Text 7: Measurable Time, Weight of the Past and Illusions of Progress (2021)
About a year ago while the COVID-19 pandemic has been starting, I came across, through a webinar, an interview of a film director sharing an opinion on a side effect of the pandemic in a phenomenon way. “I believe this outbreak will make people living and experiencing in a different sense of their preceding time of life. The time will be slower.”, he said. When I heard of it, I did not understand the meaning of what he said. I would say I could not imagine how it can be. My initiative response was to ask in my mind, is not it should be the opposite? Shall we feel like we should be in rush for things we could not do right now?
But when the time had passed, for a year, many of my thoughts during the pandemic-time have been gradually formed. Those which have been dwelling on some undefined and undetermined future time somehow got me focusing on the present time. And it seems like time is a bit longer. I am not sure is there anyone having been in the state like me. If there is, the article I mention in this essay is worth reading.
The Brief History of the Idea of Progress by Alain de Benoist is a short article informing some milestones in the idea of progress which formulating our nowadays perception of goal and failure. The article will give you some intrinsic notions we always presuppose on in life. Those which are the consequence of the Christianity a field I hardly know. I will not deal here with the dispute of topics in the article, but I would like to mention some principles and repercuss parts I relate to. To give you a seduction of reading this article. Here is a significant paragraph I encourage you to read.
“The three key ideas: (1) a linear conception of time and the idea that history has a meaning, oriented the future; (2) the idea of the fundamental unity of humanity, all called to evolve in the same direction together; and (3) the idea that the world can and must be transformed, which implies that man asserts himself as sovereign master of nature”. (Benoist, 2008)
The article spends some time on articulating how do those reformulated ideas in secular societies affect human after the rise of science and technology in 17th century: the occurrence of idea of the infinite possible improvement, the becoming of homogenous and measurable clock and time, the being displaced of the peasant time by bourgeois class which commanding the measurable time in the present, the comparison of present and past and so on.
There is so massive information in detail that it needs quite well-rounded approach to grasp. But at least I found a pillar I can hold on in this unusual current time. Besides, those ideas also lead me questioning notions I have been shaped in life until now.
Anyone who is struggling with the idea of guilt, of being not good enough and of being success in life is recommended.
The article link: https://www.scribd.com/document/232471059/A-Brief-History-of-the-Idea-of-Pogress 
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