Thinking about the END OF HISTORY.

Sorry for my hideously long absence. I had retreated to my hovel to sulk.

When I asked that question, I was wondering if the work you do (the expendeture of your effort) supports the current power structures, mainly. But also, do you feel like you are working towards creating avenues for new kinds of actions that are not structured and dictated by the current system?

I am not expecting a simple answer to those questions. I think certain people could be considered to be supporting the current system to much larger degrees than others, for example people who work in a bureaucracy, or even elementary school teachers that stick closely to the curriculum. I even had some teachers who got offended when children asked why we were learning certain subjects and topics. Although it seems fairly obvious, when you are very little, you don’t always put it together that you are being put through the rungs, progress through school, find a job, generally either in some government institution or corporation or other capital accumulating company.

I don’t think the only options to work against the current system are becoming a criminal or isolating yourself. I do think that it is pretty near impossible to live without supporting the structures in some way (even necessities we pay for end up as part of the funding, as well as tax.)

Like I said, I’m not looking for a simple answer to this question, and it is only if you feel up to answering. It just seems to me that you readily accept the end of history as a given, and I am wondering how much of that is a result of you perhaps liking the system as it is and wishing to perpetuate it. I think there is an incentive to shoot down ideas that conflict with the way things are if we wish to maintain that system (which is not to say that every divergent idea is a good one)…

It strikes me that the reason there was more passion in the past, more desire for political revolution (for example, which I am not personally for, in any common sense of the term, ie. armed or violent revolution) was not because it wasn’t believed there were risks, but because (among many reasons) there were pressures that made it more uncomfortable to maintain the status quo than to risk everything on a change for the better. In the west, for the most part (maybe not for everyone) our way of life has become fairly comfortable, and we are less liable to take risks with what we have for fear of losing it at all, and that means even small risks. Most people want to stick with the system because they believe (correctly or incorrectly) that if they study hard at school and get a “good” job, they will have a comfortable home and shiny baubles to play with.

Do you think that is a fair assessment?

Not there yet, probably never will be.

I do not accept the end of history as a given. But I say that history will perhaps end in the near future. Not more.

Can assesments be “fair”, although they have to be right or worng?

Why “not there yet”? Why “probably never will be”?

Okay, I stand corrected. It seemed like your last responses were trying to convince me that the end of history was approaching. So I was asking you whether you are working to bring it about or to bring something else about. I’m not really convinced that as individuals we have no effect on the way the future progresses, and in any case, despite what little control we often have over our selves and our own lives, it is the only thing we can have something near to direct control over (even if freedom is relative or merely perceived), our relation to everything else is mediated through ourselves.

One definition in the Oxford dictionary of fair is:

I think that coincides pretty closely with asking if the the assessment is right or wrong. It’s a figure of speech.

We have an effect on the way of the future progresses, but who is “we”? The main effect comes frome about 1% of all humans, the effect of about 19-20% of all humans is still considerable, but the effect of about 79-80% of all humans is quite inconsiderable. The latter do what the former want them to do. Basical is the effect of the 1% of all humans, regardless wether the form of government is monarchy/tyrannis, aristocracy/oligarchy, or democracy/ochlocracy. Who decided, decide, and will decide wether or not there is war, for example? 1% of all humans! The other humans (99%) can not change very much. And if there will be no war, no historical existentials, no history anymore, then that will probably be the time of the “last men” (Friedrich W. Nietzsche).

Sure, I can understand and accept that, but what I don’t really understand is what you feel should be the result of that realization. Are you saying that because only a small percent of individuals effect history on a grand scale, that “we”, and for the sake of this conversation we can say that “we” is me, you, anyone else reading, and others we come into contact with who we would have an influence upon, should stop even trying to make changes is the world? I’m not saying that is what you are implying for certain, but it’s a little unclear and it seems to me that might be the implication.

I am not looking for easy answers (like some joyous burst of inspiration “we should all join together and change the world!”). I am often quite a pessimist but I don’t really see any point in accepting a deeply fatalistic interpretation and living by it without making an attempt.

Would you care to elaborate on what you feel should be done (even if you do not wish to project those kinds of categories on others, I don’t know what you desire)? I’m sure some such understanding must guide your own actions.

