by Murray Bookchin Rarely have the concepts that literally defne the best of Western culture-- its notions of a meaningful History, a universal Civilization, and the possibility of Progress--been called so radically into question as they are today !n recent decades, both in the "nited #tates and abroad, the academy and a subculture of self-styled postmodernist intellectuals have nourished an entirely ne$ ensemble of cultural conventions that stem from a corrosive social, political, and moral relativism %his ensemble encompasses a crude nominalism, pluralism, and s&epticism, an e'treme sub(ectivism, and even outright nihilism and antihumanism in various combinations and permutations, sometimes of a thoroughly misanthropic nature %his relativistic ensemble is pitted against coherent thought as such and against the )principle of hope) *to use +rnst ,loch-s e'pression. that mar&ed radical theory of the recent past #uch notions percolate from so- called radical academics into the general public, $here they ta&e the form of personalism, amoralism, and )neoprimitivism) %oo often in this prevailing )paradigm,) as it is often called, eclecticism replaces the search for historical meaning/ a self-indulgent despair replaces hope/ dystopia replaces the promise of a rational society/ and in the more sophisticated forms of this ensemble a vaguely defned )intersub(ectivity)-- or in its cruder forms, a primitivistic mythopoesis--replaces all forms of reason, particularly dialectical reason !n fact, the very concept of reason itself has been challenged by a $illful antirationalism ,y stripping the great traditions of Western thought of their contours, nuances, and gradations, these relativistic )post-historicists,) )postmodernists,) and *to coin a ne$ $ord. )post-humanists) of our day are, at best, condemning contemporary thought to a dar& pessimism or, at $orst, subverting it of all its meaning #o grossly have the current critics of History, Civilization, and Progress, $ith their proclivities for fragmentation and reductionism, subverted the coherence of these basic Western concepts that they $ill literally have to be defned again if they are to be made intelligible to present and future generations +ven more disturbingly, such critics have all but abandoned attempts to defne the very concepts they e'coriate What, after all, is History0 !ts relativistic critics tend to dissolve the concept into eclectically assembled )histories) made up of a multiplicity of dis(ointed episodes--or even $orse, into myths that belong to )di1erent) gender, ethnic, and national groups and that they consider to be ideologically equatable !ts nominalistic critics see the past largely as a series of )accidents,) $hile its sub(ectivistic critics overemphasize ideas in determining historical realities, consisting of )imaginaries) that are essentially discontinuous from one another 2nd $hat, after all, is Civilization0 )3eoprimitivists) and other cultural reductionists have so blac&ened the $ord that its rational components are no$ in need of a scrupulous sorting out from the irrationalities of the past and present 2nd $hat, fnally, is Progress0 Relativists have re(ected its aspirations to freedom in all its comple'ity, in favor of a fashionable assertion of )autonomy,) often reducible to personal proclivities 4ean$hile, antihumanists have divested the very concept of Progress of all relevance and meaning in the farrago of human self- denigration that mar&s the moods of the present time 2 s&epticism that denies any meaning, rationality, coherence, and continuity in History, that corrodes the very e'istence of premises, let alone the necessity of e'ploring them, renders discourse itself virtually impossible !ndeed, premises as such have become so suspect that the ne$ relativists regard any attempts to establish them as evidence of a cultural pathology, much as 5reudian analysts might vie$ a patient-s resistance to treatment as symptomatic of a psychological pathology #uch a psychologization of discussion closes o1 all further dispute 3o longer are serious challenges ta&en on their o$n terms and given a serious response/ rather, they are dismissed as symptoms of a personal and social malaise #o far have these tendencies been permitted to proceed that one cannot no$ mount a critique of incoherence, for e'ample, $ithout e'posing oneself to the charge of a having a )predisposition) to )coherence)--or a )+urocentric) bias 2 defense of clarity, equally unacceptable, invites the accusation of reinforcing the )tyranny of reason,) $hile an attempt to uphold the validity of reason is dismissed as an )oppressive) presupposition of reason-s e'istence %he very attempt at defnition is re(ected as intellectually )coercive) Rational discussion is impugned as a repression of nonliterate forms of )e'pression) such as rituals, ho$ling, and dancing, or on an ostensibly philosophical scale, of intuitions, presciences, psychological motivations, of )positional) insights that are dependent on one-s gender or ethnicity, or of revelations of one &ind or another that often feed into outright mysticism %his constellation of relativistic vie$s, $hich range from the crude to the intellectually e'otic, cannot be criticized rationally because they deny the validity of rationally independent conceptual formulations as such, presumably )constricted) by the claims of reason 5or the ne$ relativists, )freedom) ends $here claims to rationality begin--in mar&ed contrast to the ancient 2thenians, for $hom violence begins $here rational discussion ends Pluralism, the decentering of meanings, the denial of foundations, and the hypostasization of the idiosyncratic, of the ethically and socially contingent, and of the psychological--all seem li&e part of the massive cultural decay that corresponds to the ob(ective decay of our era !n 2merican universities today relativists in all their mutations too often retreat into the leprous )limit e'periences) of a 5oucault/ into a vie$ of History as fragmentary )collective representations) *6ur&heim., )culture- patterns) *,enedict., or )imaginaries) *Castoriadis./ or into the nihilistic asociality of postmodernism When today-s relativists do o1er defnitions of the concepts they oppose, they typically overstate and e'aggerate them %hey decry the pursuit of foundations--an endeavor that they have characteristically turned into an )ism,) )foundationalism)--as )totalistic,) $ithout any regard for the patent need for basic principles %hat foundations e'ist that are confned to areas of reality where their existence is valid and knowable seems to elude these antifoundationalists, for $hom foundations must either encompass the entire cosmos or else not e'ist at all Reality $ould indeed be a mystery if a fe$ principles or foundations could encompass all that e'ists, indeed, all its innovations unfolding from the subatomic realm to inorganic matter, from the simplest to the most comple' life-forms, and ultimately to the realm of astrophysics #ome historical relativists overemphasize the sub(ective in history at the e'pense of the material #ub(ective factors certainly do a1ect obviously ob(ective developments !n the Hellenistic 2ge, for e'ample, Heron reputedly designed steam engines, yet so far as $e &no$ they $ere never