Taylor: "The story is not over '
The rejection of the "subtraction stories" is one of the sides of the intuition that humans 'construct' new identities, new and imaginative ideas of their position in the cosmos and history. The quotation marks in the concept of "construction" means to point out that this is not something we do deliberately and controlled. We are more like sleepwalkers, which are transported between different buildings.
That is to say, there is certainly some element of intent (We are caught by new moral and religious ideas, like that of sola fide), but there are a lot of unintended consequences. Nor do I mean by "construction" that the changes do not correspond to anything in reality, they are completely arbitrary. All this is perhaps the 'construction' an inappropriate term, but I have found a better one. With it I want to indicate that an important historical change does not arise simply because we spread some belief or some conceptual boundaries, but we are always working on the redefinition of our ability to act and we are always changing ourselves. As talk about a change of direction? We come to the question of Hegel because Hegel sees it in a direction of change that moves the story (the spirit unfolds, fully realized the reason itself). I said I do not think that the changes are purely arbitrary.
If something like the doctrine of sola fide was able to have such a great impact on history, it must correspond to something important in the human condition, something that the adoption of this doctrine answer. We learn to know our nature by observing what happened in history. So far, the perspective is Hegelian. However, where Hegel is wrong assuming that there is only one direction of change, namely that there is only one line of development that leads us forward. Clearly, however, history shows us that it is not. There are broad similarities between the powerful routes of change we observe in different civilizations, but they can all be traced to a single line of development.
Take for example the axial period. Jaspers is right in saying that happened here is something important: a sense of transcendence or of a higher good comes in several advanced civilizations. These then have enormous power to drive those who live the margins of these civilizations. However, it is very difficult to bring to light what is the common element here, for example, between the Hebrew prophets, Greek philosophers, Confucius and the Buddha. These new openings can not be compared along an axis that runs from those that truly reflect historical change and those that reflect only imperfectly or only a first approximation. This type of hierarchy reflects the narrowness of thought and the arrogance of the West and Hegel was subdued (though we're not moralistic, it was hard not to see it in Europe at that time). In other words, it is true that some historical developments can be seen as the unfolding of an important human potential (and here we are certainly in Hegelian territory) and the palette of these developments is quite wide and can not be restricted in advance (and here we break with Hegel).
Certainly there is room for more surprises. We should also add that these dynamics, although it corresponds to an important potential, almost always resulting in loss of other potential beings. For example, the "disenchantment" of the world is not just our beliefs lose some bizarre and improbable over the relics or the spirits of the forest, it is also to develop our a new way of being in the world as "self-compressed" (buffered selves), and this means the loss of a certain kind of sensitivity.
Thus, Hegel is right in saying that
a) certain changes are the implementation of important potential, but he is wrong
b) because there is only one direction for such changes. Instead, there were rivals or similar forms, to indicate where we struggle to find a general term, as with the revolutions of the axial period. Moreover, Hegel is wrong
c) the fact that these changes involve losses and gains, and often confront us with profound dilemmas. Human history seems oriented towards uniformity, because some developments give a great economic and military power to companies that adopt them.
This forces other companies to develop at least the functional equivalent, if you do not want to be subservient. However, these functional equivalents should be developed starting from the cultural resources available to the companies themselves, so we have not one modernity, but multiple modernities. I think the "postmodern" is only the continuation of certain tendencies of modernity. Modernity itself has always been something that we fought, because it includes new concepts of order (as the modern moral order) and various forms of rebellion against them.
Both of these instances contain some truth, from my point of view. We need some modern version of the moral order to live decent lives, in which certain forms of human barbarity, inequality, exploitation can be minimized, but we can not have fetishistic adoration for these orders, or pretending that They cover all our screw regulations. What seems absurd and ridiculous at times from this point of view is the inexorable "seriousness" (sérieux) of this struggle between those who believe in absolute order, and those who want to refuse any order. Both positions are equally untenable and it is painful to see so much energy, even among the best minds, lost in this useless battle.
Charles Taylor
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