In nineteenth-century discourse the present became the moment of universal truth

Evidence

And now we have a very different grid of historical intelligibility. Once history is polarized around the nation/State, virtuality/actuality, functional totality of the nation/real universality of the State, you can see clearly that the present becomes the fullest moment, the moment of the greatest intensity, the solemn moment when the universal makes its entry into the real. It is at this point that the universal comes into contact with the real in the present (a present that has just passed and will pass), in the imminence of the present, and it is this that gives the present both its value and its intensity, and that establishes it as a principle of intelligibility. The present is no longer the moment of forgetfulness. On the contrary, it is the moment when the truth comes out, when what was obscure or virtual is revealed in the full light of day. As a result, the present both reveals the past and allows it to be analyzed. — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 242

Categorization

• XREF: This inversion of the present is a load-bearing mechanism for how modern ideologies naturalize the nation/state — carries directly into Anderson’s imagined community and the Islamophobia field. — connects to: This work is concerned with awakening from the nineteenth century — The City as Dreamworld and Catastrophe; Nineteenth-century Europe traded Enlightenment universalism for imperialist superiority — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 119; Truth about the past limits human power, future-dependent truth expands it — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2937 (+3 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The shift of the present from a trough of forgetfulness to the moment of truth-coming-into-the-real is a dense, paradigm-shifting recharacterization of how historical discourse constitutes political subjectivity.

Related

• Eighteenth-century history treated the present as a trough of forgetfulness (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Truth about the past limits human power, future-dependent truth expands it #complicates (0.80) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2937
• Historico-political discourse claims partisan truth that functions as a weapon, excluding juridical universality #exemplifies (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 283
• Nineteenth-century Europe traded Enlightenment universalism for imperialist superiority #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 119
• The eighteenth century made abstract universal humanity sacred over particular persons #contradicts (0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 532
• Positivist truths are linguistic illusions grown canonical through use #complicates (0.72)