used to replace human labor, as they $ere t$o thousand years later #ub(ective historians, to be sure, $ould emphasize the sub(ective factors in this fact ,ut $hat interaction bet$een ideological and material factors e'plains $hy one society--capitalism--used the steam engine on a vast scale for the manufacture of commodities, $hile another--Hellenistic society--used it merely to open temple doors for the purposes of mass mystifcation0 7verly sub(ectivistic historians $ould do $ell to e'plore not only ho$ di1erent traditions and sensibilities yielded these disparate uses of machines but $hat material as $ell as broadly social factors either fostered or produced them89: 7ther historical relativists are nominalistic, overemphasizing the idiosyncratic in History, often begging basic questions that it is necessary to e'plore 2 small people in ancient ;udea, $e may be told, formulated a localized, ethnically based body of monotheistic beliefs that at a chronologically later point became the basis of the ;udeo-Christian $orld religion 2re these t$o events unrelated0 Was their con(unction a mere accident0 %o conceive this vast development in a nominalistic $ay, $ithout probing into why the Roman emperors adopted the ;udeo-Christian synthesis--in an empire composed of very di1erent cultures and languages that $as direly in need of ideological unity to prevent its complete collapse--is to produce confusion rather than clarity Perhaps the most problematic aspect of relativism is its moral arbitrariness %he moral relativism of the trite ma'im )What-s good for me is good for me, and $hat-s good for you is good for you,) hardly requires elucidation8<: !n this apparently most formless of times, relativism has left us $ith a solipsistic morality and in certain subcultures a politics literally premised on chaos %he turn of many anarchists these days to$ard a highly personalistic, presumably )autonomous) subculture at the e'pense of serious, indeed, responsible social commitment and action re=ects, in my vie$, a tragic abdication of a serious engagement in the political and revolutionary spheres %his is no idle problem today, $hen increasing numbers of people $ith no &no$ledge of History ta&e capitalism to be a natural, eternal social system 2 politics rooted in purely relativistic preferences, in assertions of personal )autonomy) that stem largely from an individual-s )desire,) can yield a crude and self-serving opportunism, of a type $hose prevalence today e'plains many social ills Capitalism itself, in fact, fashioned its primary ideology on an equation of freedom $ith the personal autonomy of the individual, $hich 2natole 5rance once impishly described as the )freedom) of everyone to sleep at night under the same bridge over the #eine !ndividuality is inseparable from community, and autonomy is hardly meaningful unless it is embedded in a cooperative community8>: Compared $ith humanity-s potentialities for freedom, a relativistic and personalistic )autonomy) is little more than psychotherapy $rit large and e'panded into a social theory 5ar too many of the relativistic critics of History, Civilization, and Progress seem less li&e serious social theorists than li&e frightened former radical ideologues $ho have not fully come to terms $ith the failures of the ?eft and of )e'isting socialism) in recent years %he incoherence that is celebrated in present-day theory is due in no small part to the one-sided and e'aggerated reaction of 5rench academic )leftists) to the 4ay-;une events of 9@AB, to the behavior of the 5rench Communist Party, and in even greater part to the various mutations of Holy 4other Russia from Czarism through #talinism to Celtsinism %oo often, this disenchantment provides an escape route for erst$hile )revolutionaries) to ensconce themselves in the academy, or embrace social democracy, or simply turn to a vacuous nihilism that hardly constitutes a threat to the e'isting society 5rom relativism, they have constructed a s&eptical barrier bet$een themselves and the rest of society Cet this barrier is as intellectually fragile as the one- sided absolutism that the 7ld ?eft tried to derive from Hegel, 4ar', and ?enin ,ut fairness requires me to emphasize that contrary to the conventional $isdom about the ?eft today, there has never been any )e'isting socialism,) the erst$hile claims of +astern +uropean leaders to have achieved it not$ithstanding 3or $as Hegel a mere teleologist/ nor 4ar' a mere )productivist)/ nor ?enin the ideological )father) of the ruthless opportunist and counterrevolutionary, #talin8D: !n reaction to the nightmare of the )#oviet) system, today-s relativists have not only overreacted to and e'aggerated the shortcomings of Hegel, 4ar', and ?enin/ they have concocted an ideological prophyla'is to protect themselves from the still-une'orcised demons of a tragically failed past instead of formulating a credible philosophy that can address the problems that no$ confront us at all levels of society and thought Current e'positions of o'ymoronic )mar&et socialisms) and )minimal statisms) by )neo-) and )post-4ar'ists) suggest $here political relativism and assertions of )autonomy) can lead us8E: !ndeed, it is quite fair to as& $hether today-s fashionable political relativism itself $ould provide us $ith more than a paper-thin obstacle to totalitarianism %he dismissal of attempts to derive continuity in History, coherence in Civilization, and meaning in Progress as evidence of a )totalizing) or )totalitarian) mentality in pursuit of all-encompassing foundations directly or indirectly imbricates reason, particularly that of the +nlightenment era, $ith totalitarianism, and even signifcantly trivializes the harsh reality and pedigree of totalitarianism itself !n fact, the actions of the $orst totalitarians of our era, #talin and Hitler, $ere guided less by the ob(ectively grounded principles or )foundational) ideas they so cynically voiced in public than by a &ind of relativistic or situational ethics 5or #talin, $ho $as no more a )socialist) or )communist) than he $as an )anarchist) or )liberal,) theory $as merely an ideological fg leaf for the concentration of po$er %o overloo& #talin-s sheer opportunism is myopic at best and cynical at $orst "nder his regime, only a hopelessly dogmatic )Communist) $ho had managed to negotiate and survive #talin-s various changes in the )party line) could have ta&en #talin seriously as a )4ar'ist-?eninist) Hitler, in turn, e'hibited amazing =e'ibility in bypassing ideology for strictly pragmatic ends !n his frst months in po$er, he decimated all the )true believers) of 3ational #ocialism among his storm troopers at the behest of the Prussian oFcer caste, $hich feared and detested the 3azi rabble !n the absence of an ob(ective grounding--notably, the very real human potentialities that have been formed by the natural, social, moral, and intellectual development of our species--notions li&e freedom, creativity, and rationality are reduced to )intersub(ective) relations, underpinned by personal and individualistic preferences *nothing moreG. that are )resolved) by another &ind of tyranny--notably, the tyranny of consensus ?ac&ing foundations of any &ind, lac&ing any real form and solidity, notions of )intersub(ectivity) can be frighteningly homogenizing because of their seemingly )democratic) logic of consensuality--a logic that precludes the dissensus and ideological dissonance so necessary for stimulating innovation !n the consensual )ideal speech situation) that ;Hrgen Habermas deployed to befog the socialist vision of the 9@IJs, this )intersub(ectivity,) a transcendental )#ub(ect) or )+go) li&e a mutated Rousseauian )Keneral Will,) replaces the rich elaboration of reason %oday this sub(ectivism or )intersub(ectivity)--be it in the form of Habermas-s neo- Lantianism or ,audrillard-s egoism--lends itself to a notion of )social theory) as a matter of personal taste 4ere constructions of )socially conditioned) human minds, free-=oating in a sea of relativism and ahistoricism, re(ect a potential ob(ective ground for freedom in the interests of avoiding )totalitarian %otalities) and the )tyranny) of an )2bsolute) !ndeed, reason itself is essentially reduced to )intersub(ectivity) ;u'taposed $ith literary celebrations of the )sub(ective reason) of personalism, and its 2merican sequelae of mysticism, individual redemption, and conformity, and its post-9@AB 5rench sequelae of postmodernist, psychoanalytic, relativist, and neo-#ituationist vagaries, 4ar'-s commitment to thorough thin&ing $ould be attractive !deas that are ob(ectively grounded, unli&e those that are relativistically asserted, can provide us $ith a defnable body of principles $ith $hich $e can seriously grapple %he foundational coherence and in the best of cases the rationality of ob(ectively grounded vie$s at least ma&e them e'plicit and tangible and free them from the vagaries of the labyrinthine personalism so very much in vogue today "nli&e a foundationless sub(ectivism that is often reducible, under the rubric of )autonomy,) to personal preferences, ob(ective foundations are at least sub(ect to challenges in a free society 5ar from precluding rational critique, they invite it 5ar from ta&ing refuge in an unchallengeable nominalist elusiveness, they open themselves to the test of coherence Paul 5eyerabend-s corrosive *in my vie$, cynical. relativism to the contrary not$ithstanding, the natural sciences in the past three centuries have been among the most emancipatory human endeavors in the history of ideas--partly because of their pursuit of unifying or foundational e'planations of reality8A: !n the end, $hat should al$ays be of concern to us is the content of ob(ective principles, be they in science, social theory, or ethics, not a =ippant condemnation of their claims to coherence and ob(ectivity per se !ndeed, despite claims to the contrary, relativism has its o$n hidden )foundations) and metaphysics 2s such, because its premises are mas&ed, it may $ell produce an ideological tyranny far more paralyzing than the )totalitarianism) that it imputes to ob(ectivism and an e'pressly reasoned )foundationalism) !nsofar as our concerns should center on the bases of freedom and the nature of reason, modern relativism has )decentered) these crucial issues into $ispy e'pressions of personal faith in an atmosphere of general s&epticism We may choose to applaud the relativist $ho upholds his or her strictly personal faith by reiterating ?uther-s defant $ords at Worms, Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders *)Here ! stand, ! cannot do other$ise). ,ut to spea& fran&ly, unless $e also hear a rational argument to validate that stand, one based on more than a sub(ective inclination, $ho gives a damn about this resolve0 !! Which raises again the problem of $hat History, Civilization, and Progress actually are History, ! $ish to contend, is the rational content and continuity of events *$ith due regard for qualitative )leaps). that are grounded in humanity-s potentialities for freedom, self-consciousness, and cooperation, in the self- formative development of increasingly libertarian forms of consociation !t is the rational )infrastructure,) so to spea&, that coheres human actions and institutions over the past and the present in the direction of an emancipatory society and emancipated individual %hat is to say, History is precisely $hat is rational in human development !t is $hat is rational, moreover, in the dialectical sense of the implicit that unfolds, e'pands, and begins in varying degrees through increasing di1erentiation to actualize humanity-s very real potentialities for freedom, self-consciousness, and cooperation8I: !t $ill immediately be ob(ected that irrational events, unrelated to this actualization, e'plode upon us at all times and in all eras and cultures ,ut insofar as they defy rational interpretation, they remain precisely events, not History, ho$ever consequential their e1ects may be on the course of other events %heir impact may be very po$erful, to be sure, but they are not dialectically rooted in humanity-s potentialities for freedom, self- consciousness, and cooperation8B: %hey can be assembled into Chronicles, the stu1 out of $hich a 5roissart constructed his largely anecdotal )histories,) but not History in the sense ! am describing +vents may even )overta&e History,) so to spea&, and ultimately submerge it in the irrational and the evil ,ut $ithout an increasingly self-re=e'ive History, $hich present-day relativism threatens to e'tinguish, $e $ould not even &no$ that it had happened !f $e deny that humanity has these potentialities for freedom, self- consciousness, and cooperation--conceived as one ensemble--then along $ith many self-styled )socialists) and even former anarchists li&e 6aniel Cohn-,endit, $e may $ell conclude that )capitalism has $on,) as one disillusioned friend put it/ that )history) has reached its terminus in )bourgeois democracy) *ho$ever tentative this )terminus) may actually be./ and that rather than attempt to enlarge the realm of the rational and the free, $e $ould do best to ensconce ourselves in the lap of capitalism and ma&e it as comfortable a resting place as possible for ourselves 2s a mere adaptation to $hat e'ists, to the )$hat-is,) such behavior is merely animalistic #ociobiologists may even regard it as genetically unavoidable, but my critics need not be sociobiologists to observe that the historical record e'hibits a great deal of adaptation and $orse--of irrationality and violence, of pleasure in the destruction of oneself and others--and fnally to question my assertion that History is the unfolding of human potentialities for freedom, self-consciousness, and cooperation !ndeed, humans have engaged in destruction and lu'uriated in real and imaginary cruelties to$ard one another that have produce hells on earth %hey have created the monstrosities of Hitler-s death camps and #talin-s gulags, not to spea& of the mountains of s&ulls that 4ongol and %artar invaders of +urasia left behind in distant centuries ,ut this record hardly supplants a dialectic of unfolding and maturing of potentialities in social development, nor is the capacity of humans to in=ict cruelties on each other equivalent to their potentialities for freedom, self-consciousness, and cooperation Here, human capacities and human potentialities must be distinguished from each other %he human capacity for in=icting in(ury belongs to the realm of natural history, to $hat humans share $ith animals in the biological $orld or )frst nature) 5irst nature is the domain of survival, of core feelings of pain and fear, and in that sense our behavior remains animalistic, $hich is by no means altered $ith the emergence of social or )second nature) Unknowing animals merely try to survive and adapt to one degree or another to the $orld in $hich they e'ist ,y contrast, humans are animals of a very special &ind/ they are knowing animals, they have the intelligence to calculate and to devise, even in the service of needs that they share $ith nonhuman life-forms Human reason and &no$ledge have commonly served aims of self-preservation and self-ma'imization by the use of a formal logic of e'pediency, a logic that rulers have deployed for social control and the manipulation of society %hese methods have their roots in the animal realm of simple )means-ends) choices to survive ,ut humans also have the capacity to deliberately in=ict pain and fear, to use their reason for perverse passions, in order to coerce others or merely for cruelty for its o$n sa&e 7nly knowing animals, ironically animals capable of intelligent innovation, $ith the chadenfreude to en(oy vicariously the torment of others, can in=ict fear and pain in a coldly calculated or even passionate manner %he 5oucauldian hypostasization of the body as the )terrain) of sado-masochistic pleasure can be easily elaborated into a metaphysical (ustifcation of violence, depending, to be sure, on $hat )pleases) a particular perpetrating ego8@: !n this sense, human beings are too intelligent not to live in a rational society, not to live $ithin institutions formed by reason and ethics, institutions that restrict their capacity for irrationality and violence89J: !nsofar as they do not, they remain dangerously $ay$ard and unformed creatures $ith enormous po$ers of destruction as $ell as creation Humanity may have a )potentiality for evil,) as one colleague has argued ,ut that over the course of social development people have e'hibited an e'plosive capacity to perpetrate the most appallingly evil acts does not mean that human potentiality is constituted to produce evil and a nihilistic destructiveness %he capacity of certain Kermans to establish an 2usch$itz, indeed the means and the goal to e'terminate a $hole people in a terrifyingly industrial manner, $as inherent neither in Kermany-s development nor in the development of industrial rationalization as such Ho$ever anti-#emitic many Kermans $ere over the previous t$o centuries, +astern +uropeans $ere equally or even more so, $hile ironically, industrial development in Western +urope may have done more to achieve ;e$ish (uridical emancipation in the nineteenth and t$entieth centuries than all the Christian pieties that mar&ed the preindustrial life during the 4iddle 2ges !ndeed, evil may have a )logic)--that is to say, it may be e'plained ,ut most general accounts e'plain the evolution of evil in terms of adventitious evil acts and events, if this can be regarded as e'planation at all Hitler-s ta&eover of Kermany, made possible more by economic and political dislocations than by the racial vie$s he espoused, $as precisely a terrible event that cannot be e'plained in terms of any human potentiality for evil %he horror of 2usch$itz lies almost as much in its inexplicability, in its appallingly e'traordinary character, as in the monstrosities that the 3azis generally in=icted on +uropean ;e$s !t is in this sense that 2usch$itz remains hauntingly inhuman and that it has tragically produced an abiding mistrust by many people of Civilization and Progress When e'planations of evil are not merely narrations of events, they e'plain evil in terms of instrumental or conventional logic %he &no$ing animal, the human being, $ho is viciously harmful, does not use the developmental reason of dialectic, the reason of ethical re=ection/ nor a coherent, re=ective reason, grounded in a &no$ledge of History and Civilization/ nor even the &no$ing of an ambiguous, arbitrary, self-generated )imaginary,) or a morality of personal taste and pleasure Rather, the &no$ing animal uses instrumental calculation to serve evil ends, including the in=iction of pain %he very e'istence of irrationalism and evil in many social phenomena today compels us to uphold a clear standard of the )rational) and the )good) by $hich to (udge the one against the other 2 purely personalistic, relativistic, or functional approach $ill hardly do for establishing ethical standards--as many critiques of sub(ectivism and sub(ective reason have sho$n %he personal tastes from $hich sub(ectivism and relativism derive their ethical standards are as transient and =eeting as moods 3or $ill a nominalistic approach suFceM %o reduce History to an incomprehensible assortment of patterns or to ine'plicable products of the imagination is to deny social development all internal ethical coherence899: !ndeed, an unsorted, ungraded, unmediated approach reduces our understanding of History to a crude eclecticism rather than an insightful coherence, to an overemphasis on di1erentiae *so easy to do, these mindless daysG. and the idiosyncratic rather than the meaningful and the universal, more often attracting the commonsensical individual to the psychoanalytic couch than helping him or her reconstitute a left libertarian social movement !f our vie$s of social development are to be structured around the di!erences that distinguish one culture or period from another, $e $ill ignore underlying tendencies that, $ith e'traordinary universality, have greatly e'panded the material and cultural conditions for freedom on various levels of individual and social self-understanding ,y grossly emphasizing dis(unctions, social isolates, unique confgurations, and chance events, $e $ill reduce shared, clearly common social developments to an archipelago of cultures, each essentially unrelated to those that preceded and follo$ed it Cet many historical forces have emerged, declined, and then emerged again, despite the formidable obstacles that often seemed to stand in their $ay 7ne does not have to e'plain )everything) in )foundational) terms to recognize the e'istence of abiding problems such as scarcity, e'ploitation, class rule, domination, and hierarchy that have agonized oppressed peoples for thousands of years89<: !f critics $ere correct in dubbing dialectics a mystery for claiming to encompass all phenomena by a fe$ cosmic formulas, then they $ould be obliged to regard human social development as a mystery if they claimed that it lac&s any continuity and unity--that is, the bases for a philosophy of History Without a notion of continuity in History, ho$ could $e e'plain the e'traordinary eNorescence of culture and technique that Homo sapiens sapiens produced during the 4agdelenian period, some t$enty or thirty thousand years ago0 Ho$ could $e e'plain the clearly unrelated evolution of comple' agricultural systems in at least three separate parts of the $orld--the 4iddle +ast, #outheast 2sia, and 4esoamerica--that apparently had no contact $ith one another and that $ere based on the cultivation of very di1erent grains, notably $heat, rice, and maize0 Ho$ could $e e'plain the great gathering of social forces in $hich, after ten thousand years of arising, stagnating, and