América

Cultures of time

Abstract

The idea of lineal time conceived as successive times, each improving on the previous, is not always significant to the Latin American and Caribbean cultural world that we inhabit, where past and present usually coexist without conflict. So as not to go too far back into history, let’s just say that, beginning with the famous querelle des anciens et des modernes of the French XVII century, the Occidental world has experienced other ruptures that were perceived each time as a new modern beginning. This modern occidental notion of “the new” as better in itself, which always accompanies the idea of progress, is now in crisis. Walter Benjamin had already questioned “faith in progress”, the central notion of bourgeois history. Thus, progress as the regulating element of all modern projects can now be questioned. For our American reality, as a transitory categorization we can now talk about a “time of cross breeding”.