From: kharin (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Fri May 17 2002 - 05:04:49 MDT
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006D8EE.htm
History has not yet begun
by Frank Furedi
Is this really the end of history? A growing consensus suggests that we are
at the end of something.
There is a profound sense of terminus about the age of modernity. Many
thinkers who are not self-consciously post-modernist nevertheless subscribe
to the thesis that we have reached the end of the modern era. American
historian John Lukacs declares 'It's the End of the Modern Age', and claims
that we are witnessing, not fin de siecle, but fin d'une ere (1).
Contemporary thinkers rarely question Lukacs' pessimistic account of the
decline of the modern age. Even proponents of modernism and the
Enlightenment find it difficult to promote a robust view of the world that
is embedded in the values of reason and progress. The best case scenario
that Morris Berman's The Twilight of American Culture is able to posit is
one where 'we do have a renaissance, a preservation and transmission of
Enlightenment culture, but only for a select few, and their impact on the
rest of the culture is apparently nonexistent'
Even though Berman discounts the possibility that the Enlightenment could
capture the popular imagination, at least he acknowledges the value of this
tradition. By contrast, a significant section of the Western intelligentsia
sneeringly denounces the 'Enlightenment project', and celebrates its demise.
>From this perspective, the events of 11 September are the inevitable
consequence of the destructive forces unleashed by globalisation and
modernity.
It is striking how feeble today's affirmation of modernity is. A profound
sense of cultural disorientation continually invites pessimistic
conclusions. That is why the terrible events of 11 September have been
endowed with such epochal significance. The destruction of the World Trade
Centre is often interpreted as an attack on modernity; and judging by the
weak intellectual response to this attack the terrorists seem to be bombing
their way through an open door.
Politicians and opinion-formers are desperate to quell any discussion about
a clash of civilisations. Any suggestion that Islam might in some sense be
implicated in inspiring the destruction of this symbol of modernity is
swiftly dismissed as xenophobic. Some Western cultural commentators imagine
that the act was provoked by the regime of conspicuous consumption
symbolised by the Twin Towers. And those who imply that 'America had it
coming' really mean that this act of destruction is the penalty exacted for
the arrogant presumptions of modernity.
Compared to the profoundly pessimistic and anti-rationalist intellectual
currents of our times, Francis Fukuyama's thesis on 'The End of History'
comes across as positively forward looking. Fukuyama at least recognises
that the present stage of human development represents an advance over
previous ones.
In line with the pessimistic temper of our times, Fukuyama's vision of the
future is a bleak one, in which human beings struggle 'for the sake of
struggle' out of a 'certain boredom' (3). But although Fukuyama discounts
the enterprise of making history in the future, he clearly recognises the
important achievements realised through the development of human
civilisation.
Much of the critical reaction to Fukuyama's 'end of history' thesis missed
the central point of his argument. Fukuyama did not seek to imply that
history had literally ended and that nothing new would ever happen again.
Rather, as he explained, he used the term 'history' in the specific Hegelian
sense, to mean the 'history of ideology' or the 'history of thought about
first principles'.
This version of the end-of-ideology thesis does not exclude change. But it
does exclude the further evolution of human consciousness, and the
development of a new and superior vision of how society should be run.
History has ended in the sense that there appear to be no ideas that can
credibly offer to take humanity beyond the status quo.
Fukuyama's obituary is not so much about history as about historical
thinking. Historical thinking is a form of consciousness oriented towards
altering the human condition. It regards all social arrangements as
transient, and therefore susceptible to further improvement through the
making of history.
During the past three centuries, historical thinking directly encouraged the
construction of political alternatives to the status quo. The claim that
such alternatives have become irrevocably exhausted constitutes the core of
the 'end of history' thesis.
Historical thinking represents one of the greatest achievements of the
Enlightenment tradition. It recognises and affirms the transformative
dynamic of human action, especially in its future-oriented and culturally
purposeful form. The early eighteenth-century thinker Giambattista Vico was
one of the first to grasp the responsibility of human beings for the making
of history:
'In the night of thick darkness enveloping the earliest antiquity, so remote
from ourselves, there shines the eternal and never-failing light of a truth
beyond all question: that the world of civil society has certainly been made
by man, and that its principles are therefore to be found within the
modifications of our human mind' (4).
The sense of history-making as a defining feature of the human condition led
Vico and others to endow this activity with an essentially positive
character.
With the emergence of historical thinking, the sense of change became
theorised for the first time. Change itself became an issue, the premier
intellectual problem of the time. This sense of change was closely linked to
the recognition that human subjectivity was not external to, but part of,
history. A new sense of temporality gave human consciousness a decisive role
in the shaping of history.
Such sentiments directly contradict the temper of our times. Today, terms
like naive, arrogant and pernicious are used to dismiss Vico's view of how
history is made. In particular, the role of reason and human consciousness
is assigned a marginal role in history-making.
The attempt to act in accordance with a system of ideas is invariably
denounced as ideological, fanatical, utopian or millenarian. Critics of
historical thinking share the premise that human beings have little control
over their actions and still less over the outcome.
In the past, critics of reason took a particular delight in stressing the
impotence of human agency. The liberal critic Friedrich Hayek insisted that
men and women were always the objects, but never the subjects, of history.
'Man is not and never will be the master of his fate: his very reason
progresses by leading him into the unknown and unforeseen where he learns
new things.' (5)
Despite his pessimistic account of human agency, Hayek still offers a
positive view, in which humanity progresses and learns albeit in unforeseen
and unexpected circumstances. Contemporary critics of reason and progress go
much further, and even stigmatise the humanist aspiration for expanding the
frontier of knowledge.
Proponents of the thesis that we live in a society dominated by risk claim
that, in our complex industrial world, it is impossible to know the
consequences of scientific and technological innovation. Some argue that
since the consequences of technological innovation are realised so swiftly,
there is simply no time to know or understand their likely effects (6).
According to the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, the absence of time
required to obtain necessary information weakens hope in rationality (7).
This negative interpretation of society's ability to understand the
consequences of its actions assigns a rather minor and undistinguished role
to human agency. Indeed, theories of risk society represent humanity as too
powerless to repair the damage it has caused in the past, and too ignorant
to shape the future. From this perspective, even the aspiration to know
becomes associated with destructive outcomes. Historical thinking itself
becomes a risk.
The estrangement of contemporary Western culture from the Enlightenment
tradition in general, and specifically from historical thinking, appears to
vindicate the 'end of history' thesis. Fukuyama's thesis contains one
important insight: he has accurately identified the weak state of historical
thinking in the contemporary era. In contrast to previous times, there
appear to be no intellectual alternatives to capitalism and liberal
democracy. There are no big ideas. And all the dissident ideas -
anti-globalism, environmentalism, and so on - lack both an orientation
towards the future and any plausible arguments about how to transcend the
status quo.
Critics of mainstream politics are even more suspicious of the role of human
consciousness than are the elites. This approach is most striking among
movements for cultural recognition, where consciousness is abolished and
replaced by the politics of identity. Fixed identities rooted in the past
represent the antithesis of historical thinking.
So are we to conclude that history has ended? The idea that historical
thinking has reached its limits cannot logically be deduced from the
empirical reality of the present day. It is simply a generalisation from the
empirical recognition that, at present, there is no ideological alternative
to liberal capitalism. But the present is but a moment in terms of the
historical process. Indeed, from the experience of the past three centuries,
it is possible to draw the conclusion that history has just begun.
It is unlikely that the ideological battles of the past three centuries have
exhausted the intellectual imagination of humanity, for at least two
reasons.
The big ideas associated with the advocacy of liberal capitalism have always
played a secondary role within the wider political culture. The best
argument for capitalism was always the claim that it delivered and provided
a measure of economic prosperity. During times of recession and depression,
intellectual supporters of this system invariably went on the defensive and
were always prepared to take pragmatic turns. At one time or another,
proponents of liberal capitalism were more than happy to live with state
socialism, the mixed economy, New Deals and the Welfare State.
Throughout most of the twentieth century, the best argument for capitalism
was the negative example of the Soviet Union. Consequently, the ideology of
capitalism has remained under-theorised, and rarely elaborated into an
inspiring alternative. Indeed the contributions made by more systematic
libertarians have tended to remain on the margins of political discussion.
Characteristically, the Western intelligentsia has distanced itself from
free-market ideas - indeed, it has often been drawn towards cultural
criticisms of capitalism.
The under-theorised character of capitalist ideology has rendered it a weak
instrument for influencing culture. The pessimistic cultural mood of our
times - which is even more striking post-11 September- indicates that this
outlook lacks the resilience to survive in its present form. Even if
capitalist thinking faces no alternatives, it faces the prospect of internal
implosion. The growing trend towards promiscuous relativism is symptomatic
of the fact that classical liberalism lacks the resources to engage with
contemporary experience.
If classical capitalist ideology is under-theorised, its alternatives have
become so over-intellectualised as to be too inflexible to yield to new
experience. For most of those on the left, history ended a long time before
Fukuyama signed its obituary. The left succeeded in turning the valuable
insights of nineteenth-century radical thinkers into a dogma that
represented the last word on the human condition.
At every turn, attempts to revise the insights of the past turned the
critique of capitalism into a caricature. By the time the Cold War ended,
this critique had become a simplistic worship of the state. The very fact
that it was able to influence significant sections of Western society was
based on the intellectual defensiveness and weakness of the liberal
alternative. The demise of the early ideologies of liberalism and socialism
does not constitute a refutation of historical thinking. These were early
innovations that were carried out at a time when the exercise of human
subjectivity faced significant obstacles. Society is only now learning about
how the world really works.
Despite Western culture's profound sense of disappointment with the human
subject, individuals possess an unprecedented potential for influencing the
way they live their lives. It is only now that the promise of choice and
control has acquired meaning for a significant section of the public.
Autonomy and self-determination are still little more than ideals that can
inspire. But we have moved away from the Stone Age of ideologies to a time
where the transformative potential of people has acquired a remarkable
force.
We have also learnt that history does not issue any guarantees. Purposeful
change is indeed a risky enterprise. But whether we like it or not, the
taking of risks in order to transform our lives and to transform ourselves
is one of our most distinct human qualities. The making of history, too, is
one of those transformative experiments that helps us to realise and define
our humanity.
By definition, experiments yield uncertain results. It is because of the
disappointments of the past that we feel so uncomfortable with uncertainty,
and are so ready to declare the end of history. Crawling out of the cave is
no easy task. And for some time, the intimation that real history is just
about to begin is likely to inspire dread rather than enthusiasm.
But events like 11 September indicate that we cannot take time out
indefinitely. In the end, purposeful human intervention and experimentation
is the only realistic option. Taking such risks is an obligation that our
nature as humans imposes on us.
Frank Furedi is author of Culture of Fear and Mythical Past, Elusive Future,
and is debating Francis Fukuyama at the spiked conference After 11
September: Fear and Loathing in the West, on Sunday 26 May at the
Bishopsgate Institute in London. See here for full details.
---- This message was posted by kharin to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=254 97>
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