disappearing, cities fnally gained control over the agrarian $orld that had impeded their development, yielding the )urban revolution,) as O Kordon Childe called it, in di1erent zones of the $orld that could have had no contact $ith one another0 4esoamerica and 4esopotamia, most clearly, could not have had any contact $ith each other since Paleolithic times, yet their agriculture, to$ns and cities, literacy, and mathematics developed in $ays that are remar&ably similar !nitially Paleolithic foragers, both produced highly urbanized cultures based on grain cultivation, glyphs, accurate calendrics, and very elaborate pottery, to cite only the most stri&ing parallels +ven the $heel $as &no$n to 4esamericans, although they do not seem to have used it, probably for $ant of appropriate draft animals, as $ell as the zero, despite the absence of any communication $ith +urasian societies !t requires an astonishing disregard for the unity of Civilization on the part of historical relativists to emphasize often minor di1erences, such as clothing, some daily customs, and myths, at the e'pense of a remar&able unity of consciousness and social development that the t$o cultures e'hibited on t$o separate continents after many millennia of total isolation from each other %he unity of social evolution is hardly vitiated by such nominalistic perple'ities as )Why didn-t a ?enin appear in Kermany rather than Russia in 9@9I-9@9B0) !n vie$ of the great tidal movements of History, it might be more appropriate to e'plore--?enin-s strong $ill and Lerens&y-s psychological =accidity aside--$hether the traditional proletariat $as ever capable of creating a )$or&ers- state,) indeed, $hat that statist concept really meant $hen $or&ing men and $omen $ere obliged to devote the greater amount of their lives to arduous labor at the e'pense of their participation in managing social a1airs Caprice, accident, irrationality, and )imaginaries) certainly enter into social development for better or $orse ,ut they have literally no meaning if there is no ethical standard by $hich to defne the )other) of $hat $e are presupposing $ith our standard89>: #eemingly accidental or eccentric factors must be raised to the level of social theory rather than shriveled to the level of nominalistic minutiae if $e are to understand them 6espite the accidents, failures, and other aberrations that can alter the course of rational social and individual development, there is a "legacy of freedom," as ! named a &ey chapter in my boo& #he $cology of %reedom, a tradition of increasing appro'imation of humanity to$ard freedom and self- consciousness, in ideas and moral values and the overall terrain of social life !ndeed, the e'istence of History as a coherent unfolding of real emancipatory potentialities is clearly verifed by the e'istence of Civilization, the potentialities of History embodied and partially actualized !t consists of the concrete advances, material as $ell as cultural and psychological, that humanity has made to$ard greater degrees of freedom, self-consciousness, and cooperation, as $ell as rationality itself %o have transcended the limitations of the &inship tie/ to have gone beyond mere foraging into agriculture and industry/ to have replaced the parochial band or tribe $ith the increasingly universal city/ to have devised $riting, produced literature, and developed richer forms of e'pression than nonliterate peoples could have ever imagined--all of these and many more advances have provided the conditions for evolving increasingly sophisticated notions of individuality and e'panding notions of reason that remain stunning achievements to this very day !t is dialectical reason rather than instrumental reason that apprehends the development of this tradition !ndeed, dialectical logic can hardly be treated coequally $ith eruptions of brutality, ho$ever calculated they may be, since in no sense can episodic capacities be equated $ith an unfolding potentiality 2 dialectical understanding of History apprehends di1erentiae in quality, logical continuity, and maturation in historical development, as distinguished from the &inetics of mere change or a simple directivity of )social dynamics) Rarefying pro(ects for human liberation to the point that they are largely sub(ective )imaginaries,) $ithout relevance to the realities of the overall human e'perience and the insights of speculative reason, can cause us to overloo& the e'istential impact of these developments and the promise they hold for ever-greater freedom, self-consciousness, and cooperation 2ll too easily $e ta&e these achievements for granted $ithout as&ing $hat &inds of human beings $e $ould be if they had not occurred as a result of historical and cultural movements more fundamental than eccentric factors %hese achievements, let us ac&no$ledge quite clearly, are Civilization, indeed a civilizing continuum that is nonetheless infused by terribly barbaric, indeed animalistic features %he civilizing process has been ambiguous, as ! have emphasized in my )2mbiguities of 5reedom,)89D: but it has nonetheless historically turned fol& into citizens, $hile the process of environmental adaptation that humans share $ith animals has been transformed into a $ide-ranging, strictly human process of innovation in distinctly alterable environments89E: !t is a process that reached its greatest universality primarily in +urope, ho$ever much other parts of the $orld have fed into the e'perience %hose of us $ho understandably fear that the barrier bet$een Civilization and chaos is fragile actually presuppose the e'istence of Civilization, not simply of chaos, and the existence of rational coherence, not simply of irrational incoherence 4oreover, the dialectic of freedom has emerged again and again in recurring struggles for freedom, ideological as $ell as physical, that have abidingly expanded overall goals of freedom, self-consciousness, and cooperation--as much in social evolution as a $hole as $ithin specifc temporal periods %he past is replete $ith instances in $hich masses of people, ho$ever disparate their cultures $ere, have tried to resolve the same millennia-old problems in remar&ably similar $ays and $ith remar&ably similar vie$s %he famous cry for equality that the +nglish peasants raised in their 9>B9 revolt--)When 2dam delved and +ve span, $ho $as then the gentleman0)--is as meaningful for contemporary revolts as it $as si' hundred years ago, in a $orld that presumably had a far di1erent )imaginary) from our o$n %he denial of a rational universal History, of Civilization, of Progress, and of social continuity renders any historical perspective impossible and hence any revolutionary pra'is meaningless e'cept as a matter of personal, indeed, often very personal, taste +ven as social movements attempt to attain $hat they might call a rational society, in developing humanity-s potentialities for freedom, self- consciousness, and cooperation, History may constitute itself as an ever- developing )$hole) %his $hole, ! should emphasize, must be distinguished from a terminal Hegelian )2bsolute,) (ust as demands for coherence in a body of vie$s must be distinguished from the $orship of such an )2bsolute) and (ust as the capacity of speculative reason to educe in a dialectically logical manner the very real potentialities of humanity for freedom is neither teleological or absolutist, much less )totalitarian)89A: %here is nothing teleological, mystical, or absolutist about History )Wholeness) is no teleological referent, $hose evolving components are merely parts of a predetermined )2bsolute) 3either the rational unfolding of human potentialities nor their actualization in an eternally given )%otality) is predestined 3or is the $or&ing out of our potentialities some vague sort of suprahuman activity Human beings are not the passive tools of a #pirit *&eist. that $or&s out its complete and fnal self-realization and self-consciousness Rather, they are active agents, the authentic )constituents) of History, $ho may or may not elaborate their potentialities in social evolution 2borted the revolutionary tradition has been here, and discontinuous it has been there--and for all $e &no$ it may ultimately be aborted for humanity as such Whether an )ultimate) rational society $ill even actually e'ist as a liberatory )end of history) is beyond anyone-s predictive po$ers We cannot say $hat the scope of a rational, free, and cooperative society $ould be, let alone presume to claim &no$ledge of its )limits) !ndeed, insofar as the historical process e1ected by living human agents is li&ely to e'pand our notions of the rational, the democratic, the free, and the cooperative, it is undesirable to dogmatically assert that they have any fnality History forms its o$n ideal of these notions at various times, $hich in turn have been e'panded and enriched +very society has the possibility of attaining a remar&able degree of rationality, given the material, cultural, and intellectual conditions that allo$ for it or, at least, are available to it Within the limits of a slave, patriarchal, $arrior, and urban $orld, for e'ample, the ancient 2thenian polis functioned more rationally than #parta or other Kree& poleis !t is precisely the tas& of speculative reason to educe what should exist at any given period, based on the very real potentialities for the e'pansion of these notions %o conclude that )the end of history) has been attained in liberal capitalism $ould be to (ettison the historical legacy of these magnifcent e1orts to create a free society--e1orts that claimed countless lives in the great revolutions of the past 5or my part, ! and probably many revolutionaries today $ant no place in such an )end of history)/ nor do ! $ant to forget the great emancipatory movements for popular freedom in all their many forms that occurred over the ages History, Civilization, and Progress are the rational social dispensations that form, even $ith all the impediments they face, a dialectical legacy of freedom %he e'istence of this legacy of freedom in no $ay denies the e'istence of a )legacy of domination,)89I: $hich remains $ithin the realm of the irrational !ndeed, these )legacies) intert$ine $ith and condition each other Human ideals, struggles, and achievements of various appro'imations to freedom cannot be separated from the cruelties and barbarities that have mar&ed social development over the centuries, often giving rise to ne$ social confgurations $hose development is highly unpredictable ,ut a crucial historical problematic remains, to the e'tent that reason can foresee a given developmentM Will it be freedom or domination that is nourished0 ! submit that Progress is the advance--and as everyone presumably hopes, the ascendancy--of freedom over domination, $hich clearly cannot be conceptually frozen in an ahistorical eternity, given the gro$ing a$areness of both hopes and oppressions that have come to light in only a fe$ recent generations Progress also appears in the overall improvement, ho$ever ambiguous, of humanity-s material conditions of life, the emergence of a rational ethics, $ith enlightened standards of sensibility and conduct, out of unre=e'ive custom and theistic morality, and social institutions that foster continual self-development and cooperation Ho$ever lac&ing our ethical claims in relation to social practice may be, given all the barbarities of our time, $e no$ sub(ect brutality to much harsher (udgments than $as done in earlier times !t is diFcult to conceive of a rational ethics--as distinguished from unthin&ing custom and mere commandments of morality, li&e the 6ecalogue--$ithout reasoned criteria of good and evil based on real potentialities for freedom that speculative reason can educe beyond a given reality' %he )suFcient conditions) for an ethics must be e'plicated rationally, not simply aFrmed in public opinion polls, plebiscites, or an )intersub(ective) consensus that fails to clarify $hat constitutes )sub(ectivity) and )autonomy) 2dmittedly, this is not easy to do in a $orld that celebrates vaporous $ords, but it is necessary to discover truth rather than $or& $ith notions that stem from the conventional )$isdom) of our times 2s Hegel insisted, even commonplace moral ma'ims li&e )?ove thy neighbor as thyself) raise many problems, such as $hat $e really mean by )love)89B: !!! ! believe that $e lac& an adequate ?eft critique of the theoretical problems raised by classical Hegelianism, 4ar'ism, anarchism, social democracy, and liberalism, $ith the result that there are serious lacunae in the critical e'ploration of these )isms) 2 comprehensive critical e'ploration $ould require an analysis not only of the failings of the sub(ect matter under discussion, but of the hidden presuppositions of the critic %he critic $ould be obliged to clearly defne $hat he or she means by the concepts he or she is using %his self-re=e'ive obligation cannot be bypassed by substituting undertheorized terms li&e )creativity,) )freedom,) or )autonomy) for in-depth analysis %he comple'ity of these ideas, their s$eep, the traditions that underpin and divide them against one another, and the ease $ith $hich they can be abused and, in the academic milieu' in $hich they are bandied around, detached from the lived material and social conditions of life--all require considerable e'ploration 2mong the important concepts and relationships that require elucidation is the tendency to reduce ob(ectivity to the )natural la$) of physical science 89@: !n the conventional scientifc sense of the term, )natural la$) preordains the &inetic future of ob(ects colliding $ith each other !t may even preordain an individual plant $ill become under the normal conditions required for its gro$th 7b(ectivity, ho$ever, has a multiplicity of meanings and does not necessarily correspond to the )la$s) that the natural sciences see& to formulate !t involves not only the materiality of the $orld in a very broad sense but also its potentialities, as a very real but as yet unrealized form structured to undergo elaboration %he evolution of &ey life-forms to$ard ever-greater sub(ectivity, choice, and behavioral =e'ibility--real potentialities and their degrees of actualization--and to$ard human intellectuality, language, and social institutionalization, is transparently clear 2n ob(ective potentiality is the implicit that may or may not be actualized, depending upon the conditions in $hich it emerges 2mong humans, the actualization of potentiality is not necessarily restricted by anything besides aging and