A certain attitude is present in the modern era, or perhaps in any era. This attitude I term the arrogance of the present, the idea that the present moment is privileged over other moments. The present is often evaluated using measurements that favour the present. The global bestseller Homo Deus amongst other works is emblematic of this trick where, as an evangelist of modern times, everything is framed to be better than before. It does this by selecting measurements such as GDP or the number of wars to argue why everything is better in the present than in some arbitrary past.
Yet how we measure success is relative to whatever moment those evaluating find themselves in. Measuring the present day in medieval Christian terms, we might think modern Western society is a massive failure as millions of people turn away from God and live heathen, heretical, atheist lives. Who would measure success in economic growth, amongst other things, if our primary concern is the eternal afterlife and not earthly things of a temporary nature such as the growth of the economy (at least concerned with it up to the point of sufficiency as certain base needs must always be met). It is difficult to find objective measures by which we can compare the present to the past. The number of child deaths or preventable diseases due to the advancement of modern medicine is a measure most could agree on. But the same technological advancements that have allowed these things to happen also coincide with other developments that have led to millions of people dying from lung cancer due to air pollution and other preventable factors. Or these developments have led to unforeseen growth of the global population in the past two centuries which in turn has amplified suffering across the board. Yes, many things are treatable with antibiotics and so on but this is distributed unevenly across the globe and many preventable deaths (famines, diseases and so on) happen all the same and on a larger scale.
War is another consequence of the modern age as in the age of the nation state war is an absolute affair where entire peoples become consumed. The modern age of nation states has seen a total scale of war nigh impossible in the pre-mechanical age of human society. The total scale of war means that the entire society participates in war. War is no longer a somewhat diffuse thing with skirmishes between individual lords that might be part of the same culture. War in the modern era is total, when we are at war with a nation even the language of that nation becomes dubious, and anyone who belongs to that nation (as citizen, cultural adherent, ethnically, or otherwise) becomes suspect. Allegiance is measured in terms of passive qualities of an individual rather than their acts and anyone showing an interest in the enemy nation is, by default, suspicious. Even cultural outputs by the enemy nation are often deemed problematic, evidence of past ambitions of empire or host to the vile traits we now associate with the enemy.
Alienation of labour and sophisticated forms of oppression are other innovations of the mechanical (and now digital) era that are often overlooked in the celebratory account of the modern era (for how could they be celebratory otherwise). But why discuss these abstract terms when the global economic hierarchy owes its inheritance to oppression and is only enabled by oppression. Suffering keeps the majority of the economy going; it keeps prices low and consumer goods purchasable at a price that is deemed reasonable. Suffering and oppression that has led to untold wealth that is concentrated mostly in the hands of the few, as even in highly developed economies, wealth inequality is staggering. But by and large, in the more developed economies, basic needs are met, perhaps making these inequalities bearable. Or what’s the use of revolution for more equality when my needs are met? A cynic might argue that I had better play it safe and keep what I have (however basic) than perhaps lose everything.
An underlying theme of celebrating the present day is that one would not want to live in the past as things are certainly better now. This is of course mostly a first-world account of world affairs as many now considered underdeveloped countries look back on a history full of golden ages. Most places have a golden age, be it mythical or actual. The Islamic Golden Age would most likely be a better alternative than the instability of the past hundred years wrought by various forms of (colonial) violence. The same can be said for many subjugated people today.
The arrogance of the presence seems a modern-day problem. But is this not in itself part of the preference of the present? is this simply human thinking to prefer the present. We can only think in the now; our life-world is our only reference with which to compare things. In a sense, all media is about finding new references to escape from the tyranny of the lived experience. Can we ever escape our own experiences? We cannot escape the present moment as even living in the past (and future) is constituted in the present.
What might be new in modernity is the sense of progress. Things will ostensibly improve continuously, and the future will be brighter than it was in the past. The economy will always improve, things will always improve. The idea that our children will grow up in a world that is profoundly different from our own is a new concept. The speed of technological change since the Industrial Revolution is ridiculous. With it comes ideas of improvement and the idea of generational difference. This is different from conceptions of time in the pre-modern era, where the past, or the idea of the ancient, was a source of inspiration. The utopian past dynasties grant legitimacy to the ruling classes of the present, from which we source our way of living. Or the present as a stage to get through before we join in communion with a divine being. What does it matter whether the present world is good or bad when endless glory awaits us in the afterlife? These different considerations of being in time should not be forgotten when considering our modern-day obsession with the present and with improvement in the present.