Also to clarify, when I asked you before about where you place your effort, it was not in some attempt to prove you haven’t lived up to some expectation I had (if you even thought that), it is just that I wonder sometimes how interrelated the stances we take are with our outlook and how that connects with how we act. I honestly don’t believe that I’ve accomplished some great thing. I have been ruled by fear for much of my life, it’s not something I’m proud of. History for me is integrally connected to my own positioning as a subjective being, it was that that interested me in this thread and in the ‘End of History’ debate in general. For me philosophy is integrally related to how individuals can understand the world and act.

I’m not saying that last thought is something new, it’s been integral to philosophy and prerhaps contemplation prior to the written text, but I do think a lot of philosophical contemplation has moved away from that concern. It is not really important how we act (we here being the philosophers in question and their audience). Many philosophers live their lives through institutions with very structured repetitive behaviours, maybe they always have because there has always been deep structures to social life. (Roles and Institutions, pre-prescribed paths of development)

One of the reasons I had difficulty getting into the understanding of the way history is theorized in this thread is because I had always learned about history prior as being embodied in the written text. Human life before writing (or our possession of the writing of the time) being categorized as pre-history.

I am just wondering, do you think it would be significant or insignificant if a group of people (however large) created narrative texts (with real events, ideas and what have you) and passed them down among others that came to form the group throughout various generations. Would this be beyond the scope of history? Are we defining history as only what is recognized globally? To put it another way, does it only become history because it is recognized globally? If the same transmissions (texts, maybe other artifacts) were later “discovered” or otherwise brought forth to attention, does that make them part of history in a global understanding?

What should the historian do? If the historian wanted to change something according to his feelings (for example), this historian would not be a real historian. Historians have to know and fix the hoistorical facts without any feelings and disturbance which comes from outside their bodies.

I almost hate myself to coming to the realization, that unfortunately, Arminius, the percentages we have been pre-occupied with all along this forum have ALWAYS been as such, there seem to have always to have been such breakdown. Aristocracy was a long standing political stance, and perhaps that is the way society breaks down in almost predictable ways, based on inherent powers? This, incidentally is very Kantian, and categorical, so again, we come to the threshold between the pseudo idealism of Leibniz and the ethical ‘practicality’ of Kant. And the more i think of it, the more it seems that the ‘should’ of Kant has reserved a sustenance of a continuation between himself and Leibniz. So in a sense, he foresaw the either/or problem in a historical continuum of consciousness. That his logic is flawed, is another matter. But for his time, it was passable.

How did the historian come into this? I was talking about we as individuals acting. The main parts of my previous comment that referrenced historians (I think) was about whether history must be globally recognized and on the other hand small groups passing down history. I didn’t make any implication of historians changing facts that I’m aware of, only individuals acting to influence history.

Why do you call Leibniz’ idealism a “pseudo idealism”, Obe?

Come into what, please?

That’s right.

Leibniz has a milder form from that of the classic versions, but far less so than Kant’s.

Here is a quote from him to de Volder:(June 30, 1704,)

“It follows from the very fact that a continuous mathematical body cannot be resolved into primary constituents. That it is also not real but something mental and designates nothing but the possibility of parts, not anything actual”

contrast this with Kant:1783/4

“The mathematical properties of matter (e.g.infinite divisibility, proves that space and time belong not to the properties of things, but to the representation of things in sensible intuition.”

Arminius, here the trend is the differentiation of the concept of the thing (re-presentation) and the thing-in-it’s- self, can be seen . Descartes total disassociation of the thing and the thought of the thing was a problem for Leibniz, because he was at a cross—point, he had to incorporate the classic into the newly evolving de-objective perspectives, which by gradient, seem to have become too prominent as signified objects, or objects of attention. In other words, the classic symbols have started to contract, with the political-economic undertow, seeming to deflect, the reflection into it’s nemesis, the structural insecurity holding up the whole edifice. He didn’t go as far as to try to synthesize this edifice, and his ideas were an attempt to sustain the whole, by predicating the parts of which the whole was built up, by their dependence on the ideal, the whole. Kant went farther, and treated the whole as totally unavailable to perception, it was revealed through re-presentations of the intuition of the whole.

Yes, but that doesn’t justify to call his idealism a “pseudo idealism”, does it?

“We should all join together and change the world!” That sentence is a term of those who believe in progress as an eternal process without any return or other direction than straightforward.

The world has been changed enough; it is important to protect it from those who want to change it!

Unfortunately the changing of the world will not stop because they can’t stop even when they believe that they really need to.

Come into the conversation.

