Generation, time, crisis

This commentary revisits three fundamental and closely interlinked concepts of social anthropology: generation, time and crisis. Beginning with generation, it shows how classical models sought to reconcile the transient lives of individuals with the continuity of social structure through a logic of replacement and inheritance. But this allows individuals only to be. What if, instead, intergenerational relations were modelled in terms of a continuous process of becoming, of begetting and rebirth? This would entail a quite different understanding of time: not the axis of diachrony, upon which successive generations are sequentially layered, but the duration intrinsic to the movement of life and growth itself. With this, there is no clearcut division between past and future, separated by the present, but rather an abiding sense of presence, in terms of which even the traditional can be contemporary. It was the modern era that, in turning its back on old ways, replaced this presence with an unending succession of presents, each of which repudiates the past in its designs on the future. Herein lies the perception of perpetual crisis so characteristic of our age. How might this sense of crisis be turned around to become a force for good?