The future is a source of fear not because we know what will happen, and that it will be terrible, but because we know so little, and have so little control. The apocalyptic sensibility, the apocalyptic style, is seductive because it offers a way out of this situation: it vaults us over the epistemological chasm of the future, clear into a final destination, the end of all things. Out of the murk of time emerges the clear shape of a vision, a revelation, and you can see at last where the whole mess is headed. All of it—history, politics, struggle, life—is near to an end, and the relief is
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