Modernity’s future is a teleology already accomplished, at once open and closed

Evidence

Hegel puts into perspective two temporal modes: teleology, corresponding to the Greek form of ‘to see (what is) coming’, and alienation, corresponding to the modern form of ‘to see (what is) coming’. The arrangement of these two times determines the future of those creatures who no longer have time ahead of themselves, who live out a teleology which is shattered because already accomplished. Such a future is both beautiful and terrible. Beautiful because everything can still happen. Terrible, because everything has already happened. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1279

Once the resistance of the dialectic is properly felt, we can appreciate its capacity to enter into dialogue with whatever is other than itself, to welcome its posterity and to let itself be surprised by that. It is not only in the workings of philosophical debate that this resistance is detected. A certain condition of modernity also reveals it. Hegel puts into perspective two temporal modes: teleology, corresponding to the Greek form of ‘to see (what is) coming’, and alienation, corresponding to the modern form of ‘to see (what is) coming’. The arrangement of these two times determines the future of those creatures who no longer have time ahead of themselves, who live out a teleology which is shattered because already accomplished. Such a future is both beautiful and terrible. Beautiful because everything can still happen. Terrible, because everything has already happened. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1279

Categorization

• XREF: This shattering of teleology and the ‘beautiful and terrible’ future parallels the double bind the reader traces in plasticity’s brain work — structural fixity that still permits transformation. — connects to: Simplification is the essence and aim of speculative teleology.; Modernity is defined by an permanently unfinished, self-transcending orientation toward the unrealized — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 430; Modernity’s defining trait is permanent self-transcendence toward an unreachable state. (+3 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The compressed paradox — everything can still happen because nothing new ever can — is a dense meditation on modernity’s temporal condition, resisting paraphrase.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1279

Broader Connections

• Modernity is defined by an permanently unfinished, self-transcending orientation toward the unrealized #expands (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 430
• Modernity’s defining trait is permanent self-transcendence toward an unreachable state. #expands (0.80)