History of Western Ideology
A Short History of Western Ideology: A Critical Account (English: Bloomsbury, 2018; Portuguese: Bertrand, 2019)
This book considers the political variety of
different western ideologies only to the extent to which it is necessary for
the understanding of the general argument. And its general argument is not
variety, it is singularity. Throughout the text, “western ideology” is used in
the singular form, in an effort to carve out in the clearest way possible the
western credence in redemption through history, whatever the substitutions of
specific revelations and utopias with others may have been along the path.
The text discusses how Europe, and the West, became committed to fulfilling the historical assignment revealed to them by their own religious and philosophical speculations. First, they did so through a process of “Christianization”, then “reason” and “civilization”, later “humanization,” “modernization,” the idea of “universal rights,” “globalization,” and several other concepts, all charged with a meaning of eschatological fulfilment. Beginning with the fifteenth century, Catholic and Protestant countries set out to spread the Word of the Lord to the Heathen by conquering the Americas. During the Enlightenment and the Modern Age, the idea was remodelled to plant in “Africa and Asia the principles and example of the freedom, reason, and illumination of Europe,” as the philosopher of progress, Condorcet, claimed.
From its own speculation regarding history's higher purpose, the West has assigned to itself the duty to interpret, lead and teach humanity's “backward” rest. If this were just the cynical legitimization of (neo)colonial and imperialist exploitation that it certainly is, the momentousness of ideology could perhaps be neglected. Yet the book shows the pervasiveness of a deeply entrenched belief system that may help to understand the dangerously uncompromising opposition against the present tectonic shift away from western hegemony.
Contents
- Europe and history (Christianitas; Civilize or make disappear; Philosophies of history; A somewhat gloomy utopia).
- Freedom and sovereignty (Liberty and liberalism; A chosen people in a promised land; The religion of the people; Democracy and the rule of law).
- Hierarchy among equals (European spaces; Human races; World cultures; Global rights).
- A craving for goodness (A fair amount of killing; An over-accumulation of benevolence; A rescue from the limbo of history; Imperialism: A popular sentiment).
- Ecology and apocalypse (Nature; Identity; Alienation; Apocalypse).
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