Date: Mon, 06 Jul 1998 17:25:24 +0900
From: Boo Eung Koh <bekoh-AT-chungang.edu>
Subject: Re: On "homogeneous, empty time"



--------------CDCA1B2195DC4A89E170152F

Here is an English version of the relevant part in  Benjamin's Illumination

Historicism rightly culminates in universal history.  Materialistic historiography
differs from it as to method more clearly than from any other kind.  Universal
history has no theoretical armature.  Its method id additive; it musters a mass of
data to fill the homogeneous empty time.  Materialistic historiograhy, on ther
other hand,
is based on a constructive principle.  Thinking invloves not only the flow of
thoughts,
but their arrest as well.  Where thinking suddenly stops in a configuration
pregnant with tensions, it gives that configuration a shock, by which it
crystalizes
into a monad.  A hitorical materialist approaches a historical subject only
where he encounters it as a monad.  (Illuminations [Schocken, 1969] 262-263  )

And this is Anderson's.

What has come to take the place of the medieval conception of
simultaneity-along-time is, to borrow again from Benjamin,
an idea of  'homogeneous, empty time,' in which simultaneity is, as it were,
transverse, cross-time, marked not by pprefiguring and fulfilment,
but by temporal coincidence, and measured by clock and calendar.
(Imagined Communities 30)

As we see in Benjamin's text, Benjamin contrasts the "messianic time"
of historical materialism  and the "homogeneous, empty time" of  universal
historicism.
According to Benjamin, the notion of "homogeneous, empty time," is to let us
forget/ignore the significant present time  in history.  That is,  the future is
supposed to be
guaranteed even without a revolutionary present intervention in the historical
process,
because the future is the natural outcome of the historical process of the present
as
the present is the natural outcome of the past.  In this notion, each moment has no
specifically
important meaning and is not different from any other moments, as in clock or
calendar in which
1:00 am is not meaningfully different from 3:30 pm.  What matters here is just the
form.
Everyday (or  even historical) events exist only because they can be measured and
located in the form of time process.   On the other hand, in the "messianic time,"
the present of now is so maningfully loaded with the past and future that
historical materialists should capture the present as the revolutionary moment.

This is my exposition of  Benjamin's notion of time.  Then,  is Anderson right in
borrowing Benjamin's notion of time for his purpose of explanation of
nation-building process?  I myself have some doubt about it.  Anderson is right, in
my view, to the extent that the rise of nation is the matter of the sharing of the
common form of "print language" by the "formal" community members.  Of course, his
phrase "meanwhile" should be measured by the notion of "clock and calendar" time.
However, when we consider why and how  nation"s" (I emphasizes the plural form)
took the place of the universal empire (the singular form) Anderson's adaptation of
Benjamin's "homogeneous, empty" time is not relevant.  The rise of nations were not
"empty"-- I belive.

Well.  I hope an expert comes along to point out where and how  and why I am wrong.



Boo Eung Koh
Chung Ang University.







Raka Shome wrote:

> it's been a while since i read *Imagined Communities* but if I recall,
> isn't it supposed to mean (drawing from Benjamin) something like the
> simultaneity of experience based on a notion of a linear, unified vision
> of time...something that Homi Bhabha challenges in his *Nation and
> Narration*...do correct me if I am wrong here since i  am no expert on
> Benjamin.
>
> ==============================================================================> Raka Shome
> Department of Speech Communication
> Department of Women Studies (Adjunct)
> 218E Raitt Hall
> University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
>
> 206-543-6844 (phone)
> 206-685-1841 (fax)
> ==============================================================================>
> On Sun, 5 Jul 1998, Chae-Pyong Song wrote:
>
> >
> > Dear listmembers,
> >
> > Can anybody explain to me what Benjamin meant by "homogeneous, empty
> > time," a notion that Benedict Anderson considers so important in the
> > imagination of the nation?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > JP Song
> > Texas A&M
> >
> >
> >
> >      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> >
>
>      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---



--------------CDCA1B2195DC4A89E170152F

HTML VERSION:

Historicism rightly culminates in universal history.  Materialistic historiography
differs from it as to method more clearly than from any other kind.  Universal
history has no theoretical armature.  Its method id additive; it musters a mass of
data to fill the homogeneous empty time.  Materialistic historiograhy, on ther other hand,
is based on a constructive principle.  Thinking invloves not only the flow of thoughts,
but their arrest as well.  Where thinking suddenly stops in a configuration
pregnant with tensions, it gives that configuration a shock, by which it crystalizes
into a monad.  A hitorical materialist approaches a historical subject only
where he encounters it as a monad.  (Illuminations [Schocken, 1969] 262-263  )

And this is Anderson's.

What has come to take the place of the medieval conception of
simultaneity-along-time is, to borrow again from Benjamin,
an idea of  'homogeneous, empty time,' in which simultaneity is, as it were,
transverse, cross-time, marked not by pprefiguring and fulfilment,
but by temporal coincidence, and measured by clock and calendar.
(Imagined Communities 30)

As we see in Benjamin's text, Benjamin contrasts the "messianic time"
of historical materialism  and the "homogeneous, empty time" of  universal historicism.
According to Benjamin, the notion of "homogeneous, empty time," is to let us
forget/ignore the significant present time  in history.  That is,  the future is supposed to be
guaranteed even without a revolutionary present intervention in the historical process,
because the future is the natural outcome of the historical process of the present as
the present is the natural outcome of the past.  In this notion, each moment has no specifically
important meaning and is not different from any other moments, as in clock or calendar in which
1:00 am is not meaningfully different from 3:30 pm.  What matters here is just the form.
Everyday (or  even historical) events exist only because they can be measured and located in the form of time process.   On the other hand, in the "messianic time,"  the present of now is so maningfully loaded with the past and future that historical materialists should capture the present as the revolutionary moment.

This is my exposition of  Benjamin's notion of time.  Then,  is Anderson right in borrowing Benjamin's notion of time for his purpose of explanation of nation-building process?  I myself have some doubt about it.  Anderson is right, in my view, to the extent that the rise of nation is the matter of the sharing of the common form of "print language" by the "formal" community members.  Of course, his phrase "meanwhile" should be measured by the notion of "clock and calendar" time. However, when we consider why and how  nation"s" (I emphasizes the plural form)  took the place of the universal empire (the singular form) Anderson's adaptation of Benjamin's "homogeneous, empty" time is not relevant.  The rise of nations were not "empty"-- I belive.

Well.  I hope an expert comes along to point out where and how  and why I am wrong.
 

Boo Eung Koh
Chung Ang University.

Raka Shome wrote:

it's been a while since i read *Imagined Communities* but if I recall,
isn't it supposed to mean (drawing from Benjamin) something like the
simultaneity of experience based on a notion of a linear, unified vision
of time...something that Homi Bhabha challenges in his *Nation and
Narration*...do correct me if I am wrong here since i  am no expert on
Benjamin.

==============================================================================
Raka Shome
Department of Speech Communication
Department of Women Studies (Adjunct)
218E Raitt Hall
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195

206-543-6844 (phone)
206-685-1841 (fax)
==============================================================================

On Sun, 5 Jul 1998, Chae-Pyong Song wrote:

>
> Dear listmembers,
>
> Can anybody explain to me what Benjamin meant by "homogeneous, empty
> time," a notion that Benedict Anderson considers so important in the
> imagination of the nation?
>
> Thanks
>
> JP Song
> Texas A&M
>
>
>
>      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>

     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---