Dialogue Between Fukuyama’s Account of the End of History and Derrida’s Hauntology

Abstract

Introduction This paper examines Derrida's theory of hauntology, a theory which Derrida, himself, sets up in binary opposition to Fukuyama and Modernist-Enlightenment thought. It is not my aim to examine Derrida's direct criticisms of Fukuyama, per se; instead my aim is to examine theory of hauntology, in order to see what might be useful for political theory in this notion of time. The first section of this paper elucidates how Derrida uses hauntology as a critique to idea of a universal, teleological account of history and, especially, idea of a history that can reach an end point. (1) I outline Derrida's theory of specters (2) and show that Derrida's theory of hauntology is based on idea that there are specters which present and prevent end of history. The theory of hauntology keeps future open, since ends, only by coming back: the is future; it is always to come, it presents itself only as that which could come or come back. (3) The theory of specters and hauntology is idea of there always being a future to come, idea of a democratie a venir. In second section of this paper, I explore idea of hauntology in more depth and begin to present my central argument, a claim that idea of a haunting present does not need to be constructed as one side of a binary opposition to Fukuyama's theory of an end of history. I explore what it means for to come back and argue that a from past does not necessarily pose a threat to either liberal democracy or idea of a metaphysical, universal, teleological history. I argue that a dialogue can be constructed between Derrida's idea of hauntology and Fukuyama's thesis that liberal democracy is end of history. This attempt to bridge dichotomy between Modernist and Postmodern theory has a resonance with work of Biebricher. In, Habermas and Foucault: Deliberative Democracy and Strategic State Analysis, Biebricher attempted to forge a way out of Modernist/Postmodernism dualism by incorporating Foucaultian elements into a Habermasian framework. (4) This paper pursues a parallel line of argument, by suggesting that Derrida's theory of hauntology can be worked into Fukuyama's theory that liberal democracy is end of history. This paper argues that Derrida's idea of a hauntology is a valuable tool for theorising about politics, not least, because Derrida shows that death of a particular social/political system (e.g. Communism) does not entail death/devaluing of thinker(s) who inspired that system and that critics of contemporary social/political order may have something valuable to offer contemporary political thought. However, I do not endorse view that history cannot reach an end due to presence of specters, which await their return; instead, I argue that specters which Derrida discusses (e.g. Marx) do not us per se, since they do not necessarily pose a radically different future, and whilst a spectre may provide a critique to contemporary, it is a critique which we must assimilate and accommodate. For example, Marx's ideas provide an awareness of injustices which must be addressed, but this does not, necessarily, lead to abandonment of liberal democracy since ideas raised by specters can be used to enhance liberal democracy. Thus, ideas and thinkers which haunt us do not necessarily threaten to dismantle principles of liberal democracy; instead they point out areas where principles of liberal democracy are not fully realised. Therefore, emancipation of Marx's specter is not a challenge to Fukuyama's theory of a history which ends in liberal democracy; instead, it is a recognition that we can re-think liberal democracy to take account of what is valuable in ideas of specters. The paper reaches conclusion that it is possible to produce a dialogue between Fukuyama's theory of liberal democracy as end of history and Derrida's notion of hauntology. …