u/Ok_Confection_7368

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I've been wondering about something and I'm curious if anyone has written about it.

Was Marxism, at least in part, made possible by what Walter Benjamin calls ´´empty homogenous time´´?

Marxism emerged around the same period as Hegelianism, positivism, and other philosophies of historical progress. They all seem to assume that history unfolds through a single, continuous timeline with successive stages. Marx's sequence of modes of production (primitive communism → slavery → feudalism → capitalism → socialism) seems to fit this way of imagining history.

What made me think about this was Benedict Anderson's idea that print capitalism and newspapers created a new experience of simultaneity, where millions of people imagined themselves living through the same historical experince. That seems closely related to Benjamin's idea of empty homogeneous time and Reinhart Koselleck's work on modern historical consciousness. Henri Bergson also criticized the tendency to reduce lived time to homogeneous, measurable time.

So my question is: could this modern conception of time have been a precondition for Marxism and other nineteenth-century philosophies of historical progress? In other words, would historical materialism have been conceivable without this idea of a single, homogeneous historical timeline that everyone shares?

I also know that Louis Althusser criticized linear and expressive conceptions of history within Marxism. Does his work address this issue, or is he talking about something different?

Has anyone written directly on this connection? I'd appreciate any recommendations, whether they're Marxist or critical of Marxism.

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https://reddit.com/link/1ujamof/video/hpk49kfbjbah1/player

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Benedict Anderson’s concept of “homogeneous, empty time” identifies a foundational condition of modern nationalism: the emergence of a standardized temporal framework in which individuals who never encounter one another nonetheless experience simultaneity. Through clocks, calendars, print-capitalist media, and synchronized national events, time is abstracted from local rhythms and reorganized into a uniform temporal grid that enables the imagination of the nation as a shared historical present. This simultaneity is not merely cognitive but affective: newspapers, serialized stories, and recurring national narratives allow distant events to be emotionally registered as part of a single shared temporal field.

What remains underdeveloped in this formulation is the spatial condition that accompanies this temporal abstraction, as well as the mediating role of media in producing it as lived experience. Nationalism does not only depend on the synchronization of time; it also depends on the production of space as a unified and administratively legible field, and on the circulation of media that renders this field emotionally coherent. Alongside homogeneous time, modern political formation generates what may be described as homogeneous, empty space: a representational regime in which territory is rendered continuous, metrically comparable, and divisible into equivalent units of governance.

In more localized or pre-modern spatial orders, territory is primarily experienced as place rather than abstract space. Movement occurs through routes, relational landmarks, and embodied knowledge of terrain. Political and social orientation is structured by paths, distances lived through experience, and spatial meanings embedded in geography itself. Space in this sense is heterogeneous, discontinuous, and qualitatively differentiated, and emotional attachment is primarily local, immediate, and situated.

With the consolidation of modern state systems and national territoriality, this spatial logic is progressively reorganized. Cartographic practices, cadastral surveying, infrastructural integration, and administrative boundary-making transform territory into a continuous surface that can be surveyed, partitioned, and governed from a unified perspective. Crucially, mass media—especially newspapers, and later radio and digital platforms—transpose this spatial abstraction into everyday perception by presenting geographically distant events within a single, continuous informational frame. Space becomes representable as a neutral grid of coordinates rather than a field of lived relations, and this representational unity enables emotional association across distance.

This is the emergence of homogeneous space: not as a phenomenological experience, but as a political-epistemological condition in which all locations are rendered equivalent as points within a continuous territorial field. Within this framework, place loses intrinsic meaning and acquires significance primarily through its position within national, economic, or administrative systems. Emotional attachment is no longer confined to immediate environments but becomes scalable, distributed across a mediated national space in which distant cities can be felt as proximate through shared representation.

The spatial dimension of nationalism is therefore not secondary to its temporal organization but structurally co-constitutive of it. If homogeneous time enables the synchronization of national subjects across temporal distance, homogeneous space enables their incorporation into a single territorial imagination. Mass media functions as the infrastructural bridge between these two regimes, producing the experiential effect of simultaneity-in-space: the sense that events occurring in different locations belong to a single, emotionally continuous national field.

The nation thus becomes thinkable not only as a simultaneity of shared time but as a continuous spatial totality in which dispersed populations are integrated within a bounded and unified field. Emotional association becomes a key mechanism of this integration: individuals come to feel connected to distant places not through direct experience but through mediated representation that aligns spatial abstraction with affective immediacy.

This dual abstraction—temporal and spatial—underpins the cognitive and emotional architecture of nationalism. Citizens are positioned within a shared temporal regime of simultaneity and a shared spatial regime of territorial continuity, both mediated through mass communication systems that translate abstraction into affect. Together, these regimes allow the nation to function as a coherent object of imagination and emotional investment despite the absence of direct interpersonal relations between its members.