And you confirm that I made no statement that would warrant us talking about historians changing history…

Do you think you’re making a Nietzschean statement here about affirming eternal return? Nietzsche thought there was a progression to be made from Christianity to nihilism to the affirmation of eternal return. If you think it is Nietzschean it is ridiculous. Nietzsche affirmed existence as all becoming. You might be more comfortable with the eternal forms.

You admit that you would like history to end:

And I said,

yet you respond as if that was precicely what I asked for.

It seems like you aren’t interested having a straightforward discussion, in which case I’m done here.

No.

Das ist nicht das, was ich meinte.

Do you know German?

No. That sentence is directed against the following sentence of Karl Marx: “Die Menschen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kommt aber darauf an, sie zu verändern.”

We should not change the world because the world is changed enough (see also above).

No, but I had reason to believe you do, and if you were going to reread that passage I thought you would enjoy it most in its original language.

Fair enough (a figure of speech, meaning I accept that with all of my Christian humility).

Is it then only from the influence of Marx you would like to protect the world?

I personally think there is reason to desire change in the world from the way it is. I am less concerned with changing the whole world than I am clearing a pathway through which I can move and continue to create (create by acting, being, not representing). I don’t think a world revolving around the production and consumtion of (many) useless objects will continue anyway, why not at least attempt to influence the direction society moves?

I’m sure you could kick my ass in German philosophy (almost the only country worthy of the title (philosophy)). After all, I spent most of my youth crying over The Idiot, and that was only a few years ago.

Yeah. Well done, Thank you.

“Das ist nicht das, was ich meinte” = “That is not that, what I meant”.

No. As I said: it is the influence of all those who believe in progress as an eternal process without any return or other direction than straightforward. I don’t believe in such an eternal progress without any return or other direction than straightforward.

Because of the backlash; the probabilty for the opposite direction is too high. Please tell me what you exactly want to influence?

Thank you.

Crying? Really?

I won’t say that I’m not the one you’re protecting the world against, maybe I am? I accept risk, nothing is without risk.

Ultimately I would like to influence a lot of things, but if I had to narrow it down to one (albiet complex) trend, then it would be the way people are introduced to and conceive one another. As it is, I feel that we introduce ourselves not as we conceive or understand ourselves but most frequently as situationally constructed expectations. My hope is not that we will all love each other, I don’t think that is possible, but at least more realistic. Probably the main quality of our introductions is related to career. “Hello, how are you, this is what I do (ie, this is what I am, or what I am worth)”. Or in a related sense as a list of qualifications “this is what I’ve done (what standard I have lived up to)”.

I think a lot could come of this because it would do much to break down the rigidly formed barriers in our minds (this is how people are, this is how people should be). Ultimately, something similar would remain, people will always have expectations. The reason I want to break those down are because they are socially constructed expectations that maintain designated fields of action and proper conduct. Maybe it’s impossible. I have thought that humans are probably ideologically dogmatic because they are either easily satisfied or else have found the means of their satisfaction, I have no intention of taking that away from anyone, but I still need to continue on my Quixotic endeavour because everyone seeks their means of satisfaction, even if it is unattainable.

I understand what it means to affirm nature and the way things are, I still wouldn’t say I am there. I am thankful of Nietzsche for revealing to me my ressentiment, but I haven’t overcome it.

Yes. I’ve never been “truly Christian”, but still I was enamored by the image of the “saint”. I also cried while reading Insulted and Humiliated. I was even so far gone that when I read Kierkegaard’s “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing” I cursed my heart for being impure… sad but true story.

(How I read The Idiot at the time:

Nastasya had a strong spirit and character because she suffered from a belief that she was bad (I forget why now, but I think it is because she desired life). Myshkin saw that she was a strong spirit and wanted to help her accept herself (affirm herself in the terminology of this post). She wouldn’t and the strength of her spirit was wasted (through the eyes of Myshkin), and it destroyed him. Myshkin wanted to play the saviour to his ideal, but he was not God, he could not make her into something she was not. So the tragedy was doubled, Myshkin could not live up to his own ideal either.)

I understand this idealism (a projected good) that can drag us down. It can even make us mean and nasty when we believe we are the embodiment of all that is good. But this is also why I am always trying to bring philosophy down into myself and deal with it there.

Do you think that having this view from above it all is another idealism?

To put that question in a very different way, do you think that the ones we call the masters (or the 1%, or 20%, etc.) have acted in all innocence, or have acted out of an idealism, just an idealism that isn’t fooled by a false conception of what others call “good”?