Scribd
Upload
59 views7 pages

End of History PDF

Francis Fukuyama

Uploaded by

Blonko
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF or read online on Scribd
59 views7 pages

End of History PDF

Francis Fukuyama

Uploaded by

Blonko
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 7
Ideology ang the End of History’ Both structuralism and the very have recently come under attack from the increasingly influential view of the world known as Postmodernism, Postmodernism almost as elusive a concept as ideology itself This is because the the terms post-Christian, Post-Marxist, Post-structuralism — it defines itself negatively, Critical and mockin; destructive, it ejects even very broad and tentative attempts to find some foundation for our thought. It turns all our ‘isms’ into “wasms’ and Tesolutely turns its back on efforts to give some overall account of our nature and destiny: it wishes to be Post-everything, elevates incoherence to its defining feature, and sees even reason itself.as the mere tool of a Nietzschean will to power. All this sounds con- fusingly relativist. However, no thinkers, not even postmodernists, can be consistently relativists without disappearing completely up their own backsides. So the most useful approach will be to ask Whether postmodernism is not itself an ideology which will, in ei Suggest that we look at the social and historical context in which it has arisen and flourishes. : it Postmodernism is a reaction to, and an extension Ge Se Itis ‘in every respect parasitic on modernity: it lives ? here is meant achievements and on its dilemmas’? By ‘modernity material and the Enlightenment project of achieving ae sication of science moral progress for humankind through the oe in many ways and reason. This project, like the ice we have come intended to supercede, involved an account of and why we shou from, where we are going, how we can ge er th bother to go. Building on the subversion different approach of Habermas n cog, ‘Western philosophical tradition to be found in writers such Nese nd Heeger, Postmodernist thinkers aye yesh Seepcal of such universal schemes which they callie? } nartatves' ey prefer to concentrate On smaller-scale acooun narratives and deny that such accounts can be united, and judge, terms of some overarching acount and judgement Postmodernist thinkers concentrate on three claims, First, ag cording ta leading exponent such as Jacques Derrida, we have ny direct encounter wih reality through reason, But only through our images oi We construct our accounts of reality in words. Justa building consists ints brick, so reality consistsin the words, images and metaphors that we use to describe it. By deconstructing the sot i eee den foundations. Thus ‘today, culture impacts back on realty in ways that make any independent and, as it were, non- or extra eultul form oft problematical (in a kind of Heisenberg principle of mass culture which intervenes between your eye and the thing itself, so that finally the theorists unite their voices in the new don thatthe “referent” no longer exists’ There is @ well-known story of an ancient sage who was asked about the foundation of the word, He replied that the world rested onan elephant. When asked what the clephant rested on, he replied that it rested on a turtle and when ‘asked wha the turtle rested on, he replied: ‘t's turtles all the way | down." In postmodemist thought we ae in danger of losing nature and realty completely and descending ina spiral of endless ‘metaphor. Secon, the selfs held to be no longer the confident and sovereign being of much modernist thought. ‘The set i no longer the potential lord of all it surveys and capable of shaping history in ‘accordance with human aims. The self has been deconstructed oF decentred, typically in the work of F studies on attitudes to madness, the histor of prisons and of sexuality claimed to show how human i individuality itself historically constucted and produce by al-pervasiveimpetonalTaTOnE ot ower FO* Foucault "an W an invention the recent GMe-of whieh is easily emonstrated by the archacology of our thought, an inveniob which is also perhaps near its end. If there were to occur in the Present times an intellectual revolution similar to that of the Enlightenment then it would be odds on that man would be effaced just like picture drawn inthe sand by the incoming tide’? Th postmodernism celebrates the. gxislence of difference, variety and sot eitence vr pearance oa eublerealty dol a ~ gue set have obvious paral : wee aching en tetsu Peay rye The dominance of te te’ a Toate anarchy in which, ie Ma iene ons a The impresion chet aia tc He was enforce alert nti are rept fexeed bythe govt of orton foods (fom clot turnover, now assigns an ir tnd puaion to sextet inovatn and evpsne ‘society where packaging and imaging are Polity as much as of beet, whee ti ‘compressed by information super-hi fe refered toa ‘soies' and could ourish, In this context ‘striking return to political thought: the ‘moral project and civil society with its roestonal associations and Where diversity can be Cae r: Dalit that al hou Re Capen cnn esa fits own.” Teconfuses objet “ Ate canhave avery vc interesting out the truth, Poy Sanby contra tendo ie Upon concep suchas ase dite nto airplay of chtoric and power. BYerimig gy? SResnv one itresed, there sno Such Ong sob c Beh an ender cash of propectivs, postmodern sO tema har gf nec 4 pts and pas iene favour « conservatism bobering the saa ga Moreover, some postmodernist writers, such as Baud’ Tyotard, tnd to homogenize interests, to equate ages s ‘the depie"iemsches Of saying which interes, dea conics ae more important than hes Te interes of sage Coleif andpoicns are moc the sane. Some have seen postmodernism as a recycling of the ‘end of ideology’ thesis discted in Chapter 5, Postnoderlam ince teen on ends grr. Tadeo, ne Jameson haa sonra pant 8 ata by vee eat ‘hich premontios of the Tite, catastrophic of vedere hhave been replaced by senses of the end of this or that (the end of ideology, at, oF Socal clas; the “rss” of Leninisas send democrat, othe wellire sat, et ete)" The end of Wee us recently ben endorsed by Richard Rory, the most prominent | exponent of postmodemism inthe United Sites, Rory’ revel Andie ira springs roma postmederism wich crest the continental European tration of Netasche and Helge through an Anglo-Saxon analytical pragmatism. In his view, lee | Semazaey camo ae, ad doesnot eed ny pop justin. Hebeteves bat contemporary ieral soe ety contains the institutions forts own improvement —an improvement which can mitigate the dangers Foucault ses. Indeed, my hunch that Western social and political thought may have had the last conceptual revolution it needs’ In Rorty’s view, echoing whet he {akes to be the later views of John Rawis, just liberal democracy ‘willbe asociety which encourages the “end of ideology” that takes reflective equilibrium as the only method needed in discussing social policy. When such a society deliberates, when it collects the Principles and the intuitions tobe brought into equilibrium, it wil ‘tend to discard those drawn from philosophical accounts of the self, of rationality’. "*Rorty's appeal here to‘our’ common intuitions and traditional practices is reminiscent of Oakeshott's conservative ideological stance."* vrctonc an pola oan dep Se cy, bate end of Kae rerod of ranking Weclgea ern hyena rence aut only tate i oer tam eps ar had beens sci been vo crample lie den sate ne another de, ith te Gee vented ters pred ame Ty into the compeitons of thea ara ne the pees of pve isting doubt on his hess: poverty was do bot to cultural disadvantage which wool in the face. of the consumer abundance pr capitalism, Moreover, Eukayame didnot

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy