What constitutes an event?

What constitutes an event -- and why do we concern ourselves with this question, what's at stake? We must recognize that that not everything the newspaper reports, or that we remember, is an event. An event cannot be measured by some notion of quantity -- and thus, it is highly delusional to believe, for example, that winning a lottery, saving a life, getting married, etc. is an event -- that it is a moment that brings about what I will call 'Genuine Change', or a genuine future. Certainly, true events are characterized by their scope of influence -- but we cannot establish the converse, i.e. not everything generally regarded as having a great scope will be an event.

Although I speak of personal events, initially, the same in fact applies to all of history. Political events, such as, for example, the rise of empires, often get a lot of attention: how can, for example, the slaughter of a million people not be an event? Which brings us to our second question: what's at stake? Why do I, rather dogmatically, insist that life-changing situations (marriage, game shows -- 'Deal or no Deal' is particularly relevant) are not events, and even go so far as to question the death of millions? My intention is not to offend, but, clearly, the question of the nature of the event will be a highly speculative one with enormous consequences -- could, for example, Deal or no Deal persist if one were dead to that particular notion of a 'Life changing moment'? Would people be willing to die, if death were a non-event, or -- even more, if wars were non-events?

And, as we ask these questions, yet another interesting aspect of this question strikes us, what may be called the historical/truth value of a question. Approached as a question, apparently, regarding reality ('What is an event, really?'), we also come to recognize that any notion of the event will have enormous consequences in history, and that history is structured, somehow, around the notion of the event -- so that any 'truthful' notion of the event will also have consequences for the actual occurrence of events, so that the investigation of an event will itself be an event, a historical intervention.

Or, to turn the screw once more, if there were such a thing as the history of philosophy (philosophy being the discipline of the pursuit of truth) then what would be an event in such a history be -- if the very question of the event is an event? That is: If any advancement in the study of events (let's call this study the "Philosophy of history") constitutes an event (in the "history of philosophy") -- perhaps a radical juncture from which there is no recovery -- then what would that mean for philosophy in general? If truth is precisely that event which erases its own history?



(The universality of the event must be rethought)

I refer to Heart of Darkness, at this moment, not