The consequence is not the elimination of lived spatiality, but its reorganization within a dominant representational order. Paths, places, and embodied geographies persist, but they are increasingly reorganized within a national spatial frame that renders territory continuous, measurable, and emotionally integrable across distance through media circulation.

Benedict Anderson’s concept of “homogeneous, empty time” identifies a foundational condition of modern nationalism: the emergence of a standardized temporal framework in which individuals who never encounter one another nonetheless experience simultaneity. Through clocks, calendars, print-capitalist media, and synchronized national events, time is abstracted from local rhythms and reorganized into a uniform temporal grid that enables the imagination of the nation as a shared historical present. This simultaneity is not merely cognitive but affective: newspapers, serialized stories, and recurring national narratives allow distant events to be emotionally registered as part of a single shared temporal field.

What remains underdeveloped in this formulation is the spatial condition that accompanies this temporal abstraction, as well as the mediating role of media in producing it as lived experience. Nationalism does not only depend on the synchronization of time; it also depends on the production of space as a unified and administratively legible field, and on the circulation of media that renders this field emotionally coherent. Alongside homogeneous time, modern political formation generates what may be described as homogeneous, empty space: a representational regime in which territory is rendered continuous, metrically comparable, and divisible into equivalent units of governance.

In more localized or pre-modern spatial orders, territory is primarily experienced as place rather than abstract space. Movement occurs through routes, relational landmarks, and embodied knowledge of terrain. Political and social orientation is structured by paths, distances lived through experience, and spatial meanings embedded in geography itself. Space in this sense is heterogeneous, discontinuous, and qualitatively differentiated, and emotional attachment is primarily local, immediate, and situated.

With the consolidation of modern state systems and national territoriality, this spatial logic is progressively reorganized. Cartographic practices, cadastral surveying, infrastructural integration, and administrative boundary-making transform territory into a continuous surface that can be surveyed, partitioned, and governed from a unified perspective. Crucially, mass media—especially newspapers, and later radio and digital platforms—transpose this spatial abstraction into everyday perception by presenting geographically distant events within a single, continuous informational frame. Space becomes representable as a neutral grid of coordinates rather than a field of lived relations, and this representational unity enables emotional association across distance.

This is the emergence of homogeneous space: not as a phenomenological experience, but as a political-epistemological condition in which all locations are rendered equivalent as points within a continuous territorial field. Within this framework, place loses intrinsic meaning and acquires significance primarily through its position within national, economic, or administrative systems. Emotional attachment is no longer confined to immediate environments but becomes scalable, distributed across a mediated national space in which distant cities can be felt as proximate through shared representation.

The spatial dimension of nationalism is therefore not secondary to its temporal organization but structurally co-constitutive of it. If homogeneous time enables the synchronization of national subjects across temporal distance, homogeneous space enables their incorporation into a single territorial imagination. Mass media functions as the infrastructural bridge between these two regimes, producing the experiential effect of simultaneity-in-space: the sense that events occurring in different locations belong to a single, emotionally continuous national field.

The nation thus becomes thinkable not only as a simultaneity of shared time but as a continuous spatial totality in which dispersed populations are integrated within a bounded and unified field. Emotional association becomes a key mechanism of this integration: individuals come to feel connected to distant places not through direct experience but through mediated representation that aligns spatial abstraction with affective immediacy.

This dual abstraction—temporal and spatial—underpins the cognitive and emotional architecture of nationalism. Citizens are positioned within a shared temporal regime of simultaneity and a shared spatial regime of territorial continuity, both mediated through mass communication systems that translate abstraction into affect. Together, these regimes allow the nation to function as a coherent object of imagination and emotional investment despite the absence of direct interpersonal relations between its members.

The consequence is not the elimination of lived spatiality, but its reorganization within a dominant representational order. Paths, places, and embodied geographies persist, but they are increasingly reorganized within a national spatial frame that renders territory continuous, measurable, and emotionally integrable across distance through media circulation.

I've been thinking about a possible connection between modernity, cognition, and social identity.

My idea is that modern institutions (maps, newspapers, schools, censuses, mass media) dramatically expanded the range of people and places individuals could imagine. Pre-modern life was largely organized around direct experience and local relationships, whereas modern people are expected to understand societies consisting of millions of strangers.

This creates a cognitive problem: no one can mentally track millions of unique individuals. To manage this complexity, the mind relies on abstraction and categorization. Diverse individuals become categories such as "citizens," "nationalities," "students," or "workers." In this sense, categorization functions as a form of cognitive compression that allows people to navigate social realities far beyond direct experience.