The idea that the present moment is the best moment underlies a type of thinking where one does not want to live in an age that is on a downward turn. Crisis must be manageable, and the economy can and must always grow. We live in an age of constant optimism with the idea of continuous, everlasting growth. Technocrats promise us that the modern-day problems of technology (e.g., climate change polarisation through social media) can be solved with more technology. Or that things would be better if we could build more environmentally friendly cars and better algorithms as the argument often goes. A better alternative would be to think about why we need this much stuff in the first place, or why we use technology as a substitute for neighbourly relations, but this thinking touches core assumptions of a system that relies on continuous forward momentum. Stopping and thinking why we do things is not a feature of the type of system the world is enveloped in.
But are things continuously better for our children? even looking at some of the wealthiest countries with the lowest suffering and the highest happiness. Are things better in the 1930s than they were in the 1960s (ignoring war suffering and so on). Are things better in the 1980s than they were in the 1970s or are things better in 2015 than 2000. Of course, they are better for certain sexual and gender minorities amongst others as well as minorities in certain places, there is no denying this. But this at once focuses the historical gaze on a narrow period, taking certain parameters to argue for the present moment. We not only favour the present but also favour close history. But the past is closed to us whether it is fifty years or five hundred years ago. Both are valid points of comparison, and one should not be privileged. The memory of lived experience forms but another media through which the past is remembered.
Things are faster, computers, media, messaging people, but are they better? Are people happier; is there a scale of happiness that we thought went to ten but with high-definition films; videogames and faster internet actually goes to fifteen. And now with Virtual Reality and Alternate Reality and who knows what in the future the happiness scale might go to twenty and will keep rising and rising forever. This is, of course, taking out of consideration the many who do not have access to these devices, but who often suffer to grant a select few the means to enrich themselves.
But barring ecstasy through the occasional sublime or awesome experience and / or drugs, happiness has a plateau. Continuous or constant happiness might be a better measure. But happiness is not the only measure of course, worthiness or usefulness, sense of purpose or sense of place are all just as equal measures of well being. The idea that happiness and positivity are most important in one’s life is a modern idea fed to us by an industry that sells happiness and positivity. But one can lead a miserable life, but still live a good and worthy live. And one can lead a happy but worthless life, in the final tally. to practice being good at something is to account many hours of suffering in order for some idea of progress. To experience frustration and moments of despair to prepare oneself for a sublime experience. Of course one might argue that these hardships are only bearable for a delayed joy when the work has been accomplished, perhaps a kind of hedonistic utilitarianism, but this kind of thinking goes contrary to the modern ethos of smooth and easy (and often consumed) gratification.
We want to believe we live in the best of times because that is what we measure ourselves in. We measure progress now. And our idea of progress is a measure of the times. we measure it with technology, with finance, GDP; we measure it in terms of population numbers and age ranges and productivity and natural resources. The number of religious converts for most countries has also become a meaningless statistic with which to measure success. We measure our present by that with which the present is best represented. This is within the context of a society operating as per the status quo, not one which finds itself in some crisis such as war or revolution in which the restoration of a past state often becomes that which is striven for.
We do not live in a utopia and will probably never be in one. As many have argued a utopia is a static mode of being in which there is no past, present or future as the perfect state has been achieved. Utopia means no friction and standstill. The goal, therefore, is not to achieve utopia (although we should certainly strive for something like it, but perhaps not get too caught up in pursuing the ideal as argued by Isiah Berlin) but to acknowledge the present. We are not better than the past and we are not worse than the future either. These comparisons are worthless and meaningless. What good is the knowledge to someone who suffers that they would have suffered more in the past? This reasoning downplays the lived experience of the present. Rather than making a tally of when things were good or bad in the past, present, or future, we should reorient the view of the present as a moment of time, which simply is. This means that the present is that which is given to us and which we, currently as human beings, cannot alter. This is not to advocate a lethargic attitude towards change but rather to realise that we are now in a moment contingent upon many things and entirely contextual, but a moment nevertheless, which simply is and simply will be. Or as I sometimes tell my students, you can already change the world by moving your cup from one end of the desk to another.
[These essays were written the past years as writing and thinking practice. I have revised them to be somewhat presentable]
Not Just About Culture 
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