Page 57 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 57
defining the ideology of extremism
Widely repudiated and fiercely criticised Fukuyama‘s thesis on the
“end of history” nevertheless represents a general point of reference con-
cerning the problem. Although most of the criticism may be well founded,
Fukuyama’s idea of the end of history at least marks a point in (our) time,
which has its symbolical beginning in the event of the fall of Berlin wall.
“/.../ if we are now at a point where we cannot imagine a world substantial-
ly different from our own, in which there is no apparent or obvious way in
which the future will represent a fundamental improvement over our cur-
rent order, then we must also take into consideration the possibility that
History itself might be at an end” (Fukuyama, 1992: p. 51). Advocating op-
timism, Fukuyama asserts that no viable alternative to liberal democracy
is possible, although he admits that ideologies of nationalism or religious
fundamentalism may play some role in the view of his notion of thymos or
desire for recognition. If there is any importance of Fukuyama’s work, then
it should be found exactly in his “grand scheme”, his somewhat abstract
and superficial approach to the problem of the post-modern global society.
In a certain sense then a criticism of Fukuyama’s work might be read as a
further approximation of the problem.
Having neglected to re-elaborate a thinking of the event, Fukuyama
oscillates confusedly between two irreconcilable discourses. Even though
he believes in its effective realization..., Fukuyama does not hesitate all the
same to oppose the ideality of this democratic ideal to all the evidence that
bears massive witness to the fact that neither the United States nor the Eu-
ropean Community has attained the perfection of the universal State of lib-
eral democracy, nor have they even come close (Derrida, 1994: p. 63).
This controversy finally brings us to the problem, which we were seek-
ing to articulate throughout this chapter. Since Fukuyama – although wide-
ly misread in this sense – did not establish any end of ideologies, even with-
in his schemes of the prevailing of liberal democracy in the empty space of,
yet again, exposed tension between the ideal and the chances of the ideal to
become real in the context of the “real world”, there is a social space open
for ideology as a medium of the externalising of a particular subjectivity.
We may add that Derrida‘s criticism in a way brings forward an argument
originating from another kind of reading of Hegel, who is one of the cru-
cial points of reference in Fukuyama’s text. To put is simply: Derrida points
out the importance of the process (Hegel’s dialectic represented by his Phe-
nomenology) against the result (the end of History), which is much more
than Fukuyama imagines open to manifold liabilities of the further pro-
55
Widely repudiated and fiercely criticised Fukuyama‘s thesis on the
“end of history” nevertheless represents a general point of reference con-
cerning the problem. Although most of the criticism may be well founded,
Fukuyama’s idea of the end of history at least marks a point in (our) time,
which has its symbolical beginning in the event of the fall of Berlin wall.
“/.../ if we are now at a point where we cannot imagine a world substantial-
ly different from our own, in which there is no apparent or obvious way in
which the future will represent a fundamental improvement over our cur-
rent order, then we must also take into consideration the possibility that
History itself might be at an end” (Fukuyama, 1992: p. 51). Advocating op-
timism, Fukuyama asserts that no viable alternative to liberal democracy
is possible, although he admits that ideologies of nationalism or religious
fundamentalism may play some role in the view of his notion of thymos or
desire for recognition. If there is any importance of Fukuyama’s work, then
it should be found exactly in his “grand scheme”, his somewhat abstract
and superficial approach to the problem of the post-modern global society.
In a certain sense then a criticism of Fukuyama’s work might be read as a
further approximation of the problem.
Having neglected to re-elaborate a thinking of the event, Fukuyama
oscillates confusedly between two irreconcilable discourses. Even though
he believes in its effective realization..., Fukuyama does not hesitate all the
same to oppose the ideality of this democratic ideal to all the evidence that
bears massive witness to the fact that neither the United States nor the Eu-
ropean Community has attained the perfection of the universal State of lib-
eral democracy, nor have they even come close (Derrida, 1994: p. 63).
This controversy finally brings us to the problem, which we were seek-
ing to articulate throughout this chapter. Since Fukuyama – although wide-
ly misread in this sense – did not establish any end of ideologies, even with-
in his schemes of the prevailing of liberal democracy in the empty space of,
yet again, exposed tension between the ideal and the chances of the ideal to
become real in the context of the “real world”, there is a social space open
for ideology as a medium of the externalising of a particular subjectivity.
We may add that Derrida‘s criticism in a way brings forward an argument
originating from another kind of reading of Hegel, who is one of the cru-
cial points of reference in Fukuyama’s text. To put is simply: Derrida points
out the importance of the process (Hegel’s dialectic represented by his Phe-
nomenology) against the result (the end of History), which is much more
than Fukuyama imagines open to manifold liabilities of the further pro-
55
