The Pastness of the Past: Some Reflections on the Politics of Historization and the Crisis of Historicist Pastness

Berber Bevernage’s thinking is centered on the concept of the pastness of the past, which is the basis of historicism. The need to rethink this concept has become evident because of the crisis in historical consciousness proclaimed by a number of theorists of history and because the boundaries between the past and the present became blurred when the presentist “broad present” (Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s term) became dominant. The author does not demand a complete break with historicism, which can be both repressive and emancipatory in nature. He does insist distinguishing the past from simple chronological precedence and on considering it strictly as a “relational concept,” i.e. as dependent on the perception of the present, which should not be reduced to simple empirical observation. The pastness of the past always depends on understanding the present as a coherent historical context; in other words, it presupposes the idea of the present’s contemporaneity to itself. However, Bevernage relies on the works of the British philosopher Peter Osborne to argue that it is possible to speak about the “fiction of the contemporary” which is not confirmed by any empirical experience. At the same time, that fiction is not a mere illusion because it fulfills a pragmatically motivated and politically significant performative function. Bevernage would apply the concept of the pastness of the past in exactly the same way. He sees the attribution of the sign of pastness to one phenomenon or another as something that can be disputed because it always attempts to justify the existing relations of power. Historians are not the only ones responsible for creating the status of pastness. The author allows that other professional communities, particularly artists and lawyers can also take part in attributing pastness. The sense of the past that prevails in a culture arises from a multitude of locally produced senses of the past.