: connections become increasingly less probable, the coordi- at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 50 ARMIN NASSEHI nation of different contexts of activity - for example of the economic and political fields - becomes ever more precarious and the borders between functional domains become more tightly closed. Different and mutually exclusive functional domains emerge. The problem of integra- tion in early modern society can be phrased as a question: How can the new and excluded functional domains be reintegrated, each into its own specific field? In other words, how is social unity conceivable in spite of differentiation? The answer: It is conceivable as the temporalization of complexity and universalization of temporality. Premodern advanced civilizations absorbed their social differences (social dimension) - caused by a rigid index of social stratification - with an extensive temporal unity (temporal dimension); that is to say, time was encompassed by the eternity of God. Early modern society reacts similarly, coming to terms with its complexity using the concept of time. The factual difference (factual dimension)2 which results from the juxtaposition of different functional subsystems is contained within a uniform temporal dimension. This dimension no longer stands for the timelessness of the world but for the dynamization of all activity. History and progress - both used as collective nouns which universalize the histories of, and progressions in, science, morality, art, law, politics and the economy - give each specific system history a universal background which fulfils its need for legitimation and adequate self-perception. Time, completely historicized and excluded from specific functional domains, is reintegrated into the functional system as the universal category of the modern age, progress and world-immanent perfection. Each functional subsystem is thereby ensured a safe place within society as a whole. This semantics could be regarded as a common basis for the subsystems, yet one which leaves the factual differences between them intact. 3 Politics, law, morality, economy and science may march under different flags, but they share the common goal of serving progress and the modern age. Emerging with the epoch-making development of a social structure based upon functional differentiation was the semantic need to make social unity at least thinkable, that is, to compensate with semantics for the loss of social unity: 'The truth is the whole' (das Wahre ist das Ganze; Hegel, 1970: 24) writes Hegel in the preface to the Phiinomenologie des Geistes. Does this mean, one could ask, that there is no truth if we have been deprived of the whole? Obviously, one needs time as a potential for truth because truth can only emerge in time. Only in history, claims Hegel, can truth come to terms with itself and the divisions of modernism be healed. Truth is the progressive motion of the spirit within history. Time itself contains the Utopian energies whjch resolve the difference between promise and fulfilment. at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 51 These unifying codes react positively to the social change described above. They are a particular feature of the philosophical semantics, from Condorcet's or Bacon's concept of progress to Kant's transcendental subject and Hegel's philosophy of history. The sociological discourse registers the same phenomena by focusing on the immense costs of modernization. Max Weber identifies the worldwide absence of fraternity (Weber, 1972: 571) and the loss of meaning in the modem world (Weber, 1972: 564); Habermas speaks of the fragmentation of consciousness (Habermas, 1981a: 522) and the shortage of meaning as a resource (Habermas, 1981a: 212).4 These diagnoses may differ in detail, but they all focus on the problem of a social structure which is unable to provide subsystems and people with a definite location in society. One could speak of a loss of external reference which forces both subsystems and individuals to define themselves increasingly by self-reflection (Luhmann, 1980: 29). Obviously, forms must be found which can compensate for the loss of unity and integration in society. As this type of integration can no longer be a fundamentum in re in the form of one subsystem with definite claims to leadership, it must be simulated semantically. I would like to demonstrate briefly that such simulations find their semantic expression in the social and temporal dimensions, since the factual dimen- sion cannot be reintegrated due to the functional differentiation of spe- cific codes. In the social dimension, semantics emerge which are meant to cushion the dissolution of traditional life styles. Anthropological semantics, in contrast, are universally inclusive and deal with human beings per se, rather than with individuals as members of a particular social class or group. Simultaneously, a semantics of inclusion and exclusion - peoples and nations - has developed. Successful inclusion into particular groups is bought at the price of excluding individuals from other peoples and nations. These 'semantics of social unity' (Fuchs, 1991: 89) have the function of compensating for the loss of meaning in the social dimension and all the resulting crises in the early modem period (Nassehi, 1990: 261). They serve to provide unity where it is no longer inherent in the structure of society. The term nation has the same significance in the social dimension as progress and history have in the temporal dimension. In the early modem period these terms provide a uniform time for the functional subsystems. History expresses the world-time itself, which means that the writing of history itself becomes an historical event. Thus, as Koselleck (1975a) writes: Historical perspectivism has changed completely from a category of knowl- at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 52 ARM IN NASSEHI edge to a fundamental designation of all experiences and expectations. The temporal difference between past and future has gained its own histori- cal quality. Insights into this historical quality are only valid if they remain conscious of their own temporality. (Kose11eck, 1975a: 701) If history has the function of expressing a world-time, which is not only the expression of a series of events but their connection, their meaning, their telos or at least their logic of development (Koselleck, 1975a: 649), then the historicization of historiography means the temporalization of the position from which historical time is described (for example, as progress). It is a re-entry of history into history (Spencer Brown, 1971: 69). The early modern historiography had to deal with the paradox of historicizing itself. This paradox was rendered invisible and acceptable by a philosophical concept: history itself attained a metaphysical status - or later: a materialistic one, which means the same in the end. To a certain extent, history became a 'God-term' (Burke, 1961: 33) of a completely historicized world. Hegel (1970: 26) even claimed that his- tory, as the movement of the absolute spirit, was equivalent to God. It is not really the secularization of the eschatology which is reminiscent of the theological cosmos of earlier social structures, but rather the tech- nique of theory used in such concepts. The early modern semantics of time, which aim to establish univer- sality, use collectives in order to produce an apparent simultaneity between functionally differentiated subsystems. This is not a homo- geneous clock-time, one which produces a technical synchronization of different systems' histories. Instead, it is a logical, semantic synchroniz- ation of systems along one abstract, linear, teleological dimension of time which simulates unity in an ever more functionally differentiated society. This form of temporal, meaningful typology of unity did not last for very long (it would not be replaced by other forms of unity, however, until the 20th century). In semantics, this change becomes apparent much sooner, particularly wherever specific cases of non-simultaneity are found; for example, between the scientific progress of the 17th century, on the one hand, and political, legal and especially moral developments, on the other. This simultaneity of the non-simultaneous is the basis of Hegel's (1971: 236) claim that 'mythology must become philosophical and people reasonable'. According to this dictum, progress is made when everything, not just philosophy or the state, takes part in the self-motion of the spirit. To give one final example: the Marxist teleology almost thrives on dissonances. The development of the productive forces far exceeds the circumstances of production (Produktionsverhiiltnisse) and at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 53 the two can only be synchronized by a revolutionary movement (Marx and Engels, 1972: 467). The fact that a consciousness of non-simultaneity emerges even though different system processes in society always run simultaneously is not surprising on closer inspection. Different functional subsystems do not experience dissonance by mere reciprocal observation. Dissonance becomes apparent against the background of a standard which is common yet external to all the functional subsystems. The function of this stan- dard is established by the central semantics of a progressive concept of time and the idea of a history which tends towards a better future, thereby transcending the histories of separate systems. The simultaneity of the non-simultaneous signifies only the qualitative divergence of simul- taneous facts. The 'grief' at the dissonance of the development contains the Utopian horizon of a promise that the world will improve and even become perfect in due course. Time itself has Utopian energies. History and progress as metaphors of unity cannot obscure the fact that the times of different systems - and therefore the simultaneity of the qualitatively non-simultaneous - are a basic principle of functional differentiation. But this insight does not become predominant semantic- ally before the 20th century. 