Only the Future Survives

SILENT SKIES

In 2018, the journal Science published the results of a study on the health of North America’s bird population. The findings heightened concerns among researchers and conservationists, confirming a crisis already underway: since 1970, the number of birds in the United States and Canada has declined by 29%, amounting to the loss of nearly 3 billion individuals. This decline affects not only species long listed as endangered but also common birds like sparrows, jays, doves, and robins, whose disappearance could have catastrophic effects on their ecosystems.

Researchers from universities, associations, and government agencies examined records compiled over the years by birdwatchers to estimate population trends for each species since 1970, the first year with reliable data. While some species have increased, the vast majority have seen drastic declines, reflecting an overall deterioration in the health of bird populations worldwide. Although the study was not designed to identify the causes of this collapse, the results highlighted key threats to bird survival: climate change, habitat loss, and, concurrently, the intensification of agriculture. Notably, the use of neonicotinoid pesticides makes it harder for birds to reach the weight needed for migration, delaying or jeopardizing their departure.

Weather radars provided another tool for tracking bird populations. The research team counted birds detected between 2007 and 2018 by 143 radar stations across the United States, focusing particularly on the migratory season. The data showed a 14% decline, consistent with figures extrapolated from birdwatchers’ records. Among the hardest-hit groups were songbirds, whose population dropped by 617 million, and blackbirds, with 440 million fewer individuals. Even starlings—considered invasive since their introduction to the U.S. in 1890—saw a loss of 83 million individuals, a 49% decline.

EVERYTHING IS FULL OF SIGNS

In ancient Greece, as in the Roman and Etruscan worlds, it was common practice to read the future in the flight and songs of birds. These creatures, perhaps because they belonged to the sky, were believed to mediate between humans and the gods, revealing what was destined to happen. Interpreting omens required recognizing the species, noting whether birds flew alone or in groups, the direction of their flight, and where they landed. Others provided signs through their songs, whose tone or frequency had to be studied.

Ornithomancy was based on the belief that every part of the universe corresponded to another, which is why many treatises associate it with astrology (“As above, so below”). Plotinus, in The Enneads, shared this view, arguing that divination practices were not founded on the ability of stars or birds to influence human events but on their harmony. Those who look to the sky and understand its grammar see birds as letters, deciphering their meaning through analogy. The flight of flocks merely describes what is happening.

HORIZONS OF WAITING

In a text published in Italy by Sellerio in 2007, Hartog focuses on the rise of the present as the dominant horizon of our time. The entire work employs the notion of regimes of historicity to examine the relationship each society weaves with its past and future. This conceptual tool helps compare different ways of relating to history and better understand moments of crisis. For Hartog, although the modern regime of historicity had already shown cracks, its crisis was cemented by recent events, most emblematically the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the idea of an imminent Communist revolution. The presentism in which we are still immersed emerged from this rupture, manifesting in a present that values immediacy and occupies, statically, the entire field of vision.

According to the French historian, we have become a “cold society” (a distinction borrowed from Lévi-Strauss), concerned only with preserving its existence without internalizing history as a driver of development. Time has seemingly come to a halt, causing pathological traits in how individuals relate to the past and future. We increasingly deal with “a past that is either forgotten or over-remembered, a future that has almost disappeared from the horizon, or an impending future dominated by threats.” Our capacity to remember is compressed, yet we witness a tendency for the present to historicize itself instantly, with an ever-expanding focus on preserving, cataloging, and valorizing memory. Such measures, which turn the past into heritage, transform our perception of the future, which takes on the vague contours of apocalypse: the future is something to defend against, anticipating its moves and dangers. (In effect, this closes off openness to what is radically new.)

Thanks to advances in computing, a veritable “technology of risk” has emerged, relying on virtual simulations. In an uncertain universe, choices no longer involve a single projection into the future. It is no longer about “predicting the future” but “measuring the effects on the present of this or that future.” (Hartog, Regimes of Historicity)

This dimension is immediately evident in, for example, ecological discourse, but the blend of uncertainty and immutability described by Hartog permeates the contemporary experience of time. Technological innovations have spread an ideology of the present that fuels a sense of precarity and isolation, while the lack of social cohesion and wealth polarization have produced unsustainable inequality, now perceived by many as natural. How can we resist this loss of ground that prevents us from processing the past and denies us an inaugural horizon of expectation? Where can we glimpse a way out?

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