The meaning of historical events remains perpetually in suspense

Evidence

Thus the for-itself is an absolute Unselbständig, what we have called a non-substantial absolute. Its reality is purely interrogative. If it can posit questions this is because it is itself always in question; its being is never given but interrogated since it is always separated from itself by the nothingness of otherness. The for-itself is always in suspense because its being is a perpetual reprieve. If it could ever join with its being, then the otherness would by the same stroke disappear and along with it possibles, knowledge, the world. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1433 (#expands, via linked claim)

With the defeat of Nazi Germany, part of the story had come to an end. This seemed the first appropriate moment to look upon contemporary events with the backward-directed glance of the historian and the analytical zeal of the political scientist, the first chance to try to tell and to understand what had happened, not yet sine ira et studio, still in grief and sorrow and, hence, with a tendency to lament, but no longer in speechless outrage and impotent horror. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 35 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The past is kept in suspense by the perpetual expectation that freedom generates.; The meaning of a person’s past stays in suspense until death; Historical writing begins only when events close enough to permit backward analysis — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 35 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The meaning of a person’s past stays in suspense until death #expands (0.85)
• The for-itself’s interrogative being keeps consciousness in perpetual suspense #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1433
• Historical writing begins only when events close enough to permit backward analysis #expands (0.72) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 35