To be untimely is to be adapted to the longue durĂŠe.
Adaptive Untimeliness.âThe thinkers who have been the most difficult to classifyâthose who have been the least understood because it has not be clear what they were driving atâhave been those who have been most likely to have an ongoing influence. Because they have not fit into their own time, they are equally well-adapted (or rather ill-adapted) to any other age. One can even detect a subtle note of resentment on the part of those who are more obviously a product of their age, who know, at some level of awareness, that when their era has passed, they will be relegated to history, while their less timely (and less time-bound) counterparts will remain relevant in ages yet to come. I am thinking of ibn Khaldun, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and Spengler, but there are others.