death, although it is not free to unfold unconditionally ,ut minimally, the actualization of humanity-s potentialities consists in its attainment of a rational society #uch a society, of course, $ould not appear ab novo ,y its very nature it $ould require development, maturation, or, more precisely, a History--a rational development that may be fulflled by the very fact that the society is potentially constituted to be rational !f the self-realization of life in the nonhuman $orld is survival or stability, the self-realization of humanity is the degree of freedom, self- consciousness, and cooperation, as $ell as rationality in society Reduced merely or primarily to scientifc )natural la$,) ob(ectivity is highly attenuated !t does not encompass potentiality and the $or&ing of the dialectic in e'istential reality, let alone its presence, so to spea&, as a standard for gauging reality against actuality in the unfolding of human phenomena8<J: 4ar'-s claim to have unearthed )the natural la$s of capitalist production) $as absurd, but to advance relativism as an alternative to it is equally absurd !n a younger, more =e'ible time, 4ar' insightfully claimed, )!t is not enough that thought should see& its actualization/ actuality itself must strive to$ard thought)8<9: %hought, qua dialectical reason, becomes transformative in shaping the present and the future insofar human rational pra'is ob(ectively actualizes the implicit %oday, $hen sub(ectivism reigns supreme and $hen the common response even to signifcant events is to erase any meaning and coherence from History, Civilization, and Progress, there is a desperate need for an ob(ectivity that is immensely broader than natural science and )natural la$s,) on the one hand, and an emphasis on the idiosyncratic, )imaginary,) and adventitious, on the other !f vulgar 4ar'ists used )science) to turn the ethical claim that )socialism is necessary) into the teleological assertion that )socialism is inevitable,) today-s )post-4ar'ist) critics repeat a similar vulgarity by mordantly celebrating incoherence in the realm of social theory %he claim of socialism-s inevitability $as crudely deterministic/ the claim of its necessity $as a rational and ethical e'plication )!ntersub(ectivity) and )intersub(ective relations,) for their part, cannot e'plain in any meaningful $ay how humanity is rooted in biological evolution, or $hat $e broadly call )3ature,) least of all by deftly using the phrase )social construction) to bypass the very ob(ective evolutionary reality that )3ature) connotes ;ust as a sub(ectivized ne'us of )intersub(ective relations) dissolves the ob(ectivity of social phenomena, so a sub(ectivized ne'us of )social construction) dissolves the ob(ectivity of natural evolution, as if neither social phenomena nor natural evolution had any actuality, aside from being a pair of simplistic epistemological categories Here Lant reappears $ith a vengeance, $ith the possible di1erence that even his noumenal or un&no$able e'ternal reality has disappeared 6ialectic, it should be emphasized, cannot be reduced merely to a )method) on the grounds that such disparate dialectical thin&ers as 2ristotle, ;ohn #cotus +riugena, Hegel, and 4ar' comprehended di1erent realms of &no$ledge and reality in di1erent $ays and periods Humanity-s &no$ledge of dialectic has itself been a process, and dialectical thin&ing has itself undergone development--a cumulative development, not a so- called )paradigm shift)--(ust as scientists have been obliged in the give- and-ta&e or sublation of ideas to resolve one-sided insights into the nature of reality and its becoming8<<: 2lthough the broader ob(ectivity that dialectical reasoning educes does not dictate that reason will prevail, it implies that it should prevail, thereby melding ethics with human activity and creating the basis for a truly ob(ective ethical socialism or anarchism 6ialectical reason permits an ethics in history by upholding the rational in=uence of )$hat-should-be) as against )$hat-is) History, qua the dialectically rational, e'ercises a pressing )claim,) so to spea&, on our canons of behavior and our interpretation of events Without this liberatory legacy and a human practice that fosters its unfolding, $e have absolutely no basis for even (udging $hat is creative or stagnant, rational or irrational, or good or evil in any constellation of cultural phenomena other than personal preference "nli&e science-s limited ob(ectivity, dialectical naturalism-s ob(ectivity is ethical by its very nature, by virtue of the &ind of society it identifes as rational, a society that is the actualization of humanity-s potentialities8<>: !t sublates science-s narro$ ob(ectivity to advance by rational inferences dra$n from the ob(ective nature of human potentialities, a society that increasingly actualizes those potentialities 2nd it does so on the basis of $hat should be as the fulfllment of the rational, that is to say, on rational &no$ledge of the )Kood) and a conceptual congruence bet$een the Kood and the socially rational that can be embodied in free institutions !t is not that social development is dialectical because it is necessarily rational as a traditional Hegelian might suppose, but rather that $here social development is rational, it is dialectical or historical We aver, in short, that $e can educe from a uniquely human potentiality a rational development that advances human self-realization in a free, self-conscious, and cooperative society #peculative reason here sta&es out a claim to discern the rational development *by no means immune to irrational vicissitudes. of society as it should be--given human potentiality, as $e &no$ it in real life, to evolve from a tribal fol& to a democratic citizenry, from mythopoesis to reason, from the submission of personhood in a fol&li&e collectivity to individuality in a rational community--all as rational ends as $ell as e'istential realities #peculative reason should al$ays be called upon to understand and explain not only $hat has happened $ith respect to these problematics but why they recur in varying degrees and ho$ they can be resolved !n a very real sense, the past ffteen or more years have been remar&ably ahistorical, albeit highly eventful, insofar as they have not been mar&ed by any lasting advance to$ard a rational society !ndeed, if anything, they $ould seem to tilting to$ard a regression, ideologically and structurally, to barbarism, despite spectacular advances in technology and science, $hose outcome $e cannot foresee %here cannot be a dialectic, ho$ever, that deals )dialectically) $ith the irrational, $ith regression into barbarism--that is to say, a strictly )egative *ialectics' ,oth 2dorno-s boo& of that name and Hor&heimer and 2dorno-s #he *ialectic of $nlightenment, $hich traced the )dialectical) descent of reason *in Hegel-s sense. into instrumentalism, $ere little more than mi'ed farragoes of convoluted neo-3ietzschean verbiage, often brilliant, often colorful, often e'citingly informative, but often confused, rather dehumanizing and, to spea& bluntly, irrational8<D: 2 )dialectic) that lac&s any spirit of transcendence *+ufhebung. and denies the )negation of the negation) is spurious at its very core8<E: 7ne of the earliest attempts to )dialectically) deal $ith social regression $as the little- &no$n )retrogression thesis,) underta&en by ;osef Weber, the Kerman %rots&yist theorist $ho $as the e'ile leader of the !nternationale Lommunisten 6eutschlands *!L6. Weber authored the !L6-s program )Capitalist ,arbarism and #ocialism,) $hich $as published in 3ovember 9@DD in 4a' #chachtman-s )ew ,nternational during the bitterest days of the #econd World War and posed the question that many thin&ing revolutionaries of that distant era facedM What forms $ould capitalism ta&e if the proletariat failed to ma&e a socialist revolution after the #econd World War08<A: 2s the title of the !L6 document suggests, not all 4ar'ists, perhaps fe$er than $e may thin&, regarded socialism as )inevitable) or thought that there $ould necessarily be a socialist )end to history) after the $ar !ndeed, many $ho ! &ne$ as a dissident %rots&yist ffty years ago $ere convinced that barbarism $as as serious a danger for the future as socialism $as its greatest hope8<I: %he prospect of barbarism that $e face today may di1er in form from $hat revolutionary 4ar'ists faced t$o generations ago, but it does not di1er in &ind %he future of Civilization is still very much in the balance, and the very memory of alternative emancipatory visions to capitalism are becoming dimmer $ith each generation 2lthough the )imaginary) and sub(ective are certainly elements in social development, contemporary capitalism is steadily dissolving the uniqueness of )imaginaries) of earlier, more diverse cultures !ndeed, capitalism is increasingly leveling and homogenizing society, culturally and economically, to a point that the same commodities, industrial techniques, social institutions, values, even desires, are being )universalized) to an unprecedented degree in humanity-s long career 2t a time $hen the mass- manufactured commodity has become a fetish more potent than any archaic fetish that early cultures )imagined)/ $hen the glossy tie and three- piece suit is replacing traditional sarongs, cloa&s, and shoulder capes/ $hen the $ord )business) requires fe$er and fe$er translations in the $orld-s diverse vocabularies/ and $hen +nglish has become the lingua franca not only of so-called )educated classes) but people in ordinary $al&s of life *need ! add more to this immensely long list0., it is odd that the idiosyncratic in various cultural constellations are no$ acquiring a signifcance in academic discourse that they rarely attained in the past %his discourse may be a $ay of side-stepping a much-needed e'amination of the challenges posed by recent capitalist developments, and instead mystifying them in convoluted discussions that fll dense academic tomes and, particularly in the case of 5oucault and postmodernism, satisfying the )imaginaries) of self-centered individuals, for $hom the paint spray can has become the $eapon of choice $ith $hich to assault the capitalist system and hair shaved into a rooster comb the best $ay to a1ront the conventional petty bourgeoisie #tated bluntlyM no revolutionary movement can gro$ if its theorists essentially deny ,loch-s )principle of hope,) $hich it so needs for an inspired belief in the future/ if they deny universal History that aFrms s$eeping common problems that have besieged humanity over the ages/ if they deny the shared interests that give a movement the basis for a common struggle in achieving a rational dispensation of social a1airs/ if they deny a processual rationality and a gro$ing idea of the Kood based on more than personalistic *or )intersub(ective) and )consensual). grounds/ if they deny the po$erful civilizatory dimensions of social development *ironically, dimensions that are in fact so useful to contemporary nihilists in criticizing humanity-s failings./ and if they deny historical Progress Cet in present-day theoretics, a series of events replaces History, cultural relativism replaces Civilization, and a basic pessimism replaces a belief in the possibility of Progress What is more sinister, mythopoesis replaces reason, and dystopia the prospect of a rational society What is at sta&e in all these displacements is an intellectual and practical regression of appalling proportions--an especially alarming development today, $hen theoretical clarity is of the utmost necessity What our times require is a social-analysis that calls for a revolutionary and ultimately popular movement, not a psycho-analysis that issues self-righteous disclaimers for )beautiful souls,) ideologically dressed in cloa&s of personal virtue Kiven the disparity bet$een $hat rationally should be and $hat currently exists, reason may not necessarily become embodied in a free society !f and $hen the realm of freedom ever does reach its most e'pansive form, to the e'tent that $e can envision it, and if hierarchy, classes, domination, and e'ploitation are ever abolished, $e $ould be obliged to enter that realm only as free beings, as truly rational, ethical, and empathetic )&no$ing animals,) $ith the highest intellectual insight and ethical probity, not as brutes coerced into it by grim necessity and fear %he riddle of our times is $hether today-s relativists $ould have equipped us intellectually and ethically to cross into that most e'pansive realm of freedom We cannot merely be driven into greater freedom by blind forces that $e fail to understand, as 4ar'ists implied, still less by mere preferences that have no standing in anything more than an )imaginary,) )instincts,) or libidinal )desires)8<B: %he relativists of our time could actually play a sinister role if they permitted the )imaginative) to loosen our contact $ith the ob(ective $orld 5or in the absence of rational ob(ective standards of behavior, imagination may be as demonic as it may be liberatory $hen such standards e'ist/ hence the need for informed spontaneity--and an informed imagination %he e'hilarating events of 4ay-;une 9@AB, $ith the cry )!magination to Po$erG) $ere follo$ed a fe$ years later by a surge in the popularity of nihilistic postmodernism and poststructuralism in academy, an unsavory metaphysics of )desire,) and an apolitical call for )imagination) nourished by a yearning for )self-realization) 4ore than ever, ! $ould insist, $e must invert 3ietzsche-s dictum )2ll facts are interpretations) and demand that all interpretations be rooted in )facts,) that is, in ob(ectivity We must see& out broader interpretations of socialism than those that cast socialist ideals as a science and strangled its movements in authoritarian institutions 2t a time $hen $e teeter bet$een Civilization and barbarism, the current apostles of irrationality in all their varied forms are the chthonic demons of a dar& $orld $ho have come to life not to e'plicate humanity-s problems but to e1ect a dispiriting denial of the role of rationality in History and human a1airs 4y disquiet today lies not in the absence of scientifc )guarantees) that a libertarian socialist society $ill appear--at my age, that $ill never be my privilege to see--but in whether it will even be fought for in so decadent and desperate a period 5ebruary 9E, 9@@D
(Post-Contemporary Interventions) Martin Hopenhayn - No Apocalypse, No Integration - Modernism and Postmodernism in Latin America-Duke University Press Books (2002)