11. Functional Differentiation and the Problem of Synchronization in the 20th Century It is no secret that the Utopian energy of time concepts, as discussed previously, has very little meaning for most people today. Nowadays, the term 'time' tends to conjure up the idea of a power which can neither be stopped nor turned back. Modern society is split by radically different modes of observation which makes unity all but inconceivable. A society of this kind needs a high degree of differentiation and functional auton- omy for its subsystems. It renounces a strict regulation of systems relations, replacing general intersystem relations with the relation between systems and environments or, in other words, replacing strict coupling with loose coupling. This makes even the recognition of unity within society difficult, let alone its representation in sociological theories (Luhmann, 1987: 35). Whereas it was still possible to simulate such a representation using the concepts of history, progress, reason or national- ity in the early modern period, such attempts have become even less probable today. Nevertheless, noteworthy appeals to such codes are still being made. The most elaborate example is Jiirgen Habermas's (1988: 185) call for the unity of reason in the multiplicity of its voices, which at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 54 ARMIN NASSEHI presents communicative rationality as a fragile boat on an ocean of contingencies. In view of the insurmountable operative differences, how- ever, such attempts appear misplaced, for they try to restitute a function which has long given way to just these differences. In terms of time, modem society contains the juxtaposition of different temporalities which each develop their own self-referential time. As there is no longer any central representation of social unity under the conditions of functional differentiation, there is no place left for a central semantics of social time which could inspire a coincidence of temporal perspectives. In the 20th century, attempts at least to simulate social unity using anthropological or ethnic universalities (as well as topologies of history and progress) so that communication could be conditioned throughout society usually fail. Therefore, contending temporal horizons emerge in the way time is managed. Mutually attentive system processes point to the temporal coincidence of operations which differ radically from each other in the factual dimen- sion. If one actually defines the experience of simultaneity as the differ- ence of facts (Luhmann, 1990a: 99), then the organization of time in modem society is bound to a present which can only be experienced as the dividing line between past and future. The extended present of traditional societies was characterized by eternity as a horizon of experi- ence projecting into the present and giving the world a calculable form (which actually needed no calculation because decisions were hardly contingent). This is why the difference between tempus and aeternitas vanishes, the very difference used in the modem period to cope with the transitory nature of time. The necessity of a uniform world-time takes over the function of the older dualisms of time and eternity. The present is now marked only by the difference between past and future and no longer by the difference between the temporal and the eternal present (Luhmann, 1990a: 124). World-time means a temporal technique of coordination which permits the harmonization of specific system histories with a common horizon. It is the functional correlate of a society in which functional subsystems with their own temporal structure of refer- ence have emerged. In terms of system theory, these functional sub- systems provide an irreducible environment for each other, but are nevertheless independent. Functional subsystems cannot simply be syn- chronized in the factual dimension. Synchronization and simultaneity are two different dimensions: system and environment operate necessarily simultaneously because system environments exist only from the perspec- tive of the system. Still, the problem of temporal coordination of differ- ent system processes is not affected by this simultaneity. This problem can only be solved by the synchronization of the factual differences. at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 55 This synchronization cannot be achieved by appealing to one's own system history. From economic sequences of time you cannot, for example calculate the amount of time needed for political decisions which, in turn, may have an important effect on investment decisions. It is impossible to integrate the time horizons of two different functional subsystems because of the dissimilarity of operative differences of obser- vation. This is why, in functional terms, abstract forms of mediation which are not based on the specific time of one system become necessary. 'Abstract' means that those forms of mediation must be abstracted from the specific system codes so that they can be used everywhere. One must be able to generalize such an abstract form of mediation, that is, it must not be bound to a particular time horizon. This type of time is transcen- dent from the viewpoint of each system, but it is structured chronologi- cally rather than eternally and cairologically. This transcendent time may be situated outside social systems. Nevertheless, it signifies immanence and social self-reference, rather than the transcendence of the world and the reference to an external godly power which it signified in the Middle Ages. World-time means the time of world-society as a whole. World-time is symbolized as clock-time, which must neither be con- fused with any real structure beyond society nor be comprehended as an 'actual' structure of time. Clock-time is just a specific form of socially constituted time. Social time must be ahead of communicative events in order to be able to fulfil its function of coordination. Clock-time uses mechanical, electromechanical, electronic or even nuclear series of events 5 in order to win a measure of time by counting the events in time. The counted processes or, to put it more accurately, the events which are observed as processes, are strictly homogeneous and can therefore constitute a uniform measuring unit. Clock-time results as a structure which is homogeneous, reversible, determinable and transitive. It is homogeneous because it has uniform units. Consequently, it is reversible: one can turn back the course of time, define how much has elapsed and anticipate the future need of time. It can be determined by forming generalized abstract calculations of time from socially standardized ways of counting. It is transitive because sequences of time can be measured at different times and places for different events and actions and be compared quantitively (Luhmann, 1975: 111).6 This homogeneous, linear and highly abstract structure of time under- lies almost all communications in world-society. It must be emphasized once again that it does not serve to produce simultaneity amongst differ- ent system processes, since this simultaneity is given anyway. World-/ clock-time 7 coordinates the factual dimension. To show that these sys- tems operate simultaneously, the example of economic calculations at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 56 ARMIN NASSEHI anticipating political decisions may be used. Economists note that the government has not yet released any information, that the problems are still being discussed by the committees, and that so far nobody knows what the balance of power is like. One knows all of this simultaneously which means: right at this moment. However, temporal synchronization opens up different time horizons. One knows that Parliament will soon make a decision, or that there will be new tax laws or foreign trade laws next year. Synchronization here means that one can calculate when something will happen in the time dimension and adjust one's plans accordingly. Synchronization occurs not only in the system relations of social subsystems, but also in the coordination of the social and factual aspects of interaction and organization. Numerous incidents in everyday life - arriving punctually for dinner, trying to catch the next train, submitting a complaint against an official notice within the time permitted, receiving a reminder because a bill remains unpaid - reveal that the highly generalized coordination of time is taken for granted. If this coordination did not take place, social order would not be possible given the radical factual differences which are a result of functional differentiation: 'In the modern social order, clocks are coordinated through uniform time dimensions, linked globally across space. Without such linkages, which depend essentially on the formation of standardized social conventions, the modern world simply could not be ordered as it is' (Giddens, 1987: 142; Zerubavel, 1981: 69). The function which world-/clock-time performs in synchronizing system histories and parallelizing a variety of factors temporally may be very important for the specific processes of functional subsystems, but its success is not guaranteed. It is unable to coordinate different system processes in the factual