One of the most harmful habits, in contemporary thought is the analysis of the present as being precisely, in history, a present of rupture, of high point, of completion, or of a returning dawn. The solemnity with which everyone who engages in philosophical discourse reflects on his own time strikes me as a flaw I think we should have the modesty to say to ourselves that the time we live in is not the unique or fundamental irruptive point in history where everything is completed and begun again...[O]n the other hand, the time we live in is very interesting; it needs to be analyzed and broken down, and that we would do well to ask ourselves, "What is the nature of our present?"

Foucault

Proposal for Euro Network against Prison and Repression http://italy.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/125953.php