ABSTRACT

The French philosopher Sylviane Agacinski has argued that modernity is best defined as “a certain way of thinking about time” that revolves around the present. 1 Modern humans seem to have resigned themselves to the short-term view of things arriving, passing and returning again. We seem to be liberated from any necessity of history or eternity but are confined to unmeasurable degrees of contingency. 2 Although Agacinski is reluctant to engage in nostalgic lamentation, she believes that impatient stock markets should no longer be allowed to define what counts as profitable use of time. 3 She is also skeptical of our continuous quest for “real-time” information. 4 In Agacinski’s view, the effect of this “compression of time” is that people no longer have time to think and deliberate in private or semipublic contexts so as to be responsible citizens. 5