It has its preservative function which is partly reflected in the amount of labor, perhaps even affection, that accompanies its perpetuation of a canon.but partly, too, in the deliberations about political life that figure in each and every theory and make their construction such a slow and drawn out process. In contrast to political time, the temporalities of economy and popular culture are dictated by innovation, change, and replacement through obsolescence. Accordingly time is not governed by the needs of deliberation but by those of rapid turnover. This has not always been the case. Culture can seem like war because culture is increasingly attuned to the tempos of fashion.
Fashions are evanescent, wars are obliterative.
Each is in the business of replacement. Fashion produces new music, dress forms, new language or slogans. There are two additional developments that have complicated the theoretical life. It is not at all clear today what would not count as politics. Accompanying this development, even complementing it, is the ubiquitous character of theory.