Portugal: Tales of Being and Not Being

Abstract

The Problem of the Past as Excess of Diagnosis How much does the past weigh on the present and future of Portugal?This is not a specifically Portuguese problem.It concerns every peripheral and semiperipheral country in the world system.The linear conception of time that prevails in Western Modernity, that is, the idea that history has a single direc- tion, allows core or developed countries, which are for that reason located at the tip of the arrow of time, to define as backward all that is out of symmetry with them (Santos, "A Critique of the Lazy Reason"; Wallerstein, The Politics of the World-Economy).This is why only in core countries is the past not problematic, for it justifies and ratifies the success of the present. 2 The problem of the past can, therefore, be defined as the set of represen- tations of the historical conditions that in a given society explain the defi- I ciencies of the present, formulated as backwardness vis-a-vis the present of the more developed countries.Given the historical duration of said condi- tions, difficulties in overcoming such deficiencies in the near future are to be expected.In the conditions of the modern world system, as conceived by Western social sciences, the problem of the past tends to be more serious given: a) the more widespread the social perception of the distance between the country in question and the more developed countries that serve as models; b) the more hegemonic the representation that such distance could and should be smaller; c) the more credible the idea that this has not been possible

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