While the ideological struggle had formal opponents, entire nations and societies, at least theoretically, were able to select their subject of choice—whether that be class, racism or statism, or individualism. The victory of liberalism resolved this question: the individual became the normative subject within the framework of all mankind. This is when the phenomenon of globalization entered the stage, the model of a post-industrial society made itself known, and the postmodern era began. From now on, the individual subject is no longer the result of choice but is a kind of mandatory given. Man is freed from his ‘membership’ in a community and from any collective identity. The ideology of ‘human rights’ becomes widely accepted, at least in theory, and is practically compulsory. Humanity under liberalism, comprised entirely of individuals, is naturally drawn toward universality and seeks to become global and unified. Thus, the projects of ‘world government’ or globalism are born.
A new level of technological development makes it possible to achieve independence from the class structuralization of industrial societies, in other words, post-industrialism. The values of rationalism, scientism, and positivism are recognized as ‘veiled forms of repressive, totalitarian policies,’ or the grand narrative, and are criticized. At the same time, this is accompanied by the glorification of total freedom and the independence of the individual from any kind of limits, including reason, morality, identity (social, ethnic, or even gender), discipline, and so on. This is the condition of postmodernity.
At last, we have come to ‘the end of history’ and globalization. The end of history is the logical conclusion of universalism. The end of history is the abolition of the future. History proceeds and reaches its terminal state. There is no more space to go on. By abolishing the future, the entire structure of time, such as the past and the present, is also abolished. How can this be possible? We could compare it to the simultaneous playing of all existing notes, sounds, and melodies of a musical piece, resulting in a cacophony, the gnashing and grinding of teeth. At the same time, it will provoke absolute silence, deafness, and sourness. Hence, there will be no space for the temporalization of the inner tension of transcendental subjectivity; the short circuit would grow exponentially without the possibility of being dissipated. That means the igniting of a conflagration, the same fire that usually goes hand-in-hand with the sword.
In order to prevent the blaze and the clashing of swords that would result from closing the temporal and logical relief valve, the world will strive to trap consciousness in networks and virtuality, where it can run away from the inner pressure of self-awareness without issue. If it succeeds, the new world of the machine kingdom will be created. The global networks and cyberspace are suitable only for the existence of post-humans, post-society, and post-culture. Instead of fire, we will get lightning and electricity. Some people believe Fukuyama is already a robot.
Globalization is equivalent to the end of history. Both go hand-in-hand. They are semantically linked. Different societies have different histories. That means different futures. If we are going to make a ‘tomorrow’ common to all societies existing on the planet, if we are going to propose a global future, then we need first to destroy the history of those other societies, to delete their pasts, to annihilate the continuous moment of the present, virtualizing the realities that are constructed by the content of historical time. A ‘common future’ means the deletion of particular histories. But this means that no histories at all, including their futures, will exist. The common future is no future. Globalization is the death of time. Globalization cancels out the transcendental subjectivity of Husserl or the Dasein of Heidegger. There would be neither any more time, nor being.