To initiate my enquiry, I am evoking the Hegelian dialectic method to propose the following triadic structure that will underpin the foundation of my investigation:
Thesis: History ended when humanity reached the endpoint of its ideological evolution through the establishment and, ultimately, dominance of Western liberal democracies and market capitalism, where universal recognition and freedom have been finally achieved. The humankind, therefore, is currently living in a post-historical world as a society of ‘Last Men’. The present is frozen. (Fukuyama, 1992; Kojève, 1947)
Antithesis: Contradictions still exist in the form of inequality and poverty. As long as Western liberal democracies and market capitalism fail to eliminate those contradictions, the present becomes haunted by the lost futures of what was promised and never delivered. The present appears out of joint; society becomes unstable; history feels incomplete. (Derrida, 1993; Fisher, 2009)
Synthesis: The present relies on what is excluded – the winner of an ideological battle will always have to be defined against its excluded other; it will, therefore, always be ‘haunted’ by its alternative. But there is currently no systemic alternative; reality feels unchangeable. A vacuum is created where ghosts of lost futures and past traumas have nowhere to go and become the very fabric of society. Our world is hyper-haunted.
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