Slouching Towards the End of History

Glenn Fairman / American Thinker

The famous (or once famous) psychologist Emile Coué initiated a school of hypnotic auto-suggestion that can be summed up with the phrase: “Every day and every way, things are getting better.” This mantra raises optimism to the caliber of a secular faith, and if we combine this mental fancy with History’s supposed “inevitable” impetus towards technological and moral progress, then sooner or later it’s a lead pipe cinch that we will be able to lasso our own happiness or legislate good intentions with a twitch of our noses. One can see the upshot of such a psychological conviction in Obama’s recent remark — a declaration that “the world is less violent that it has ever been.” Note to history: you are falling on your ass. Islam Ascendant is setting fires throughout Gaia and its zeitgeist is wholly inconsistent with a Golden Age — unless you are in the camp of the “Religion of Peace.” To this charge, one may recall Tacitus’ dictum: “We created a wasteland, and named it peace.”  So in all fairness, the perspective of the “peace of the dead” is perhaps Islam’s unique contribution to humanity.

The idea present in all philosophical theories of historical/social evolution, from H.G. Wells to G.W.F. Hegel, is that progress is deterministic. Thus, Enlightenment and the “March of God” in the world are on virtual autopilot. And even if Hegel’s God willed Hitler’s global bloodbath, the world is nevertheless moving towards greater and greater conjoining spheres of freedom, till eventually, we all arrive at the front porch of the End of History. Ding Dong! Can we have an Enlightenment Sandwich, please?

The idea present in all philosophical theories of historical/social evolution, from H.G. Wells to G.W.F. Hegel, is that progress is deterministic. Thus, Enlightenment and the “March of God” in the world are on virtual autopilot. And even if Hegel’s God willed Hitler’s global bloodbath, the world is nevertheless moving towards greater and greater conjoining spheres of freedom, till eventually, we all arrive at the front porch of the End of History. Ding Dong! Can we have an Enlightenment Sandwich, please?

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