Tuesday 14 July 2015

The Flat Time Conspiracy

Time is not what is used to be.

What we call 'History' ended sometime between 1997-2002. Or rather it finished the process of 'winding up' through that period. Although the initial threads of this 'winding up' process can probably be traced back to 1989 and the end of the Berlin Wall.

Historical time had a fabric to it, a tangible quality, it was meaningful and contiguous. You could describe it as elemental, and qualitative.

Flat time, what we've been in since around 2002 has a universal quality, it is not contiguous, but only gives the illusion of it. Phenomena in Flat time are very interchangeable from one year to another. For example You could take a Pop song from 2015 for example and it could fit into either 2005 or 2025. Or, you could take someone's fashion, or clothing from 2004, and it would not look out of place in 2014.

This is because phenomena 'Music, Fashion, Automobiles' are elemental in nature, just like Historical time. They are part of the same qualitative fabric as historical time. When you look at automobile designs from 2015 they do not look much different to those of 2005. Fashion is strictly a 20th century phenomenon, Fashion in flat time is not 'new', rather it is recylced trends of the 20s-90s. i.e (This "new" 2014 line of Women's Coats has a 60s 'Mod' element to it, with a 90s flair). etc

People will claim that they still perceive 'differences' or 'something new under the sun', but these so called 'new' things are never totally new when you dig deep enough, you will always find that it has been done before in some incarnation, like the skinny jeans of the 80s new romantics etc. What's really happening is the micro-recylcing of trends to give the illusion of something new, but all that's really happening is a clever re-arranging of the same old furniture.

This is the nature of Flat time, it gives the illusion of being qualitative and contiguous, but it is in fact not. However our ability to perceive this illusion has only been recent because 16 or so years is a relatively short time period in order to look back on. Until recently we have still been under the millennial spell of progressing in linear time. Instead we've been in a sort of universal time, where one year is largely interchangeable with others.