Liberal theory has a problem with pastness, because of assumptions about the role of consent in forming and preserving of societies. Pastness can be the enemy of rationality, but it seems inescapable.
Law depends on and struggles with pastness.
Legal institutions, as analyzed by Hegel and those before and after, seem to require pasts, narratable pasts, for their authority. In terms of liberal social structure, economics might seem to present the most striking challenge. If not, what are we to make of the increasing importance of path-dependence analyses. In examining these questions, we might consider the rough differences in approaches between the Humanities and social sciences along a continuum. At one end, as in, say, literary history, we impute to, or assume in, the goals or objects of the discipline a sure importance and meaning.