dimension. All it can do is structure the system- specific planning of times and decisions so that the desired simultaneity can at least be initiated. The factual differences will not be suspended. They will, on the contrary, be emphasized greatly by synchronization. Monastic prayer times were therefore not a mechanism of synchroniz- ation, as they were only intended to ensure that similar activities were performed at the same time, that is, to overcome the distinction between presence and absence (Luhmann, 1990a: 123). In addition to constructing community in the absence of physical presence, contemporary time- measuring has to tackle the question of how to do things simultaneously and still coordinate activities. World-/clock-time is, in a way, the measure of differences in the factual dimension; it allows a dynamic view of the world beyond the simple simultaneity of system relations. The economic observation of political observations (second-order observations) uses world-/clock-time not only to understand a different system's view of the at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 57 world, but also to see how the processes of other systems function within the temporal dynamics of their own time (Eigenzeit). Time serves as a reciprocal scheme of observation, but does not bridge the operative differences between social subsystems. The function performed by this concept of time differs radically from the function of synchronization (which was fulfilled by the concepts of progress and history in the early modern period). The latter attempted a factual coincidence of perspectives by means of a qualitative world-time. Current world-time has become quantitative and does not provide an understand- ing of the world as a whole any more. This means that time no longer manages to fulfil the function of religion. Early modernism introduced the world to the glorification of time as the driving force of progress and historical perfection. Nowadays, time is comprehended as a calculable, abstract medium. It merely provides the rhythm for multiple system processes and becomes indifferent to what happens during its course. In the end, there is nothing one can expect from time any more, except that it will pass (and therefore remains a limited resource). Ill. Philosophical Reflections on the Chronos of Modern Time Time's indifference to what happens may be acknowledged without regret. However, the history of the modern semantics of time is always fluctuating between grief at the necessary relinquishment of a 'holy' time, and obstinate efforts to establish a time which is not simply a means of synchronizing different time horizons. The paradigm of such beliefs is clearly presented in Henri Bergsons (1989) separation of time into physi- cal space-time (according to Newton) and the pure, inner duration of consciousness. This distinction corresponds to the distinction between extensive and intensive quantities. The difference here is not that one is extended and the other is not. Bergson does not want to describe the specific spheres of existence or the objects which, together, could be said to represent the world. Instead, he tackles the epistemological problem of differentiating between various views of the world rather than different types of being (Bergson, 1989: 57). Bergson defends a type of colon- ization thesis which describes homogeneous, extensive time as a 'phan- tom of space' one which captivates reflexive consciousness (Bergson, 1989: 77). This consciousness used to be prereflexive and of a natural inner duration, keeping itself apart from the external world like a monad. This phenotypical motif, which reveals discontent within civilization, is expressed in various ways. Each time a qualitative sphere of inner temporality is contrasted with external time it tries to oppress conscious- at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 58 ARMIN NASSEHI ness and life. In Sein und Zeit (1927) Heidegger qualifies his ethical motifs of Eigentlichkeit (essentiality) and Entschlossenheit (resolution) as the active reception of individual temporality.s Even in Husserl's strictly methodological elimination of objective time, there is an element of a motif which views quantitative time as an essential feature of mod- ernism. The initial euphoria of progress has given way to sceptical seman- tics. In Nietzsche's (1980) attempt to dehistoricize history, the motif of inner and external time appears once again. Nietzsche does not intend to restore eternity as a provider of meaning. In 'Zarathustra', he says: 'Bose heisse ich's und menschenfeindlich: all dies Lehren vom Einen und Vollen und Unbewegten und Satten und Unvergiinglichen!' ('I call it evil and misanthropic: all this teaching about the One being complete and unmoving and replete and eternal!' (Nietzsche, 1980: 110). Nietzsche praises the transitory nature and discontinuity of time, not its continuous homogeneity which captivates the modem masses. Discontinuity is, in a way, both a protest against transitoriness and a symbol of transitoriness. Nietzsche protests against transitoriness with his expression of the eternal potential of pleasure: Oh Mensch! Gieb Acht! Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht? Ich schlief, ich schlief - Aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht: Die Welt ist tief, Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht. Tief ist ihr Weh - Lust - tiefer noch als Herzeleid: Weh spricht: Vergeh! Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit - Will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit! Oh mortal! beware! What says the deep midnight? I slept, I slept - I have woken from a deep dream: The world is profound, More so than the day thought. It's sorrow is deep - Pleasure - even deeper than heart- ache Sorrow says: Pass by! But all pleasure wants eternity - Wants deep, deep eternity! (Nietzsche, 1980: 404) Nietzsche does not strive for sorrow (Weh) , which passes by, but pleasure, which does not represent eternity but desires it. The ecstatic quality of Dionysian fulfilment opposes the senseless passage of time. The discontinuity of eternal recurrence symbolizes transitoriness: it con- trasts the cyclical inexorability of permanent beginnings with the linear advance of world immanent chiliasms and hopes of redemption. Ich komme wieder, mit dieser Sonne, mit dieser Erde, mit diesem Adler, mit dieser Schlange - nicht zu einem neuen Leben oder besseren Leben oder lihnlichen Leben: - ich komme ewig wieder zu diesem gleichen und selbigen Leben, im GroBten und auch im Kleinsten, daB ich wieder alle at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA Dinge ewige Wiederkunft lehre, - (I come again, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this snake - not to a new life or a better life or a similar life: - 1 come again and again to this one same life, in the greatest as in the smallest of things, so that 1 can teach the eternal recur- rence of all things). (Nietzsche, 1980: 276) 59 The 'eternal recurrence of the same' in Nietzsche's modern version of this idea is not simply an attempt to return to mythical origins (which avoid change by understanding the world as a circle). On the contrary, Nietzsche seems to both use and unmask the linear character of the modern period. He uses it by stating that things continually happen in a pattern of eternal recurrence. However, it is obvious that a variety of different things happen, that the world changes and is therefore subject to time. Nietzsche tries to show that the belief in change in the overall pattern of events is a modern illusion. He unmasks history and modern- ism as a continuity with a discontinuous course. The conviction that linear world-time could build upon past events, that barbarism was a thing of the past and could not return, and that progress in civilization corresponds to progress in technology, is exposed as an illusion. Nietz- sche opposes the thesis of an everlasting past with his thesis of eternal recurrence: we cannot live upon yesterday's success. History is not a learning process. Each present age must start from the beginning again because there is no continuity of time. Despite all their differences, Nietzsche, like Bergson and Heidegger, criticizes the separation of world-time into qualitative and quantitative time. 9 Cultural criticism, especially of modernism, is full of similar motifs. Whether this criticism is directed against formal ethics, which no longer have a material element (MacIntyre, 1987: 75) or against the constant compulsion to reflect which burdens the modern way of life with too much contingency (Schelsky, 1965: 268) or against the dangers of evan- escent meaning and greater freedom of action which cause the loss of unquestionable convictions (Simmel, 1983: 35), or against uncertainty as the signature of modernism (Gehlen, 1957: 100), the object in each case is to uncover the premodernist synthesis of event and meaning. This criticism is directed both against generalization and, paradoxically, against the impossibility of generalization. Morality, reflexion, conviction and the determination of life styles must be radically formalized and generalized to make society's plural processes possible. The price which has been paid for formalization and generalization has, without a doubt, been regarded as the separation of event and meaning, the loss of clear social location, and not least as the contingency of social observation. Not only could things be different from what they are, they can be observed differently too. at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 60 ARMIN NASSEHI The generalization of procedural forms of finding truth, beauty