Revolutionary Time

The Royal Observatory, high on the hill. This is where the first international terrorist incident took place, W. says, reading from a plaque. A young French anarchist attempted to blow up the Observatory, to blow up Greenwich Mean Time …

To change time, the order of time: isn’t that the aim of any revolution?, W. says. We have to recover the dimension of possibility. The dimension of the infinite!

Time touched by eternity: he’s always found Kierkegaard’s phrase very moving, W. says. There is the time that passes, Kierkegaard argues – this instant, then that, which we merely endure, which merely carries us along. And then there is that time touched by eternity, Kierkegaard says, which allows past, present and future assume their true role in our lives as phases of development. Once time has touched eternity, we no longer simply persist in time, but deepen and grow. We come to exist temporally, living towards a future that we earn by our deepening, earn by our growth: that's what Kierkegaard argues.

Time touched by eternity: isn’t that what is meant by revolutionary time?, W. wonders. Doesn’t the revolution turn in its light as a waterwheel turns in glinting water? The revolution means the shattering of politics, W. says. It means the destruction of politics-as-usual. Isn’t that why the French revolutionaries renamed the days of the week? Isn’t that why they remade the calendar?

Tarrday, that’s we should rename Monday, W. says. Krasznahorkaiday: it’s a bit of a mouthful, but that’s what Tuesday should become. And Weilday instead of Wednesday. Cohenday instead of Thursday. And Rosenzweigday, for the day of the Sabbath. Saturday can be Deleuzeday, and Sunday: Kierkegaard-day: why not?, W. says.

The view over London. The City, across the river, which its great towers to Mammon. The domes of Greenwich Naval College. The low rise estates on this side of the river to which they moved the poor of London, when they demolished their houses.

Sometimes, W. longs for a great explosion in the sky. For a nearby star to burst across the heavens. For a comet's head, blazing towards us. Ah, why is it easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism?