VINCENT CRAPANZANOCUNY Graduate Center

Co-futures

C O M M E N T A R Y

Jane Guyer’s “Prophecy and the Near Future” (this issue) is one ofthe most exciting anthropology articles I have read in years. Its im-plication is enormous. Her discussion radiates from an apercu: “astrange evacuation” of the “temporal frame of the ‘near future’ ” withwhich she grew up in postwar Britain. She argues that, since then,

the near future has thinned out, at least conceptually, but experientially,too, as people are ever-more focused on the present and the distant future.The gap between these two temporal moments—the near future—is a siteof “reconfigurations of elements that are well-known already, moved in tocolonize particular phases and domains of individual and collective life thathave been released from answerability to a more distant past and future.”It is a site of temporal bricolage that, I would say, like all bricolage, is goaloriented but in its particularity lacks (theoretical) cohesiveness and elabo-ration. As near as I can come to Guyer’s sense of the near future, it consistsof a constellation, if constellation it is, of coordinate and noncoordinate,indeed, conflicting, temporalities.

Guyer examines this refashioning of time through careful readings intwo seemingly disparate domains—monetary theory and conservativeevangelicalism—finding striking parallels in the temporalities they evoke.Both focus on the present and the long term (an infinite horizon for theeconomists and the end of time for the evangelicals). Guyer highlights thesetemporalities by contrasting them with those of other positions that stressthe intermediate future: notably, Walt Rostow’s on economic growth andAbraham Joshua Heschel’s on Old Testament prophecy.

Guyer recognizes the role of “external” factors, such as economic arrange-ments and religious beliefs, in punctuating the future. She also takes accountof the way that punctuation can evacuate one stretch or another of the fu-ture, reducing it to a projection of dates and deadlines, radically denudedevents. The facticity—Jean-Paul Sartre would speak of the “viscosity”—ofthe present and past resists this stripping of the event, but, clearly, sociocul-tural and politicoeconomic forces influence the construction of the event,indeed, its “eventness” as well as its content and the way that content in-dexes and evaluates it.

AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 422–425, ISSN 0094-0496, onlineISSN 1548-1425. C© 2007 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article contentthrough the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website,http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/ae.2007.34.3.422.

Co-futures � American Ethnologist

Through her readings, Guyer teases out “what PierreBourdieu . . . called ‘generative schema[ta]’. . . that arise from‘experience,’ in both the recurrent–reproductive andhistorical–disruptive senses of that concept.” She looks athow such “templates” function in practical life and how they“refer to and refine each other across the experiential hori-zon.” I am not certain that the templates refer to or refineone another. In my experience, many Americans (and others,too) are prone to bracket conflicting temporal orientations,just as they tend, less subtly, to bracket contradictory ethi-cal positions. When contradictions are pointed out in peo-ple’s positions on various issues—say, arguing at the sametime against abortion and for the death penalty—rather thanattempt to reconcile them, people often sidestep them bycharacterizing whoever pointed them out as a hairsplitteror a liberal intellectual. My point is that one cannot assumereference and refinement, indeed, consistency, in the waypeople respond to conflicting temporal experiences.

Consistency and cohesiveness, and their entailments,are less significant in conversation than they are in writtentexts. Guyer does not consider how the textual articulationof these templates relates to temporal experience itself. Dothey have a formative authority that influences the expe-rience and rhetoric of time? Having worked with Christianfundamentalists, I am perhaps overly sensitive to the inter-mediating role of authoritative texts in experience (Crapan-zano 2000). Fundamentalists try to make their experiencesas biblical as possible through the diligent application ofscripture. How does this textual modeling of experience af-fect their experience of time? Is time deadened by the repe-tition of (textualized) events? Or is it livened, spiritually, bythe divine authority they attribute to scripture?

Guyer’s focus on extension enables consideration of thequality of temporal experience: as open or closed, “easy” orpressuring, pleasurable or anguishing, innovative or repeti-tive, adventurous or boring, or invigorated or exhausted. Onemay speak of temporal qualities as moods that are conduciveto action or inaction, which points to the need to explore therole imagination plays in the construction of temporal hori-zons. How do particular formulations of the extension oftime affect how people envision the future (or the past)? Therole of the infinite in economic projection and apocalypse inprophecy certainly promote different visions of the future.

When people speak of a lack of vision, as we often doin this political climate, to what stretch of the future arewe referring? The immediate, mediate, or remote future?Despite their punctuation, these “futures” are experientiallyslippery. They are associated with particular temporalattitudes that are equally slippery. The phenomenologistEugene Minkowski (1970:79–129; see Crapanzano 2004)associated immediate, mediate, and remote futures withexpectation, hope, and the prayerful and, negatively, I wouldsuggest, with disappointment, dread, and despair. Howare these attitudes related to the way a society constructs

evidence, risk, probability, and certitude? How are they con-nected to prevailing historicities? How are they affected bylinear, oscillating, and cyclical understandings of history? Bymessianism, the belief in miracles, and notions of destiny?

In a loose, impressionistic way, I explore below severalof the temporalities that coexist, often in contradiction, inthe United States today. I focus, as Guyer does, primarily onevangelical Christianity and the market as they impinge onthe individual’s experience of time. I begin with “Christians,”as evangelicals call themselves in an act of incorporative dis-tinction. I have already noted the importance they give toworld ending. The “end” ends earthly time, that singular gapthat stretches, as evangelicals put it, between eternity pastand eternity future, when they—at least some of them, thesaved—will glorify God for evermore. They stress creation,as it is read literally and compellingly in Genesis, and worldending, as it is described in Revelation and other eschatologi-cal passages in the Bible. Although a progression is evident inGod’s dispensations, in dispensational Christianity, it is cen-tered on a wholly exceptional event, Christ’s coming, whichmarks the beginning of the final dispensation, the ChurchAge, and offers the possibility of salvation. It is this pointthat conjoins cosmic and individual history, but before sal-vation and world ending can occur, Christ must reappear. Hissecond coming is at once anticipated and expected. Expec-tation, characteristic of the immediate future, as Minkowskiwould have it, is translated to the remote future. The horizonsof both a beginning and an ending are closed by inerrant bib-lical narratives in which countervailing evidence can haveno part. Between the two, after Adam’s sin, time falls out ofjoint, order edges on chaos, humans arrogantly become themeasure of all knowledge, and imagination runs wild, cre-ating unsubstantiated narratives of beginnings (evolutionand big-bang theories) and endings (galactic explosions).God’s grace, the redemption and salvation that Christ offers,and the imperative force of scripture are the only sources ofsecurity. Unlike strict Calvinists, who can never be certainof their salvation, many born-again Christians understandtheir “rebirth” as a sure sign of their salvation.

How does this picture—I have simplified itconsiderably—influence believers’ temporal orientation?1

How does it color their everyday experiences of time?Doubtless, during church services, prayer, and perhapsmoments of existential and moral crisis, believers areenchanted by a transcending temporal orientation: an en-chantment that is facilitated by the promise, the certainty,of personal salvation. They are given a spiritually engagingperspective on their daily lives, which are tortured bytemptation and discordant demands. They are well aware ofthe conflicts between their religious and worldly outlooks.The most religious strive, as I noted above, to make theirlives as biblical as possible—by Bible study, individual andcommunal prayers, and daily self-critiques that are followedby a search for appropriate biblical instruction and, once

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found, by disciplined adherence to that instruction. But,if only because of original sin, they know they can neverachieve a fully biblical life. Their failure haunts them andwhat solace they find lies not only in Christ’s promise andGod’s grace but also, paradoxically, in the inevitability offailure. The most conservative, like those associated withBob Jones University, find respite in isolating themselvesfrom “unbelievers.”

Less conservative evangelicals also try to resolve con-flicting demands in the same, but less fraught, way. Theirstudy groups are devoted to handling practical problems thatarise with their engagement in the real world: at the office, inschool, with their children, with ungodly neighbors, and withsocial commitment. Although many, perhaps most, evangel-icals are concerned with social and political improvement,some, the strictest fundamentalists—technically, pretribu-lational premillenarians—do not strive for social improve-ment, for that can only occur with Christ’s second coming.2

Good works are not a route to heaven, but some fundamen-talists do argue that society can be bettered by increasingthe number of “Christians” through proselytizing. Their pri-mary concern is their own salvation and, to a lesser degree,that of those closest to them. Theirs is an either–or world: Ei-ther you are saved or you are damned. How does this socialindifference affect their sense of time? It seemed to me, asI talked with them, that they do not evacuate their presentand near future but devalue them with respect to the distantfuture. Ironically, this devaluation allows them to lead theirdaily lives with “normal” commitment and enthusiasm andconsiderable calm in the face of adversity. Of course, theyhave felt the pressure of time; of course, they have had theirblack moments. But the weight they give to the distant fu-ture offers them solace. Yet I must ask: To what degree doesfaith in personal salvation and the certainty of world endingencourage (unwitting and unmalicious) social indifferenceand, in times of crisis, potentially devastating social and po-litical policies?

Turning now to the stock market, I argue that risk, prob-ability, improbability, and forecasting styles have differenteffects on different age groups. Let me begin with the late1990s information technology bubble. The difference be-tween growth and value investors (at least at the time) canbe understood in temporal terms. Growth, despite its name,reflected a primary focus on the immediate future, whichstretched, however, like a Dali soft telephone, into the dis-tant future. The results of speculation were so positive thatspeculation ceased for many to be speculation; risk, evalu-ated in terms of the certainty of rapid growth seemed at timesto disappear; speed was the name of the game. The possi-bilities of the moment had to be caught in that moment.3

So great were the real and fantasized profits that the tax ad-vantages of long-term investments lost importance. Growthfor the day traders, mirroring that of hedge-fund operators,as they were popularly understood, was punctuated by dis-

crete moments of profit and loss. Losses were conceived aspauses in ever-accelerating growth. Actual corporate perfor-mance, whatever it was, however it was measured, at timeseven when it was a loss, simply became an invigorating in-dex of boundless possibility. Value investors, including somehedge-fund operators, had a longer view of the future, whichthey shared—within limits—with “responsible” corporatemanagers. They tended to look back at past performanceand their own past experiences in their appraisals of valueand growth. Their stress on value and their turn to the pastbuffered the furor of growth. They had, however, continu-ally to weigh their conservatism, their patience, against theimmediate success of the growth investors.

It was my impression (although I do not have the figuresto back this up) that growth investors were younger thanvalue investors. Reading newspaper accounts and listeningto interviews with Wall Street aces and gnomes exposed theintense competition between the two groups. Generationalcompetition seemed at times to override investment style.The younger generation was out to kill the older one in astruggle with Oedipal resonances. There were, of course, vic-tims on both sides. Some members of the older generation, ina gesture of defiance or rejuvenation, switched sides, at timesat great cost. Members of the younger generation who werevalue oriented were often ridiculed by their cohort. Whenthe bubble finally burst, value-oriented investors, despitethe losses they incurred as the market dropped, were oftensmug and at times vindictive (so it appeared to many growthinvestors). The number of young brokers, investment coun-selors, and mutual fund managers who lost their jobs waslegend.

Correct or not, my reading suggests that generation andage play an important but neglected part in people’s re-sponse to prevailing temporal templates. As one ages, con-vention says, temporal horizons close in as possibilities arereduced and death approaches. One focuses necessarily onthe near future in daily life and on a distant future in tran-scending moments. But, for older evangelical Christians withwhom I spoke, the future was not closed but open to the sin-gle most important possibility: personal salvation. I remem-ber attending a church service in which the preacher spokeof his sister’s recent death with a sense of jubilant possibility,indeed the certainty, of her glorifying God forever after.

On a more mundane level, institutional structures, in-cluding pension plans, health insurance, and investmentsopportunities—or their absence—all affect older people’ssense of the future. They focus attention on the immedi-ate and near future. It is the mediate future that is evacuatedwith age. It loses definition and becomes, as the case maybe, hoped for or dreaded. In moments of uncertainty, theexpectation associated with the immediate future may evengive way to hope. The two most important determinants areone’s health and financial security, and they, of course, relateto one’s social and economic circumstances.4

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As I read Guyer’s quite wonderful article, I could nothelp thinking of the way in which one’s temporal orienta-tion is perhaps most dramatically conditioned by the po-litical circumstances in which one finds oneself. I was, ofcourse, thinking of the present-day United States, in whicha loss of confidence in the political administration is shared,in their own ways, by people of different political positions.The apocalyptic fantasies associated with the change ofthe millennium never had the force of today’s doomsdayprojections—terrorist attack, nuclear war, global warming,epidemics—and the fear they inspire. Fear has always beena political weapon, but doomsday scenarios are rarely ex-ploited politically and even more rarely exploited by the de-nial of the reality that lies behind them. As Americans, wefind ourselves in a paradoxical situation in which the basesof some doomsday scenarios are stressed (terrorism and nu-clear threat) and others are denied (global warming) for po-litical reasons. Or delusional ones. There is no certainty. Howdo these scenarios and their political exploitation affect oursense of the future? One might expect a “live today, for tomor-row we die” attitude, but that does not appear to be the case.Rather, we find complacency, pervasive feelings of politicalimpotence, and retreat into ourselves and into consumeristmaterialism and limited, at times obsessive, goals. We have,in effect, privatized ourselves and our futures. Is it the dis-sonant conjunction of realism and delusion that has led tothis response? We seem caught in a temporal vortex in whichfuture orientations and the optative attitudes they inspire—expectation, hope, and prayerfulness—have lost the suretyof position. It is this temporal orientation that begs under-standing. Guyer has provided one possible route toward thatunderstanding, but no doubt there are others.

[temporalities, horizons, apocalypse, evangelicals, stockmarkets]

Notes

1. As Guyer and I (Crapanzano 2000:156ff.) have discussed the roleof prophecy in evangelical thought, I do not consider it here.

2. Pretribulational premillennialism is the belief that Christ willreturn to “rapture” true Christians before the time of tribulationsand the reign of the Antichrist that will precede Satan’s defeat atArmageddon and the millennium. It contrasts with postmillenni-alism: the belief that the defeat of the Antichrist is already takingplace, opening the way for the 1,000-year golden age before Christ’sreturn and the end of history (Crapanzano 2000:34–36).

3. This is certainly true in the derivative markets today.4. I could make similar arguments for young adults who are of-

ten saddled with enormous debt from educational loans—a near-unique unique phenomenon in the industrialized world.

References cited

Crapanzano, Vincent2000 Serving the Word: Literalism in America from the Pulpit to

the Bench. New York: New Press.2004 Imaginative Horizons: An Essay in Literary-Philosophical

Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Minkowski, Eugene

1970 Lived Time: Phenomenological and PsychopathologicalStudies. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Vincent CrapanzanoPh.D. Programs in Comparative Literature and AnthropologyCUNY Graduate Center365 Fifth AvenueNew York, NY 10016-4309vcrapanzano@earthlink.net

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