The end of the Cold War and the ideological confusion

Michael Gorbachev

introduced economic reforms (perestroika) that allowed limited market-oriented reforms and introduced glasnost, giving citizens a minimum of freedom of speech.

Francis Fukuyama (b. 1952)

The collapsed of the communist bloc was the ultimate proof of the triumph of Western, liberal democracy. The superiority of the liberal democracy (free market and parliamentarianism) lays in the freedom and equality. He saw history as an evolutionary process towards an ideal form of society. And as that ideal form had been proofed, the triumph of western democracy meant the “end of history”

Samuel Huntington (1927-2008):

started from the idea of civilization and divided the world into three blocks: the free, the communist and the third world. It was the individual civilizations that were the most important entity. He defined a civilization as the broadest cultural entity with which the individual could identify, as a group of nations that had a common past, a common culture, sometimes a common language, and almost always a common religion. The West was in a superior position (and should hold on to the power-status) compared to other civilizations and shouldn’t export their ideals. If a democracy had to arise somewhere, it had to come from within.

Anthony Giddens (b. 1938)

Giddens’ premise was that globalization was irreversible and that it was characterized not only by economic interdependence (and the optimistic idea that the market could give rise to an economy without scarcity) but also by a process of detraditionalization (individualization) and the growth of a risk consciousness. These processes undermined the power of the nation-state (new role of the nation-state), the family or religion, all institutions that used to give citizens a sense of safety and security. Giddens formulated the politics of the radical center, meaning that politics had to go beyond left and right. He also believed that it was possible that the politics of self-actualization (the politics of one’s own identity and self-fulfillment) could become more important than a politics of emancipation (the politics of inequality).

 

Giddens also believed that democracy had to reinvent itself and that people have a responsibility to improve democracy through a rationalization. This can only be done by demanding citizens to participate in the public affairs, which he considered a duty and not a choice.

 

A dialogic democracy most be based on the autonomy principle (that people can think for themselves) and a solidary principle (actions should be for the community and not the individual)

Charles Taylor (b. 1931)

multiculturalism. He believed that human recognition was necessary as it helped build identity and that multiculturalism gave that opportunity. He assumed that people would be able to lead autonomous lives through their full membership in a culture or community rather than solely being alone. Minorities should be protected in order to correct disadvantages within society.

Will Kymlicka (b. 1962)

Believed that both national minorities and immigrant groups should have minority rights. He is a liberal and believes that allowing these minority rights are not granted to protect the group itself but rather that it benefits the individual who is part of the group. So the key question is: how does the group rights relate to individual rights? Here, he argues that minority groups can make two types of demands: a right to internal restriction and a right to external protection from the impact of decisions made by the rest of the society.

Angela Davis (b. 1944)

Describes how stereotypes and prejudices from slavery about black women had survived and that there had been a double standard in the women’s movement. Like that the early feminist advocating for family planning often worked to keep women of color from reproducing. She emphasized the need for diversity in leadership and ideas within the women’s movement.

bell hooks (b. 1952)

argued that when feminists argue for equal rights with men that this is impossible because not all men are equal to each other in a capitalist society. She instead started from the concept of sisterhood, where she believes that all women (and men) regardless of their differences must unite to transcend the complex relationships between class, race, and gender.

Alice Walker and Maya Angelou, womanism

chose to speak of womanism as an alternative to feminism. Important difference between them and bell hooks was that for them, the black skin color of an African American woman was not so much an element of her feminism as it was the lens through which she understood her femininity. So the culture is the lens through which the women saw and defined herself.

Chandra Talpade Mohanty (°1955)

feminism in the Global South cannot be introduced from the outside, it must come from within one’s own society, be shaped by one’s own culture and ideology.

Chakravorty Spivak (b. 1942)

disagrees with Mohanty, as she doesn’t think that you can rediscover authentic indigenous cultures without the impact of imperialism. There is no authentic stage to return to, so it’s better to listen to what lives in reality. She believed that the oppression of women in the third world was a triple colonization, as these women were first colonized by colonial power, then by patriarchy, and finally by Western feminism. She also asked the question if Muslim women needs saving after the US invaded Afghanistan and came up with the quote: white man saving brown women from brown men.

Judith Butler (b. 1956)

Representative of queer theory which undermines the distinction between gender and sex. She believes that both gender and sex are cultural phenomenons and identity is free and flexible. She stresses the importance of language, that the words that we use to describe something makes that thing real. So not using certain words will make the thing dissapear in reality. She is also against gay and lesbian marriage as it strengtened the institution of the church and thereby the patriarchy.

Steve Biko (1946-1977)

leader of the south african student organization. Even if you are liberal and doesn't support apartheid in theory, you are still priviledged and do not do anything to change it. And the blacks are responsible for their own emancipation and didn’t need whites.

Cedric Robinson (1940- 2016)

Developed the term racial capitalism, that capitalism had been closely intertwined with racism since its inception. Capitalism had to make differences between people and exploit these differences to capitalize on them. Racial capitalism described the process of extracting economic value from persons of a different color.

Alain de Benoist (1943)

European neoconservatism. Rejected the free market economy.

Steven Pinker (b. 1954)

Pinker argues that reason, science, and humanism, the basic values of the Enlightenment, have brought progress to the world and will continue to do so. He wants to provide arguments for being optimistic. He speaks of a mysterious arch that pushes reality towards greater justice (a bit like an invisible hand). Capitalism and globalization have generally led to material improvement and should therefore be embraced. At the same time, he believed in scientism (a rock-solid belief in (exact) science as the only objective means by which societies can solve their problems and challenges.)

Amartya Sen

emphasized the fallibility of free market theory and argued that progress and development were only possible through the elimination of unfreedom. Expanding freedom should be the goal and the means of any development effort. The freedom that Sen advocated, therefore, refers to both economic freedom and political freedom but equally to social services (education, health care), guarantees of openness and social security.

Piketty

inequality must be reduced by a progressive tax on capital to return power to the people and not just the elites. Progress in the past has not been the result of the concentration of capital but rather the pursuit of equality and especially access to education by the majorities in society. Both the workers, the lower middle classes and a part of the small self-employed are increasingly resisting hyper-capitalist globalization, are more and more open to nationalist projects.

Zizek

Capitalism pretends to be a neutral social mechanism but is ultimately an ideological conception; there is nothing natural about the spontaneous organization of the market. The political Left thus faces the difficult task of demonstrating that there is nothing natural in the current crisis, that the existing global economic system rests on a series of political decisions. Liberalism and socialism have no answers to the challenge of justice and the Idea of communism means the the rediscovery of its essence that is not tainted by the flawed and problematic experiences we have had with it.

Anthropocene

man’s influence on nature is shaping not only life on the planet but also the future of the planet itself

Dipesh Chakrabarty

one of the first philosophers to consider the impact the anthropocene might have on human civilization. Our ideas of freedom, justice and equality are being challenged by the limits set by nature. And this Anthropocene is the result of the political and economic activities of the richest part of humanity.

Ecologism

Ecologism goes against what both liberalism and socialism shared, namely a belief in endless growth based on ever-increasing production as it has negative social consequences. It stands for the preservation of the earth in order to build a human world out of it where each one can develop autonomously through various paths of emancipation, with an emphasis on cooperation and togetherness.

Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)

the digital revolution ushered a new phase in the development of capitalism. She describes how global technology companies have claimed the human experience as a free resource to be translated into behavioral data. So citizens give up their privacy to predict future behavior and behavior modification like tuning and nudging shapes our behavior in ways that violates our freedom. For Zuboff, the rise of surveillance capitalism is a threat to democracy and freedom.