Undifferentiated societies fuse past and future into a mythic other of the present

Evidence

Otthein Rammstedt worked this out systematically in an influential essay that postulates four forms of experienced time and time consciousness that unfold in accordance with the evolutionary development of social structures and are accompanied by very different time horizons and thus produce radically different action orientations and self-relations. According to this scheme, simple, undifferentiated societies tend to have an “occasional” time consciousness whose experience of time only differentiates in general between a “now” and a “not now,” so that past and future are fused together as the (mythically constituted) Other of the present. The claim that human beings “always already” had at their disposal quite concrete and similar representations of past and future is thus rendered permanently suspect. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 83

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Rammstedt’s four forms of time consciousness, beginning with the ‘occasional’ form of simple societies.
• XREF: Connects to Loewen’s ‘the past is not dead’ treatment and pre-industrial time-reckoning work from A World of Strangers (event-based, person-bound time). — connects to: Traditional societies use the past as the template for the present — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 642; The myth shapes the present while being reshaped by it. — David Ohana, David Maisel , The Origins of Israeli…, 774; Foundational myths rewrite predicted futures as descriptions of an already-past beginning. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 828

Broader Connections

• Traditional societies use the past as the template for the present #corroborates (0.85) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 642
• Foundational myths rewrite predicted futures as descriptions of an already-past beginning. #corroborates (0.80) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 828
• The myth shapes the present while being reshaped by it. #expands (0.75) — David Ohana, David Maisel , The Origins of Israeli…, 774