and morality implies losing the unity of truth, beauty and morality. Pro- cedural forms do not say what truth, beauty and morality are, but ques- tion how they can be attained in a scientific, aesthetic or practical manner. This process is very uncertain because one can fail to achieve one's aim or arrive at different results in each case, even though these results are all based on the same abstract principles of reason. This makes unity conceivable, but does not succeed in eliminating difference. It is widely accepted that this transformation of reason leaves behind it only a technical rationality and the descriptions of loss resulting from this are innumerable. The more abstract the elaborate terms of reason, rationality and normality used to codify the imagined unity of difference, the more the differences within the imagined unity become apparent. It is no accident that critics of time appeal to final terms of unity, or even to 'God-terms': Bergson's (1989) unity of inner duration suspends the isolation of present moments; Heidegger (1978) refers to the unity of Dasein in der Sorge (existence in anxiety) as an original structural whole; Nietzsche (1980) refers to the unity of inevitable, eternal recur- rence which does not tolerate a clarifying differentiation between points in time, such as that provided by the concepts of development, progress and learning. These critical ideas could be described as the painful seman- tic aftermath of the ideas they oppose, such as the modern euphoria of the ages of Enlightenment and social revolutions. Whereas the semantics of unity used to have the function of expressing modernity as universally determinable, this function is now performed by the declaration of its indeterminability. This principle can be applied to the semantics of time: whereas time used to imply Utopia, providing modernism with the objec- tive of leading the way to a more perfect world, world-/clock-time is now a symbol for the loss of meaning and for technical rationality. Heidegger (1978: 9) calls such a rationality the 'Ge-stell'. Horkheimer (1985) sees it as a merely instrumental rationality. Time is no longer able to qualify events and becomes a mere instrument of coordinating system histories which have lost the overall meaning that held them together. Today, time no longer symbolizes the knowledge of an appropriate time for action. Arrangements are made within time, but time itself is indifferent to what constitutes these arrangements. Temporal, social and factual dimensions are irrevocably separated. Modern time, being homo- geneous, linear and without content, is experienced as an objectifying power. It corresponds to the principle of societal differentiation which no longer recognizes a definite place for individuals in a well-ordered world any more. Time becomes anti-Utopian.!O Linearity and chronos are understood as social powers which are at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 61 opposed to the anthropological need of cairo logical moments or the unity of temporal difference (Schmidt, 1988: 664). According to Peter Sloterdijk (1990: 121), different experiences of time are necessary to withstand the nihilism of technocratical chronos: 'Only those who leave chronical time in order to concentrate on the moment can escape nihil- ism. This has nothing to do with surmounting nihilism, because it would only perpetuate the nihilism of surmounting nihilism itself.' This under- standing intensifies the semantics of time. Not only is the dichotomy of quantitative and qualitative time at stake in the semantics of time: the alteration, or even the qualification of time is relinquished too. Whoever tries to overcome the chronos by plans or political action is still subject to it and therefore incurs some blame too. The moment, kairos, is thought to provide an alternative, which can only be experienced outside of chronological time. From the turn of the century until today, the semantics of time have developed from a field in which victories are still possible to an area in which all the battles have already been fought and lost. Bergson's, Heidegger's and even Nietzsche's criticisms of time insist upon self- assertion and upon efforts to attain temporal unity of at least inner duration. Sloterdijk's dictum of nihilism allows the fleeting moment as a refuge. Gradually, however, semantics are developing which even propa- gate the idea of the end of time per se. Gehlen's (1963) thesis of posthis- toire is an early example of this. His dictum of cultural crystallization assumes that all potentialities of modernism have already developed, in principle (Gehlen, 1963: 321). This assumption causes stagnation and makes development impossible. Gehlen uses the history of ideas as an example: 'I predict that the history of ideas is finished. We have arrived at posthistoire' (Gehlen, 1963: 323). This prediction of the early 1960s was followed by a rather more optimistic phase during which there was much talk about development and its logic, as well as ontogenetic and phylogenetic concepts, cognitive abilities and moral judgement. l1 The earlier prediction, however, was supported and radicalized by a growing area of semantics in the 1980s. This is most clearly expressed in Jean Baudrillard's (1983) thesis of the death of modernism and the end of history. Whereas Gehlen was still pondering the stagnation and lack of surprise in modern times, Baudrillard views the element of surprise as inconceivable. Whilst Gehlen regarded uncertainty, brought about by contingent historical development, as the hallmark of modernism, Baudrillard's diagnosis of the death of modernism becomes a categorical uncertainty. Meaning can no longer exist because distinctions which generate meaning have become impossible. at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 62 ARMIN NASSEHI I think that everything has happened. The future has arrived, everything is already here. It is not worthwhile dreaming about or nurturing the idea of any kind of utopia or revolution. Everything has been revolutionized. I believe that everything has lost its place, meaning and order. It is not an exaggeration if we say that everything has happened already. (Baudrillard in Hesse, 1983: 103) For Baudrillard, modernism has become so highly complex that no social borders, differences, selections or hierarchies of meaning can be found to establish order any longer. If the emergence of time horizons is a reaction to the fact that not all that can or will happen can happen simultaneously, and if it is true that the temporalization of complexity corresponds to a selective and consecutive order of linking elements (Luhmann, 1984a: 77), then time and history must indeed disappear in the situation described by Baudrillard. Even more radical is the thought that 'essentially we cannot speak of posthistoire, because history will not have time to come to an end. Its effects chase each other, but its meaning will inevitably wane. It will finally stand still and cease to exist just as light and time do when they touch infinitely dense matter' (Baudrillard, 1990: 13). If the end of history itself were an historical event, then history would continue because there would still be differences between events. The metaphor of infinitely dense matter prevents any difference though, because all potentialities are realized in it and therefore nothing can be excluded any more. Only universal simultaneity will remain, which allows no possibility of, or necessity for, an aim and a meaningful synchroniz- ation of different things. According to Baudrillard: The worst scenarios, the final goals of dreams and Utopias were built upon the metaphysical expUlsion of history. The final point is behind us. We are in the hypertelia. That means we have gone way beyond the final aim. (Baudrillard in Hesse, 1983: 104) Baudrillard's example shows very clearly that even the most radical diagnosis of indifference and description of an amorphous mass, in which arbitrariness has become the symbol of the world, is connected directly to the motif of meaninglessness and equivalently to the loss of a meaningful generality. The metaphor of the death of modernism signifies, as Thomas Jung (1991) has aptly remarked, another disenchantment of modernism now that even the last metaphysical remains of the Enlightenment have been unmasked as senseless (Jung, 1991: 367). In The Fatal Strategies, Baudrillard writes: And the very last question one could ask of a disenchanted world is: Does this world have a hidden meaning? When everything becomes oversign- ified, meaning itself cannot be attacked. When all values have been com- at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA pletely exposed in a sort of ecstasy of indifference, then their credibility is destroyed. (BaudriIIard, 1985: 75) 63 Baudrillard is less critical of the disenchantment of the world than of the impossibility of questioning its meaning. This question is the result of a perspective which, in a modern, differentiated society, looks precisely for that which is excluded by the social structure: the representation of unity in society. Baudrillard looks for the elysium, for the magic, which connects that which has been strictly divided. He cannot find it and therefore must come to the conclusion that meaning is not possible because there is too much unity on the one hand and too much difference on the other hand. Too much unity because no differences, and therefore no meaning, are possible in an amorphous mass; too much difference because the unity of multiplexity, the unitas multiplex, cannot be mean- ingfully expressed. 