In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
Fukuyama__ thesis that history has climaxed with liberal capitalism may have been widely derided, but it is accepted, even assumed, at the level of the cultural unconscious. It should be remembered, though, that even when Fukuyama advanced it, the idea that history had reached a __erminal beach_ was not merely triumphalist. Fukuyama warned that his radiant city would be haunted, but he thought its specters would be Nietzschean rather than Marxian. Some of Nietzsche__ most prescient pages are those in which he describes the __versaturation of an age with history_. __t leads an age into a dangerous mood of irony in regard to itself_, he wrote in Untimely Meditations, __nd subsequently into the even more dangerous mood of cynicism_, in which __osmopolitan fingering_, a detached spectatorialism, replaces engagement and involvement. This is the condition of Nietzsche__ Last Man, who has seen everything, but is decadently enfeebled precisely by this excess of (self) awareness.
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
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Fukuyama__ thesis that history has climaxed with liberal capitalism may have been widely derided, but it is accepted, even assumed, at the level of the cultural unconscious. It should be remembered, though, that even when Fukuyama advanced it, the idea that history had reached a __erminal beach_ was not merely triumphalist. Fukuyama warned that his radiant city would be haunted, but he thought its specters would be Nietzschean rather than Marxian. Some of Nietzsche__ most prescient pages are those in which he describes the __versaturation of an age with history_. __t leads an age into a dangerous mood of irony in regard to itself_, he wrote in Untimely Meditations, __nd subsequently into the even more dangerous mood of cynicism_, in which __osmopolitan fingering_, a detached spectatorialism, replaces engagement and involvement. This is the condition of Nietzsche__ Last Man, who has seen everything, but is decadently enfeebled precisely by this excess of (self) awareness.
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From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.
Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such things as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple life would be. One could plod through the Siberian salt mines of existence without being bothered about happiness.
There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies. We abjure labels. We fight for money and an indefinable pride. The politics, the ethics, the moralities, are irrelevant.
But other hordes would come, and other false prophets. Our feeble efforts to ameliorate man__ lot would be but vaguely continued by our successors; the seeds of error and of ruin contained even in what is good would, on the contrary, increase to monstrous proportions in the course of centuries. A world wearied of us would seek other masters; what had seemed to us wise would be pointless for them, what we had found beautiful they would abominate. Like the initiate to Mithraism the human race has need, perhaps, of a periodical bloodbath and descent into the grave. I could see the return of barbaric codes, of implacable gods, of unquestioned despotism of savage chieftains, a world broken up into enemy states and eternally prey to insecurity. Other sentinels menaced by arrows would patrol the walls of future cities; the stupid, cruel, and obscene game would go on, and the human species in growing older would doubtless add new refinements of horror. Our epoch, the faults and limitations of which I knew better than anyone else would perhaps be considered one day, by contrast, as one of the golden ages of man.
To paraphrase Hannah Arendt__s portrayed in the recently released movie of the same name__he Nazi war criminal__ actions stemmed from her well-known phrase __anality of evil,_ not as a result of mental illness but as a result of a lack of thinking. Their greatest error was delegating the process of thinking and decision-making to their higher ups. In Rudolf Höss__ case, this would have been his superiors, particularly Heinrich Himmler. To many this conclusion is troubling, for it suggests that if everyday, __ormal,_ sane men and women are capable of evil, then the atrocities perpetrated during the Holocaust and other genocides could be repeated today and into the future.Yet, this is exactly the lesson we must learn from the war criminals at Nuremberg. We must be ever wary of those who do not take responsibility for their actions. And we ourselves must be extra vigilant, particularly in this day of accelerated technological power, heightened state surveillance, and global corporate reach, that we do not delegate our thinking to others.