In the time warps of inevitability, eternity, and catastrophe, we lose history. We lose knowledge of the past and the sense of time’s flow. In the politics of inevitability, the facts about the past are just dispensable details127 since we see a general trend and a happy end. In the politics of eternity, the past is a morality play of innocence and guilt.128 In the politics of catastrophe, the approaching disaster enervates the present and occludes the past.