12 Time has become a prominent battlefield in this context because of its amazing semantical career in modern times. Whereas in the early modern period time signified Utopia, chiliastical and millennial promises, inner-world redemption and the provision of happiness for the majority, it nowadays signifies the technical management of simultaneity and syn- chronization of independent factors. If one holds on to the normative premise that unity is better than difference, or that central meaning or its functional equivalent are the conditio sine qua non of social order, then abstract, homogeneous and universal world-time and its correlate, a secularized history, immediately become an obvious site of conflict. One has the choice between two alternatives: Sloterdijk's distinction between cairological moments and chronological nihilism or Baudrillard's negation of any distinction, and thus the death of modernism along with the implosion of time. This semantics of time - admittedly restricted in its popularity to intellectual mandarins 13 - shows that the cultural semantics of modern times are obviously more closely orientated towards unity than they may appear to be at first. At the same time, a certain lack of simultaneity is expressed which tries to rescue in semantic terms that which has become impossible in modern society because of functional differentiation. Cul- tural semantics have certainly taken note of the experience of structural difference. The wide-ranging discussion about postmodernism, the con- flicts between contextualism and universalism, difference and unity, small stories and great narrations have become a field of experimentation for dealing with undeniable differences. Jean Lyotard (1983) is one of the most prominent contribu- tors to this discussion. His main thesis is that each sentence invariably at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 64 ARMIN NASSEHI produces conflict (differend) as there is no underlying rule according to which a sentence is valid for both speaker and recipient. Injustice inevi- tably results from this (Lyotard, 1983: 9). The same applies to time: in a sense it is produced by sentences. If one sentence is formulated now, no other sentence can take its place in time - in terms of conflict this is unjust (Lyotard, 1983: 11). The manipulation of time and its use in discourses signifies power. This power is revealed by the possession of actual time (Lyotard, 1983: 292). Lyotard calls the differend a term of difference which, by its disposal over the other's time, indicates that synchronization is necessary. This does not refer to the technical aspect of temporal coordination but to the irrevocable conflict in which one of the partners will be violated. Here too, time is understood as a limited resource. One sentence prevents the other and takes its time away. The power of chronos flows into the spoken sentence, thereby taking its time from the other sentences which can no longer be spoken.14 The sentence which has time at its disposal is powerful. Time in its chronic inexorability becomes a symbol of conflict. This means that even in Lyotard's work one can find the implication of a protest against chronos whose inexorability prevents justice, which in this case would be the suspension of the differend. Luhmann and Fuchs (1989) have suggested applying a theory of differ- ence to Lyotard's differend. They regard it as a difference of system and environment, establishing a dividing line which cannot be crossed. However, they have this criticism of Lyotard: ... despite his understanding of the operative inescapability of difference Lyotard is still tempted to retain the concept of unity in difference. Although unity may have lost its spiritual connotations, the concept still occurs in Lyotard's problematization of norms and justice, in his rather dispirited appeal to politics and in his historical self-characterization as postmodernist. A stubborn grief at the loss of unity remains - a rhetorical unity of orgellype (iraltristitia), which at least in emotional terms tries to hold on to what has been lost. (Luhmann and Fuchs, 1989: 10) This emotional retention of unity in contemporary cultural semantics makes time a battlefield in the search for social unity - even if this search is sublimated, as in Lyotard's concept of justice. Even the post- modernist plea for plurality, for the untranslatable differences between languages and ways of life (and for small histories), cannot escape from the distinction between unity and difference or universalism and particu- larism (Nassehi 1991: 208). As Welsch (1987: 250) indicates, such posi- tions are corroded by the enemy's poison. l5 This is not the place to discuss postmodernism and its semantical consequences. In my view, it is more interesting to consider the promi- at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 65 nent concepts of the postmodernist semantics of time: specifically, the phenomena of crisis resulting from the formalization of time as a chronos immune to meaning. This is true not only of Bergson's and Heidegger's dualist model of inner and outer time, but also of Nietzsche's criticism of chronical continuity, of Sloterdijk's cairological philosophy of the moment, of Baudrillard's thesis of hypertelia and even of Lyotard's conflict theory. Despite all of their differences, all of the above examples seem to have one thing in common: they consider the crisis of the modern era to be caused by the loss of time's ability to generate meaning. Meaning and time have become indifferent to each other. Moreover, they seem to oppose each other: if there is no meaning to be expected from time, it can no longer release any Utopian energies. These semantics reflect the appearance of modern, social time quite accurately, though only in a very negative fashion. Time is characterized by the diagnoses of crisis and loss; time is not what it once was. There are no kairoi, which could generate meaning; there is no continuity, which could relieve the burden of eternal recurrence; there is no history which provides identity and offers room to make decisions. This diagnosis is correct insofar as the culturally dominant time of modern society is not able to fulfil such functions. The critical and sometimes fatalistic tenor of such semantics initially appears to result from the theoretical problem that practical equivalents for these functions cannot be found in modernism. One is forced to ask how these practical equivalents are supposed to be found at all, as there is no longer any room for their conjectured function in the structure of modern society. This means that the problem is not one of theory, but rather of the question of how society observes the operations with which it produces irreversibilities (Luhmann, 1990b: 166) or, indeed, how it produces the chronos to which it is subject. The semantics described above observe these operations as a crisis phenomenon caused by time's immunity to meaning. The examples of the contemporary semantics of time used here all share the loss of a time which lent a specific quality to events occurring within its course. In comparison to early modern euphoria about history and progress, time has now lost any Utopian content. It even symbolizes the impossibility of Utopian concepts. As one can see in the work of Bergson, Heidegger, Nietzsche and Sloterdijk, it places meaning beyond society: inner experi- ence, the determination of being towards death (Entschlossenheit des Seins zum Tode), and Dionysian ecstasy are enclaves, as impossible as extinct volcanoes burning. But burn they do. Whoever turns their back on these volcanoes risks being burnt themselves. at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 66 ARMIN NASSEHI IV. Risk and Time In recent years quite a successful field of semantics has emerged regard- ing the risks which result from both actions and the failure to act. By means of these semantics, modern society observes itself and its temporal processing of irreversibilities. I should now like to consider some examples of this. Since the Chernobyl disaster, similar but apparently less dramatic catastrophes have occurred. It has become quite obvious that modern society runs great risks. The term risk does not mean that accidents, failures or unexpected things happen. Risk or, to put it more accurately, risk communication, involves anticipating now what damages might be incurred in the future, even though these are uncertain because one cannot know what they will be (Luhmann, 1990b: 138). As far as technical damage is concerned, this uncertainty is surprising as causality permits technical calculations which are meant to anticipate the scale of damage which might be suffered. To a certain extent these technical calculations use time and causality to divine future situations from decisions taken in the present. A sociologist of organization, Charles Perrow (1989) has made a brilliant study of the risks involved in technology. He demonstrates that risk calculation works satisfactorily - but only after an accident has occurred. Commissions can only say after- wards what mistakes were made in a given situation and what should have been done instead (Perrow, 1989: 24). When a situation emerges which could not have been predicted in spite of all the physical, chemical, electronic and other types of information available, it is tempting to attribute the accident to human error. Such mistakes might occur whilst operating machinery, or be due to incorrect assessments of the situation. However, Perrow shows that such an assumption implies too strong a degree of linearity, such that causal attributions are made on a homo- geneous time scale. Cause and effect are definitively linked in this linear formulation