The third aspect of time: the present articulating the past and the future future

Present:

Ontology

Future as Horizon of Expectation Past as

Space of Experience

Figure 2.4 The 2nd aspect of time in policy narrative

The past as space of experience pointing to the present ontology

2.1.4.3 The third aspect of time: the present articulating the past and the future

The third aspect of time dissected from the utterance of a narrative is the aspect of 'the present' articulated by the very articulation: The speech act articulates the present as connecting the past and the future as it (the speech act) articulates past, future and present.

First, each speech act articulates 'the past' pointing to 'the present'. It does so in the sense that it involves an ontology; i.e. it implies a claim concerning the way the world is at the present moment – possibly caused by how it was in the past.

Further, each speech act articulates 'the future' as a horizon of possibilities visible from the viewpoint of the present. Finally, a speech act takes the form of a narrative

by presenting not just a static ontology and a horizon of possibilities but also a projection of the past into the future, onto a specific point of the horizon. However, it simultaneously takes the form of a policy narrative by – implicitly or explicitly – presenting more possible futures distributed along the horizon. As a policy narrative it presents the future as a choice between at least two options: One option is presented as an 'oughtology'; a preferred future which is possible if 'we' act in a specific way.

One or more different options are presented as 'oughtnotologies'; futures we should avoid. These oughtnotologies may include the result of an automatic extrapolation of the past (with no action taken) and/or the result of one or more policy alternatives.

It is in the time of the articulation that necessity, contingency, possibility, and impossibility is constructed to connect a past and a series of possible futures.

White reminds us to

distinguish between a historical discourse that narrates, on the one side, and a discourse that narrativizes on the other: between a discourse that openly adopts a perspective that looks out on the world and reports it and a discourse that feigns to make the world speak of itself and speak itself as a story. (White 1980:6-7; 1987:202; cf. Gottweiss 2006:471) Historical and political discourses in particular are often narativizing discourses – i,e, discourses presenting themselves as discourses without a narrator. But no discourse speaks by itself. It needs to be articulated. The aim of analysis should be the denaturalization of narrativizing articulations. It does not suffice to philosophically deconstruct in the abstract the logical square of modalities opposing necessity with impossibility and contingency with possibility;³⁴ what is needed is an analysis of the practical construction and implications of the narrative production of necessities, contingencies, possibilities, and impossibilities.

Foucault writes on the role of genealogy in relation the present:

34 Cf. the critique of Derrida in Shepherdson 2009.

We want historians to confirm our belief that the present rests upon profound intentions and immutable necessities. ... [But t]he purpose of history, guided by genealogy, is not to discover the roots of our identity but to commit itself to its dissipation. (Foucault 1977:155; 162)

This dissertation commits to the same ethos, but directs the attention to the necessities of the future. More specifically, it directs itself to the relations which are articulated to be necessary to support the necessities of the future. Guided by this commitment, the focus must be on the speech act as the site of production of the narrative.

The speech act articulates the present as connecting the past and the future. It does so by presenting a specific combination of necessity and choice as necessary: Some elements of the past are projected into the future as having necessary consequences.

Other elements are pointed out as contingent and thereby potential objects of intentional change; as objects ripe for policy choice. By presenting some futures as possible as the result of policy choices, it hides other futures as impossible – and it hides the choices made in constructing causes and effects and thereby deciding what constitutes necessities and what is open to change.

So the dissertation accepts that a policy narrative needs a projection to the future. But it does not award primacy to the future, as the projection does not have in advance one fixed target on the horizon of expectation; it needs to be projected, to be articulated, to be made present. In parallel, the dissertation accepts that a policy narrative needs a past of sedimented baggage. But it does not award primacy to the past, as the past needs to be selected and grasped together; it needs to be articulated;

it needs to be made present.

For the purpose of analysing policy narratives, the dissertation insist on the primacy of politics in the sense of "taking a decision in an undecidable terrain" (Torfing 1999:304). Policy narratives present a package deal of a distinct past and one or more

projected futures. The point of analysing policy narrative is to untie the package deal presented by the articulation. By untying the package the analyst insist on, firstly, keeping the horizon of the future open for the possible projections hidden by the selected projections; and, secondly, holding the articulator responsible for the choice made.

On the one hand, like "For Heidegger, the present is not some endless series of now points that I watch flowing by. Rather, the present is something that I can seize hold of and resolutely make my own." (Critchley 2009a) So far, so good: Decisions are made. But on the other hand, for Heidegger the space opened is closed down again:

"What is opened in the anticipation of the future is the fact of our having-been which releases itself into the present moment of action." (Critchley 2009a) And "this 'moment of vision' [Augenblick, Øieblik] is not just any present – it is a translation of the Greek kairos, the right moment." (2009a)

This means that if we follow Heidegger, there is just one true choice and no more analysis: "freedom consists in the affirmation of the necessity of one's mortality. It is only in being-towards-death that one can become the person who one truly is."

(Critchley 2009a) As argued, the decisions narrated by collective subjectivities produce a different kind of truth.

The dissertation attempts to study present politics as Kosselleck studies past history.^F35F The ontology constructed should make it obvious to focus at the agents exactly at the point where the space of experience ends and the horizon of

35 Koselleck sometimes reads as if there were no present, no choice, no articulation – as if past and future is what constitutes their own relation: "expectation and experience ...

simultaneously constitute history and its cognition. They do so by demonstrating and producing the inner relation between past and future earlier, today, or tomorrow."

(Koselleck 1985:270). This entanglement of past pasts and past futures is, however, exactly what should be disentangled by analysis.

expectation are opened up. Or – since this is impossible, as this present is already past – to fix them as responsible for the just-articulated present.

Past as Cause

Future as Horizon of Expectation Future as

Prognosis

Future as Policy Articulating present Past as

Space of Experience

Figure 2.5 The 3rd aspect of time in policy narrative.

The present as prognosis-and-policy articulating past experience as cause for future expectation

Figure 2.5 illustrates how the third aspect of time in a policy narrative – the present – articulates, firstly, the past as a space of experience organized to point as a cause to the present ontology; secondly, the future as an implicit or explicit choice between specific projections onto the horizon of expectations.

2.1.5 The structure of policy narratives and the politics of