“The intellectuals of the 18th century spoke of the spirit of the age, today the spirit of our age is relativism, nihilism, fragmentation,” says Eduardo Hodge. For the historian and director of the humanities school at Gabriela Mistral University, this explains the reality that the Western world faces today, marked by a growing climate of uncertainty about the future. This is a point that motivates the recent publication of “Imperishable West” (Ed. Gabriela Mistral University), a book that brings together a series of essays by national and foreign academics about the current moment that Western society is going through, challenged by the rise of China and also by internal threats that are questioning the consensuses that were at its origin.
The title of the book refers to the West, but what do we understand by the West?
If we refer to Samuel Huntington’s great thesis, the West is one of the eight civilizations that have existed throughout history. And we understand civilization as a cultural block in which history, language, culture, traditions, religion, institutions, etc., converge. Huntington sees this civilization as a set of attitudes, aptitudes, cultures, idiosyncrasies that differentiate it from the other seven. Probably the most rivalrous of these cultures today is the Chinese civilization. There is the idea that Chinese civilization is putting the hegemony of Western culture at risk and in some way we put this oxymoron of “imperishable” in the book’s title, because the West comes from occipides, that is, sunset. The East is where the sun rises and the West where it sets. To this day many Eastern cultures believe they have this hegemony or primacy because the sun rises with them. Hence the concept of imperishable. It is an oxymoron because the West is what it is, where the sunset occurs, but it is something that has not died, that has not ended.
And what is the central idea that motivated the book?
In some way, the thesis posed by the diversity of texts that make up the book is that the West has many particularities and probably one of the most important has to do with the view, the reflection it has regarding human dignity that other cultures and other civilizations, strictly speaking, do not have.
Why is that idea of the person different in the West?
The three great pillars of Western culture that make it unique, which are the three great legacies of the Western world, are, first, the Hellenic tradition. Philosophy, democracy, the concept of citizenship that were typical of the Hellenic world. If I had to synthesize it in a single concept, it is the value of democracy. The second great pillar is Christianity. And within that view or observation that Christianity makes, there is a uniqueness that is unique, which has to do with this idea that the human being is unique, unrepeatable. And the third great pillar is what we know as the legal traditions both of the Roman world and the Germanic world. In summary, there are the concepts of freedom, dignity, and finally justice. Something that is very hard for us to understand is that the Chinese do not believe in human rights, as a culture, as an idiosyncrasy, because the collective is above the individual. In the Western world, we have defended the opposite thesis, that the individual is above any other construction. For them, the collective is above the individual. For us, the individual is above the collective.
And what effects has that had on Western culture?
We have overidealized the individual and forgotten the collective. That favors more selfish societies and that is one of the points I raise in the chapter I wrote about postmodernity. That is very interesting. Liberalism holds that the individual is rich by his own nature. But liberalism in no case holds that the individual excludes the collective. The individual is part of a collective. Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, makes that very clear and that is very nice to understand because it took us a long time to understand Adam Smith. Adam Smith was concerned with morality, with feelings. He believed that one of the great problems of his time was selfishness. However, postmodernity has installed in us the idea of hyperindividualism, which is not typical of either liberalism or neoliberalism. Neoliberalism distances itself from liberalism somewhat in that sense, but hyperindividualism has to do with this idea that the human being is for himself, that he only understands himself through himself and that he depends on no one.
Why do you think it has come to that extreme?
After World War II all the great canons fell. It happened with Nietzsche. With World War I all Nietzsche’s precepts were fulfilled and then comes World War II that threw everything away. From then on, the idea of postmodernity begins to take shape, which is born, first of all, from Marxist thinkers. All their great theorists, Bauman, Baudrillard, Foucault, are Marxists, post-Marxists or neo-Marxists, who were very much in tune with the Frankfurt School. They say look, we are not going to deepen the economic revolution, we are going to deepen the cultural revolution and, through that, Foucault and other great intellectuals were able to erode the foundations of Western culture from within. That is a bit what we have today, these micro-nationalisms, these fragmentations that we have seen in the Western world.
And what is the central difference between modernity and postmodernity?
Modernity, as we know it, has always defended the theses of great truths, science, the figure of God, the nation, the State. What does postmodernity do? In some way, it erodes each of those great truths, relativizing them. If we had to synthesize the three great ideals of postmodernity, first is the relativization of everything, everything is possible. Second, fragmentation. Divide et impera, said the Romans. This idea that if we divide society from within we will generate this permanent friction. A third element, which is very much in tune with the previous one, is this idea of nihilism. Since God no longer exists, since institutions no longer exist, since we relativize them all, in some way we sow meaninglessness in Western society.
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How does all that play with technological advances, with social networks?
I am not an expert in technology, but I tend to think that social networks, technological media, have allowed us to access information that we did not have ten, fifteen years ago. What they have done is make it simple, bring it closer and make sense to people. In some way, they absorb the great theses typical of postmodernity. Today the West is being hit from two major fronts. The internal front has to do with all these ideas that from within have eroded the foundations of Western culture. And on the other hand, we have a China that is very concerned about its global hegemony, its goal of being the central power and in some way that implies weakening the United States. They have used the press, social networks, they have used all communication mechanisms and have massified this discourse that they are the orderly people, they are the great references. While the United States has the broom inside, they are the symbol of order and stability.
One of the great creations of the Western world is democracy. Do you think democracy is in a terminal crisis?
The Western world today is in crisis. We can see, for example, the rhetoric used by presidents. We see what is happening. Just look at the figure of President Donald Trump. With his style, with his way, he has eroded the foundations of the system. And if we go to Latin America, too. Every time there is an election in Mexico, for example, 100, 110 photojournalists, journalists die. We also see how the powers of the State are confronting each other, the rhetoric we observe in Argentina, what happens in Colombia, what we see in Chile. If we refer to voting in each election, we can say that we are still democratic, but the democratic culture, where tolerance prevails, respect for people, for institutions, has weakened. I think we are at a very delicate moment.
The concept of the Nation-State, another creation of the West, also seems to be in crisis.
That’s right. The great success of modernity was having made communities into sovereign, stable, prosperous states. But that great success called the Nation-State, which allowed us to build a community, allowed us to have relatively stable economic and financial systems, is now in crisis because institutions are weakened. A very interesting example has to do with universities. In the Western world, generally the institutions that enjoyed the greatest prestige were universities. The big question is why now everyone is putting forward theses that university is not necessary, that university does not generate a return. What is seen, then? First, a great weakening of institutions, starting from the figure of the President downwards. Then the political class, that is, if you go to the institutions of popular representation, the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, they are in last place with 3% or 4% approval. There is an institutional crisis. However, we are now realizing that institutions were important and I think there must soon be an awakening or else this will lead us to the abyss.
And how could that awakening come?
I think political sectors have to realize that they have a common responsibility. The State orders us, orders us legally. The nation somehow makes us part of it. Living in that environment invites us to think and a very beautiful thing that has to do with democratic order is the idea of the common good. That is, you and I are different, but we pursue the same common good and to be able to pursue that common good we have to reach consensus, we have to reach agreement. So, as long as there is no awakening regarding how important the common good is, it is difficult to move forward and somehow, today, that common good no longer exists.
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