and can sometimes even be anticipated (Perrow, 1989: 125). This perspective fails to recognize, however, that technical systems which are likely to malfunction are very seldom linear systems. Perrow's analysis shows that such systems are mostly complex ones. In such sys- tems even linear chains of events happen simultaneously. Still, this simul- taneity does not mean that there is a deterministic relationship between these chains of events. As soon as the indeterminism of complex systems becomes apparent, it is obvious that unexpected events will become more likely as complexity increases. Definite expectations may turn out to be simplistic reductions. The conjecture of unexpected interactions has become more common, and now characterizes our social and political world as well as technology and industry. As complex systems (and the at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 67 number of their functions) expand, and as their environments become more hostile and the systems more closely interlinked, they will be more liable to malfunction (Perrow, 1989: 107). These systems lack a functional place from which the future of current operations can be clearly analysed, calculated and their consequences anticipated. Risk technology itself involves risk because provisions made for the future grow more uncer- tain, and the task of calculating system processes becomes more difficult, as the complexity of the systems themselves and of the simultaneity of their individual components increases. It immediately becomes evident that Perrow's analysis of highly com- plex technical systems can be applied to modem society as well. Society has also been differentiated into specific subsystems which operate simul- taneously. It too is highly complex, and this complexity excludes a linear manipulation of multiple chains of events. There is no place within society from which this manipulation might be attempted successfully. The immanence of this problem is quite evident because there are no transcendent viewpoints which would permit a religious interpretation of contingency as the wages of sin, as God's punishment or as fate. Modern society itself produces the emergencies to which it has to react. It can learn to understand these as the potential risks of its present actions. Risks are problems of time: time does not contain an inherent regu- larity, nor are there 'technological' procedures which condition temporal connections in a linear fashion. The selectivity and reciprocal action of events cannot be removed from their temporal mode. The future can only be anticipated within a framework of expectations informed and limited by current conditions. The concept of temporal connection always implies that current operations will influence future choices. 'Today,' as Luhmann (1990b: 142) writes, 'irreversible steps are taken which can either restrict or extend future possibilities.' However, only observers who already know the future of the present when it will be past (for example, an investigative commission) can realize the full consequences of these steps. At the moment of decision, the future is still a risky business: one knows that it will come, but the more complex the situation and the reciprocal links between the systems are, the less one knows what will actually occur. The temporal organization of modem society, the simultaneity of its different processes, the necessity to adjust processes temporally to each other, the unpredictability of the future: all of these factors make risk management absolutely essential. The unpredictable nature of the future and the necessity of taking decisions in the present (a necessity which in the modem era cannot be avoided by extending the present), exclude risk avoidance by risk management. The only certainty we have is that at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 68 ARMIN NASSEHI there are no certainties. One cannot expect to achieve safety by improv- ing technical facilities. Of course, nuclear power plants, planes and oil tankers can be built t@ run more safely. However, even the introduction of safety devices will produce new risks because one cannot interfere with complex systems without entailing risks. Perrow (1989: 22, 355) suggests that risks be compared and that avoidance strategies be used in an attempt to minimize these risks. Even if one disregards the fact that not only action but also the failure to act can be risky, the verdict that the avoidance of risks is impossible in a risk society is thus confirmed (Beck, 1986). If one observes modern society, bearing in mind the distinction between risk and security, one is confronted with a paradox: even efforts to increase safety may incur risk. The attempt to avoid risks altogether is bound to fail. Another possibility is presented by the social attribution of risks, to make those who (potentially or actually) cause damage res- ponsible for their actions. The public debate about ecological risks fol- lows exactly this line of thought: the culprit must be found, made respons- ible for hislher actions and forced to employ risk-avoidance techniques. This concept is quite reasonable and may be effective in some cases. However, the inevitable risks of temporal connections in complex social situations are not reduced, because however practicable such a principle may be in legal terms, it cannot alter the fact that risks will always arise. Modern society solves the problem that the future is uncertain and uncalculable (but affected by current time bonds) by turning from the temporal to the social dimension. Luhmann (1990b) therefore proposes to replace the distinction between risk and security, which only deals with the actual existence of probable damage, with the distinction between risk and danger. This latter distinction takes into account second-order observations about the type of potential damage expected, and who shares these expectations. If one does not simply observe risks and dangers as they ostensibly are, but also considers how they are observed, one will identify, first, the attribution of responsibility within society and, second, the constructs in which responsibility mayor may not be attributed to those decisions (Luhmann, 1990b: 137). These pro- cesses of apportioning blame may themselves cause problems. Uncer- tainty about the future is experienced as risk when people themselves make (or fail to make) decisions resulting in a chronic irreversibility, the effects of which will be felt in the future. It is not possible to dispose of nuclear waste or eradicate political decisions completely.16 Uncertainty will be experienced as danger when individuals are not involved in the decision-making process, but suffer as a consequence of incidents arising from the decisions taken. For the managers of a nuclear power plant, an at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 69 accident constitutes a risk. For the surrounding population, an accident means danger. Risks are the self-referential aspect of damage, whilst danger refers to others. Risks are not experienced by society singularly as technical catas- trophes. 17 Criminal law, for example, may take a risk by prohibiting abortion and then finding that this does not reduce the number of abor- tions, but increases the health risks for the women involved. If severe punishments are inflicted upon drug addicts, this may cause them to commit even more crimes which the law, in turn, will have to punish again. Policies which favour certain groups may risk a loss of overall votes. Investment is always risky because markets are highly dynamic and prices cannot be predicted. In medicine, the risks involved in an operation sometimes outweigh the expected benefits. In some cases, psychotherapy may cause greater problems than those the client com- plained about originally. School education involves the risk that students could lose interest in the subjects taught because of the school situation. Modern society appears to be risking the destruction of its very basis. This risk refers to more than the natural environment: Luhmann (1988: 169) questions 'whether modern society is producing the mentalities and particularly the motifs which will enable it to survive, or if historically unprecedented discrepancies have emerged in this field too'. Maybe global perspectives will change in the face of such a prediction: will the risks produced in modern society become a danger? The inevitability of this problem in the face of modern complexity shows that the mere attribution of responsibility can appear to establish social positions which can be located in political, legal and economic terms. However, this does not affect the problem of risks/dangers in the least. As Luhmann aptly remarks: Even global disasters tend to be attributed to particular decisions when attempts are made to avert them, even though their urgency is constituted by the impossibility of such attributions. . . . People think they know that the wrong decisions were made, whether for ecological or economic reasons. The problem with global disasters however is that one cannot establish which were the right or the wrong decisions. (Luhmann, 1990b: 168) These statements initially appear to resemble Baudrillard's thesis of the end of modernism. One can neither make decisions nor use time. On closer inspection, however, it becomes apparent that the problem has been moved from the social dimension back into the temporal one. Modern society deals with its risks in different ways: those who cause the damage must be found and controlled. The risk inherent in decisions must be distributed by wider participation in the decision-making