Could modern nationalism, and perhaps other large-scale identities, be understood as products of this interaction between expanding social horizons and increasing reliance on cognitive compression?

I'm curious whether there is existing research in cognitive psychology, social psychology, or sociology that explores this idea.

I've been thinking about a possible connection between modernity, cognition, and social identity.

My idea is that modern institutions (maps, newspapers, schools, censuses, mass media) dramatically expanded the range of people and places individuals could imagine. Pre-modern life was largely organized around direct experience and local relationships, whereas modern people are expected to understand societies consisting of millions of strangers.

This creates a cognitive problem: no one can mentally track millions of unique individuals. To manage this complexity, the mind relies on abstraction and categorization. Diverse individuals become categories such as "citizens," "nationalities," "students," or "workers." In this sense, categorization functions as a form of cognitive compression that allows people to navigate social realities far beyond direct experience.

Could modern nationalism, and perhaps other large-scale identities, be understood as products of this interaction between expanding social horizons and increasing reliance on cognitive compression?

I'm curious whether there is existing research in cognitive psychology, social psychology, or sociology that explores this idea.

I've been thinking about a possible connection between modernity, cognition, and social identity.

My idea is that modern institutions (maps, newspapers, schools, censuses, mass media) dramatically expanded the range of people and places individuals could imagine. Pre-modern life was largely organized around direct experience and local relationships, whereas modern people are expected to understand societies consisting of millions of strangers.

This creates a cognitive problem: no one can mentally track millions of unique individuals. To manage this complexity, the mind relies on abstraction and categorization. Diverse individuals become categories such as "citizens," "nationalities," "students," or "workers." In this sense, categorization functions as a form of cognitive compression that allows people to navigate social realities far beyond direct experience.

Could modern nationalism, and perhaps other large-scale identities, be understood as products of this interaction between expanding social horizons and increasing reliance on cognitive compression?

I'm curious whether there is existing research in cognitive psychology, social psychology, or sociology that explores this idea.

Benedict Anderson’s idea of “homogeneous, empty time” describes one of the defining features of modern social life: the way societies become organized around a standardized temporal grid. Clocks, calendars, timetables, and synchronized media events create a situation where millions of people who will never meet nonetheless share the same structured “now.” Time becomes abstracted from local rhythms and embedded in a universal framework that allows coordination at scale.

What is often left implicit in this argument is that there is a spatial counterpart to this transformation. Alongside the homogenization of time, modernity also produces a corresponding abstraction of space. This can be thought of as homogeneous, empty space: a way of imagining the world as a continuous, uniform field that exists independently of lived meaning, waiting to be divided, measured, and assigned.

In more localized or pre-modern spatial experience, the world is primarily composed of places rather than space in the abstract. Locations are understood through routes, relations, and qualities: what lies beyond a river, how long it takes to travel somewhere, which paths are safe, which sites are sacred or dangerous, and how different nodes in the landscape connect through lived movement. Space in this sense is uneven and textured, structured by meaning and experience rather than by uniform measurement.

Modern mapping, state formation, and global systems of navigation gradually replace this with a different logic. Space becomes continuous and measurable, divisible into equivalent units that can be coordinated across vast distances. It is no longer primarily defined through movement and lived relation, but through coordinates, borders, and standardized categories. Regions become comparable, interchangeable, and administratively legible. The world is increasingly represented as a single spatial surface that can be surveyed from above rather than inhabited from within.

This transformation produces what can be called homogeneous space: a spatial framework in which every location is, in principle, equivalent as a position within a larger grid. Meaning is no longer intrinsic to place but assigned through social, political, or economic systems. A territory can be partitioned, recombined, or reorganized without fundamentally altering its underlying representation as space.

The significance of this shift becomes clearer when considered alongside homogeneous time. If standardized time allows societies to synchronize when they act, standardized space allows them to synchronize where they imagine themselves to be. Together they create a dual structure of coordination in which modern life is organized both temporally and spatially through abstraction.

In such a system, individuals are not only aligned through shared temporal rhythms like work schedules, broadcasts, and events, but also embedded within a shared spatial imagination of the world as a unified field. This makes it possible to conceive of nations as continuous territories, economies as integrated global systems, and institutions as operating across a single legible surface of space.

The deeper consequence of this is a shift in cognition itself. Space is increasingly thought of in terms of coordinates rather than paths, regions rather than routes, and positions rather than places. The world becomes something that can be mapped, administered, and navigated as a coherent system rather than encountered as a set of distinct, meaning-laden environments.

Homogeneous time produces simultaneity across individuals; homogeneous space produces co-presence within a shared representational field. Together they form a foundational structure of modernity in which large-scale social coordination becomes possible because both time and space have been abstracted into synchronized, standardized frameworks.

