Implicit meanings of "the future"
I think its interesting that many people use the term "the future" to mean an optimistic shiny vision of the future- a vision of progress. Take this book, "The Future and Its Enemies" by Virginia Postel (whose website is here http://www.dynamist.com/index.html), a writer of a New York Times business column. In this title, "The Future" is almost synonymous with "Progress"- "Progress and Its Enemies".
"The past" is invoked in, I think, more various ways. It can be seen nostalgically or, more commonly, as a morass of chaotic struggle that has been ordered by allegedly more rational forms of sociality (liberal democracy, capitalism, science). It can be seen as expodentially increasing innovation inevitably leading in the direction of the alleviation of human suffering (Kurtzweil). The past is often associated with stasis. "Stuck in the past" implies no motion. "The future" implies motion.
In the imagination, "the future" is not merely a range of time.
"The past" is invoked in, I think, more various ways. It can be seen nostalgically or, more commonly, as a morass of chaotic struggle that has been ordered by allegedly more rational forms of sociality (liberal democracy, capitalism, science). It can be seen as expodentially increasing innovation inevitably leading in the direction of the alleviation of human suffering (Kurtzweil). The past is often associated with stasis. "Stuck in the past" implies no motion. "The future" implies motion.
In the imagination, "the future" is not merely a range of time.