pro- at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 70 ARMIN NASSEHI cess. Legal, political, economic, educational and medical programmes are designed to make a risk-free use of functional codes possible. These measures have evoked a good response in society. I would like to empha- size again that they are necessary if we are at least to try to switch from serious to minor risks. This is in spite of the fact that we all know very well (or perhaps we do not) that risk is inherent in the decision to employ low-risk strategies too. The anticipation of probable risks does not change the unpredictability of the future. The qualification of strategies as low-risk is an event taking place in the present. This present only knows its future as a present future, not as a future present, and cannot wait for the effects which may be felt in the future. The problem of unavoidable risk production in modern societies is, as a problem of time, caused by the unpredictability of the future. This unpredictability results from the complex simultaneity of different events and the multiple, non-linear interdependencies of a highly differentiated society. My brief outline shows that this problem of temporal connections (temporal dimension) can be solved neither by redundancies within the field of technology and linkage of security systems (factual dimension) nor by attribution and participation (social dimension). The phenomenon of risk provides an example of how the three dimensions have drifted apart in the course of modernization and increasing social differentiation. Time actually becomes an abstract dimension of the world with concrete effects. On the one hand, the modern chronos, which owes its existence to the temporal coordination of simultaneous, separate events, upgrades the immediate present because society is in a state of permanent dynam- ics. On the other hand, the present loses its creative character: as the theatre of action, it is always looking towards the future. Nevertheless, it is unable to form the future because of dynamics, risks and, most of all, the immense potential of simultaneous events upon which current actions can have no effect. The aim of the early modern period was to shape the world and time, and to initiate future progress by historical legitimacy. At the current stage of development in the modern age, time itself allows for the formulation and control of events neither in the factual nor in the social dimension. It is to be expected that the problem of fundamental risks will not be solved on the traditional battlefields of the modern age - social justice, political participation and the legal imposition of norms. Second-order observation forces one to admit that modern society does not have a viewpoint from which all participants can perceive risks, let alone one from which these risks can be controlled and avoided. This verdict does not help anyone to solve the problem either, yet the irrational desire to control risks is still prevalent amongst sociologists. Whereas Friedrich at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 71 Engels (1962) thought that the Utopian content of socialism could be managed scientifically if used as potential planning material and Karl Mannheim (1958: 136) felt that a 'conscious attempt to correct social injustice on the basis of a thorough knowledge of social mechanisms' was possible and desirable, the trust placed in the possibility of control- ling future processes has waned considerably in the meantime. The epistemological standards of modem social sciences will no longer tolerate the use of linear models based on definite causal attributions, even if public opinion continues to urge the political system to correct mistakes. An understanding of time has emerged which places its trust in the causal formation of future events because it can no longer trust in the future itself. The risk society needs constant risk management because it knows from past experience that the future will not match up with its expectations. The paradox involved in risk management is its use of techniques resulting from events which it refuses to accept as impossible. Therefore, the time in which risk management takes place is no time for Utopia because the currently anticipated necessity of correct- ing the future cannot believe in the future. It is not insignificant that our relation to the future is described as fearful. Fear is nothing more than the anticipation of the unknown. This management of time is no use to Utopian concepts. One cannot trust time any more because it necessarily produces unknown events. The presentation of risks as a problem of time fits in very well with the concepts of time mentioned above, but without duplicating them. Whereas an argument based on these concepts is that time has lost quality and meaning, the semantics of risk reveal the discontinuity of imagined temporal continuity. No one point in time can give any guaran- tees for another point in time because the structure of society itself has started to become conditional. Stable social structures of older societies were able to anticipate the future by linking their expectations with a continuity of traditions. Early modernism generally described itself as aiming at a better future, if only the right way could be found. Contem- porary modernism has changed its method of self-perception radically. Structural expectations are becoming increasingly unpredictable. As far as time is concerned, this does not mean that one must predict its end: time no longer has a meaningful, unifying function. On the contrary, the increasingly dynamic character of the modem period symbolizes the importance of time as a scheme of observation. As a chronos, it has become independent because the difference between 'before' and 'afterwards' or 'past' and 'future' is unable to qualify exactly what time means in the factual and social dimension. By having the risks of time permanently in view, the modem risk society experiences the at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 72 ARMIN NASSEHI paradox that time is only at its disposal within time, that is, it is bound to a series of presents, which, one after the other, change the appearance of time again and again. Modern society can no longer be described in terms which are generally valid or socially acceptable. More importantly, a temporally universal description has also become impossible. With each new present, the world changes. This tells us that the future exists only as a construct of the present. It is inevitably a terra incognita. Attempts at dissolving paradoxes by treating the future as a future pres- ent are increasingly less likely to succeed because disappointments are built into this method. This confirms my thesis that modern concepts of time reveal the social ineffectuality of Utopian ideas in the risky modern age. To call for 'universal nihilism' or 'the end of time', is to render the risk-generating difference of the present future and the future present invisible. Luhmann (1990b: 153) stresses that risk communication itself is potentially risky, because this process shows who makes the decisions. It may be equally risky for the modern society to do without risk com- munication and hold on to metaphors of unity, which no longer correlate with features of the social structure. This must lead to a negation of the present which categorically excludes a productive theory of society. The management of the temporal dimension depends upon the question of how modernism describes its temporal risks in scientific terms and in the different languages of its functional subsystems. These semantics also influence the choice of functional equivalents which could be used to replace the contemporary concepts of risk avoidance, concepts which retain a traditional understanding of politics, economy and law. Not only the concepts of time mentioned above, which deny modern time any specific quality, but also the implications of risk semantics for time clearly show that in a functionally differentiated and modernized society meaning and time have drifted apart. Time does not signify Utopia and the prospect of an ideal and intact world. The concepts of time considered here symbolize, rather, that it is no longer possible for Utopian concepts to have social significance. Time is becoming anti-Utopian. Salvation and all that is good and desirable seem to have lost both their place (topos) and their time (chronos). Utopia is now accompanied by uchronia. Semantics which are based on the distinction between qualitative and quantitative time show us that the actual location of these objectives is within areas which are excluded from modern society: inner temporality, Dionysian ecstasy, kairos. These areas are not contaminated by modern time and, consequently, have no time in the modern age. One can only expect to find Utopian potential if modern space and modern time are evaded. A world-immanent reali- at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 73 zation of this Utopian potential is not expected in the first place. In the cultural dimension, the 'New Age', science fiction, fantasy and certain kinds of therapy appear to serve as the functional equivalents of former Utopian concepts which had social significance and meaning. Still, they openly admit: we do not even believe in ourselves. is In conclusion, therefore, I would argue that Nietzsche's (1980) time concept is possibly the most modern. What initially appears to be the restitution of myth cycles turns out to be the eternal recurrence of the same, that is, the recurrence of a series of presents. Despite these pres- ents, we are faced with the insoluble dilemma of not being able to use our past as a potential nor of even knowing our future. From Nietzsche one can learn that history is not a learning process, and yet because one has learned this from Nietzsche, one realizes that the possibility of learn- ing has not been ruled out. Notes The author wishes to thank Gerd Nollmann and Caroline Bland for translating the German text into English. 