The classic post-materialist thesis associated with Ronald Inglehart argues that when societies achieve long-term economic security, larger portions of the population—especially younger cohorts raised under conditions of prosperity—shift from material concerns (economic survival, physical security, order) toward post-material concerns (self-expression, tolerance, environmentalism, minority rights, participation, lifestyle freedom).

Benedict Anderson’s idea of “homogeneous, empty time” describes one of the defining features of modern social life: the way societies become organized around a standardized temporal grid. Clocks, calendars, timetables, and synchronized media events create a situation where millions of people who will never meet nonetheless share the same structured “now.” Time becomes abstracted from local rhythms and embedded in a universal framework that allows coordination at scale.

What is often left implicit in this argument is that there is a spatial counterpart to this transformation. Alongside the homogenization of time, modernity also produces a corresponding abstraction of space. This can be thought of as homogeneous, empty space: a way of imagining the world as a continuous, uniform field that exists independently of lived meaning, waiting to be divided, measured, and assigned.

In more localized or pre-modern spatial experience, the world is primarily composed of places rather than space in the abstract. Locations are understood through routes, relations, and qualities: what lies beyond a river, how long it takes to travel somewhere, which paths are safe, which sites are sacred or dangerous, and how different nodes in the landscape connect through lived movement. Space in this sense is uneven and textured, structured by meaning and experience rather than by uniform measurement.

Modern mapping, state formation, and global systems of navigation gradually replace this with a different logic. Space becomes continuous and measurable, divisible into equivalent units that can be coordinated across vast distances. It is no longer primarily defined through movement and lived relation, but through coordinates, borders, and standardized categories. Regions become comparable, interchangeable, and administratively legible. The world is increasingly represented as a single spatial surface that can be surveyed from above rather than inhabited from within.

This transformation produces what can be called homogeneous space: a spatial framework in which every location is, in principle, equivalent as a position within a larger grid. Meaning is no longer intrinsic to place but assigned through social, political, or economic systems. A territory can be partitioned, recombined, or reorganized without fundamentally altering its underlying representation as space.

The significance of this shift becomes clearer when considered alongside homogeneous time. If standardized time allows societies to synchronize when they act, standardized space allows them to synchronize where they imagine themselves to be. Together they create a dual structure of coordination in which modern life is organized both temporally and spatially through abstraction.

In such a system, individuals are not only aligned through shared temporal rhythms like work schedules, broadcasts, and events, but also embedded within a shared spatial imagination of the world as a unified field. This makes it possible to conceive of nations as continuous territories, economies as integrated global systems, and institutions as operating across a single legible surface of space.

The deeper consequence of this is a shift in cognition itself. Space is increasingly thought of in terms of coordinates rather than paths, regions rather than routes, and positions rather than places. The world becomes something that can be mapped, administered, and navigated as a coherent system rather than encountered as a set of distinct, meaning-laden environments.

Homogeneous time produces simultaneity across individuals; homogeneous space produces co-presence within a shared representational field. Together they form a foundational structure of modernity in which large-scale social coordination becomes possible because both time and space have been abstracted into synchronized, standardized frameworks.

A lot nations from eastern europe and central europe,born out of linguitic conglomerates, create national histories where language connects unrelated events into a single narrative.For example, an uprising in tyrol and a battle in east prussia are compressed into the umbrella of ` german history´ despite these events being independent and with no causality.After unification,these countries create a false sense of a common,continuous and ancient history among populations who were previously distant to each other and whose memories were locally based and not based on some linguistic abstraction.This linguistic tied historical construction creates a sense that the distintic regions of a modern nation were an ancient and united collective `us ` that had been travelling though time to the modern age. The sacral history of linguistic nations are an illusion because what truly unites events is the state and its institutions,not language{language was merely an uncoscious medium to most people who called their mother tongue local speech}

A lot nations from eastern europe and central europe,born out of linguitic conglomerates, create national histories where language connects unrelated events into a single narrative.For example, an uprising in tyrol and a battle in east prussia are compressed into the umbrella of ` german history´ despite these events being independent and with no causality.After unification,these countries create a false sense of a common,continuous and ancient history among populations who were previously distant to each other and whose memories were locally based and not based on some linguistic abstraction.This linguistic tied historical construction creates a sense that the distintic regions of a modern nation were an ancient and united collective `us ` that had been travelling though time to the modern age. The sacral history of linguistic nations are an illusion because what truly unites events is the state and its institutions,not language{language was merely an uncoscious medium to most people who called their mother tongue local speech}

Marxism points to phases of history and that history tends to move dialetically into one direction or endgoal. That sounds teleological or quasi religious thinking or metaphysics