History is the projection of closure backward in time.
Events that were once open, fragile, and undecidable are rendered coherent after the fact. What could have been otherwise is reframed as what had to be. Possibility collapses into inevitability — but only because authority has enforced the cuts that make this intelligible.
Contingency itself is not merely uncomfortable; it is actively suppressed by power. Cuts that politics, ethics, and identity enacted in the present are stabilised through historical narrative, giving the appearance that outcomes were always necessary.
Contingency as Threat
Contingency threatens legitimacy:
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that outcomes were not predetermined,
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that decisions mattered without guarantee,
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that responsibility cannot be displaced onto fate,
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that the present is historically fragile.
Acknowledging contingency exposes the fragility of power, the incompleteness of moral closure, and the provisionality of identity.
History therefore cannot tolerate it.
The Historical Cut
Historical narration enacts a decisive cut, now clearly linked to authority:
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selected causes smooth trajectories,
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marginalised alternatives are erased,
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outcomes are presented as culmination,
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power is naturalised as inevitability.
These cuts stabilise relational systems. They do not simply describe the past; they contain possibility in a field managed by authority.
Intolerance of the Otherwise
The intolerance of contingency emerges wherever alternative pasts are raised:
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“That was never a real option.”
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“It couldn’t have turned out differently.”
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“History was always moving this way.”
Such claims are not neutral conclusions.
They are defensive enforcements of closure, underpinned by authority’s refusal to recognise its own contingency.
The Remainder of History
Suppressed contingency does not vanish. It resurfaces as:
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counterfactual reflection,
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marginalised narratives,
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unresolved injustices,
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critique and historical rupture.
These remainders trace the limits of power’s enforcement.
History, read relationally, is the field where authority’s cuts and their suppressed possibilities intersect.
History as Ethical and Political Technology
Historical narrative consolidates past and present:
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it legitimises power,
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stabilises identity,
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distributes moral weight,
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silences remainder.
By naturalising inevitability, history protects authority, containing the pressures that politics, ethics, and identity cannot entirely resolve in the present.
Reading History Relationally
A relational reading of history asks:
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where were cuts enforced,
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which possibilities were foreclosed,
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whose futures were displaced,
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how authority enabled narrative closure.
It preserves awareness of contingency without dissolving coherence, showing how intolerances operate across time as well as in the present.
Endurance Across Time
To tolerate contingency is to acknowledge:
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the provisionality of power,
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the incompleteness of moral closure,
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the instability of identity,
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the openness of possibility.
History’s intolerance marks the moment when power has closed the field, but the remainder persists.
Closing
History is not false because it stabilises contingency.
It is an artifact of power’s intolerance, the projection of relational cuts into the past to render the present intelligible.
To read history relationally is to see not only what has been made necessary, but what authority has refused to let remain open — and to carry that awareness forward without illusion.
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