1. Quotations given in the text will usually be the author's translations. 2. These dimensions are based on the work of Niklas Luhmann. He distin- guishes between three dimensions of meaning, according to which psychic and social events can be observed: the factual dimension (Sachdimension) qualifies what exists in the world, such as things, theories, opinions etc. The social dimension (Sozialdimension) records who considers these things, theories, opinions etc. The temporal dimension (Zeitdimension) provides information about when things happen (Luhmann, 1984a: 112). 3. This is not the place to go into detail about the systems theory of functional differentiation (Kneer and Nassehi, 1993: 111). Also see newer translations of Luhmann's works (cp. Luhmann, 1984b, 1989, 1990c, 1993). 4. I do not give any further evidence here because this fact is generally accepted, and because there are numerous studies on this subject. The motive mutatis mutandis can be found in studies by Georg Simmel, Max Scheler, Helmut Schelsky, Peter L. Berger, Friedrich H. Tenbruck, Ulrich Beck and others. 5. See Landes (1983) for the different techniques of time measurement. He provides a great deal of information about the history of time measurement by clocks, which, of course, did not start in the 20th century, but became more and more important functionally as traditional life styles started to dissolve (compare also Janich, 1980: Schmied, 1985: 66; Wendorff, 1985; Whitrow, 1991: 157). 6. The genesis of this time structure is paradoxical: the uniformity of world- time results from the homogeneity of the measuring parameter, a homogen- eity which can only be found by the use of its derivative, that is: clock-time. The form of time is found within time. The observation of the homogeneity at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 74 ARM IN NASSEHI of time constituting events is made by the transformation into spatial hom- ogeneity. This is quite obvious for conventional clocks because the hand runs along a homogeneous scale. An oscillograph works with a homogeneous abscissa, under or above which the amplitudes of cesium atoms or quartz disperse one after another. However, the transformation into space serves to render the temporal paradox invisible, because the spatial homogeneity can only be derived from the uniform motion of the hand or oscillograph. This, however, is a derivative of temporal differences, which makes the paradox visible again. It may be the paradox itself which suggests considering time as something real, an object which is measured by clocks. This way, one does not see the self-referentiality of time, which is a measure of itself. 7. I speak of world-/clock-time (Welt-lUhrenzeit) because on the one hand it symbolizes transcendence of the difference of system and environment as world-time and, on the other hand, it appears in semantics as numerical clock-time (compare in detail: Nassehi, 1993: 325). 8. Bergson and Heidegger are the most prominent examples. Similar proof can be found in the entire philosophy of existence, but also in phenomenology. 9. In contrast to Bergson and Heidegger, Nietzsche of course does not distin- guish between inner and outer time. The only criticism these authors share with Nietzsche is that of quantitative, vulgar and historical time, which is immune to meaning and the alleged continuity of which they unmask. 10. A similar motive can be found in Paul Virilio's theory of speed (dromology), which focuses on the threat posed to human needs, which are naturally slow, by the acceleration of processes. 'We can state that the liquidation of humanity continues and the liquefaction of ports (railway stations, airports) is accompanied by the extinction of the traveller in transportation. The alter ego is viewed only according to his more or less steady image; the social partner is not a partner with full rights any more, but a short term human being, whose transitory (political or cultural) presence is constantly shrinking' (Virilio, 1989: 51). 11. The new euphoria is connected mostly with Jiirgen Habermas. His attempts at parallelizing Piaget's psychology of development with the evolution of philosophies (Habermas, 1976: 62, 93) are linked to the Enlightenment tradition of progress and the glorification of secularized historical time. The project of modernity which is not yet completed tends towards its fulfilment (Habermas, 1981b: 444). This fulfilment is effected by the logic of history itself or the faith of the present in the possibility of attaining understanding in the future if the correct procedures are followed. 12. I do not wish to imply that Baudrillard aims at an Enlightenment perspective with universalist contents. On the contrary, he complains that all the uni- versalist Utopias have been fulfilled (Baudrillard, 1985: 85; Welsch 1987: 149). As they have all been fulfilled, there is nothing left to be fulfilled. This means the end of necessary temporalization of complexity and therefore the end of time. 13. How could this conceivably be different in a functionally differentiated society? 14. Quite traditionally, Lyotard uses the 'economic kind of discourse' as proof of this. This discourse integrates time into economic relations of exchange. at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from NO TIME FOR UTOPIA 75 The priority of economy takes the time it needs and withholds it from other discourses (Lyotard, 1983: 286). 15. Welsch gives a survey of the different concepts which claim to be postmod- emist or are discussed in postmodemist contexts. In addition to his brilliant description, Welsch introduces his own concept, which he calls 'transversal reason' (1987: 295). However, his concept also seems to be at least irritated by enemy's poison. All he does is to interpret Lyotard's concept of justice with a different set of terms, and show more faith in the potential of a sensible and just coordination of language games. 16. The example of nuclear waste is obvious. However, one cannot eliminate political decisions either, because one cannot undo past events. 17. In actual fact, the social aspect includes the technological one, because society can perceive large-scale facilities as a risk or danger only if it discusses them in terms of risk or danger. 18. This may be the reason for their economic success. It is not only time which is indifferent to what happens in it, but also money which is indifferent to what it pays for. References Baudrillard, Jean (1985) Die Fatalen Strategien. Munich. Baudrillard, Jean (1990) Das Jahr 2000 findet nicht statt. Berlin. Beck, Ulrich (1986) Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine Andere Moderne. FrankfurtlMain. 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Zweites StUck: Vom Nutzen und Nachtheil der Historie flir das Leben', in Giorgio Colli and Maz- zino Montinari (eds) Samtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Banden Vo!. 1, pp. 242-334. MunichIBerlinlNew York. Perrow, Charles (1989) Normale Katastrophen. Die unvermeidbaren Risiken der GroJ3technik. Frankfurt!MainINew York. Schelsky, Helmut (1965) Auf der Suche nach Wirklichkeit. DiisseldorflCologne. Schmidt, Rudi (1988) Reflexive Meditationen iiber die Zeit. Bericht von einem kleinen Experiment, iiber Zeit nachzusinnen Jenseits ihrer Sozialen Logizitat', in Rainer Zoll (ed.) Zerstorung und Wiederaneignung von Zeit, pp. 664-72. FrankfurtlMain. Schmied, Gerhard (1985) Soziale Zeit. Umfang, 'Geschwindigkeit' und Evolution. Berlin. Simmel, Georg (1983) Philosophische Kultur. Ober das Abenteuer, die Geschlech- ter und die Krise der Moderne. Gesammelte Essays. Berlin. Sloterdijk, Peter (1990) 'Das Andere am Anderen. Zur Philosophischen Situation der Alternativbewegungen', in Dietmar Kamper and Christoph Wulf (eds) Ruckblick auf das Ende der Welt, pp. 94-125. Spencer Brown, George (1971) Laws of Form, 2nd ed. London. Virilio, Paul (1989) Der Negative Horizont. Bewegung - Geschwindigkeit - Beschleunigung. MunichIVienna. Weber, Max (1972) Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Religionssoziologie, Vo!. 1. Tiib- ingen. Welsch, Wolfgang (1987) Unsere Postmoderne Moderne. Weinheim. Wendorff, Rudolf (1985) Zeit und Kultur. Geschichte des ZeitbewuJ3tseins in Europa, 3rd ed. Opladen. at UB Muenchen on October 7, 2010 tas.sagepub.com Downloaded from 78 ARM IN NASSEHI Whitrow, Gerald J. (1991) Die Erfindung der Zeit. Hamburg. Zerubavel, Eviatar (1981) Hidden Rhythms, Schedules and Calendars in Social Life. Chicago, IULondon. ARMIN NASSEHI, Dr phil., born in 1960 in TUbingen in Germany, studied sociology, philosophy and educational sciences. Since 1988 he has been a lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of MUnster, Germany. His dissertation was on 'The Time of Society. On the Way to a Sociological Theory of Time' (Die Zeit der Gesellschaft. Auf dem Weg zu einer soziologischen Theorie der Zeit, Opladen, 1993). His current fields in research and teaching are sociological theory, systems theory, sociology of time, migration, sociological aspects of death and dying and sociology of biography. ADDRESS: Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat MUnster, Institut fUr Soziologie/Sozialpiidagogik, Scharnhorststrasse 121, D-48151 MUns- ter, Germany. Fax: 49 251 523011.
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