Originally Posted by
Alexandre Kojčve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel
The disappearance of Man at the end of History, therefore, is not a cosmic catastrophe: the natural World remains what it has been from all eternity. And therefore, it is not a biological catastrophe either: Man remains alive as animal in harmony with Nature or given Being. What disappears is Man properly so-called - that is, Action negating the given, and Error, or in general, the Subject opposed to the Object. In point of fact, the end of human Time or History - that is, the defnitive annihilation of Man properly so-called or of the free and historical Individual - means quite simply the cessation of Action in the full sense of the term. Practically, this means: the disappearance of wars and bloody revolutions. And also the disappearance of Philosophy; for since Man himself no longer changes essentially, there is no longer any reason to change the (true) principles which are at the basis of his understanding of the World and of himself. But all the rest cen be preserved indefinitely; art, love, play, etc., etc.; in short, everything that makes Man happy.
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If one accepts "the disappearance of Man at the end of History," if one asserts that "Man remains alive as animal," with the specification that "What disappears is Man properly so-called," one cannot say that "all the rest can be preserved indefinitely: art, love, play, etc." If Man becomes an animal again, his arts, his loves, and his play must also become purely "natural" again. Hence it would have to be admitted that after the end of History, men would construct their edifices and works of art as birds build their nests and spiders spin their webs, would perform musical concerts after the fashion of frogs and cicadas, would play like young animals, and would indulge in love like adult beasts. But one cannot then say that all this "makes Man happy." One would heve to say that post-historical animals of the species Homo sapiens (which will live amidst abundance and complete security) will be content as a result of their artistic, erotic and playful behavior, inasmuch as, by definition, they will be contented with it. But there is more. "The definitive annihilation of Men properly so-called' also means the definitive disappearance of human Discourse (Logos) in the strict sense. Animals of the species Homo sapiens would react by conditioned reflexes to vocal signals or sign "language," and thus their so-called "discourses" would be like what is supposed to be the "language" of bees. What would disappear, then, is not only Philosophy or the search for discursive wisdom, but also that wisdom itself. For - in these post-historical animals there would no longer be any [discursive] understanding of the World and of self."
At the period when I wrote the above note (1946), Man's return to animality did not appear unthinkable to me as a prospect for the future (more or less near). But shortly afterwards (1948) I understood that the Hegelian-Marxist end of History was not yet to come, but was already a present, here and now.
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I was led to conclude...that the "American way of life" was the type of life specific to the post-historical period, the actual presence of the United States in the world prefiguring the "eternal present" future of all of humanity. Thus, Man's return to animality appeared no longer as a possibility that was yet to come, but as a certainty that was already present.
It was following a recent voyage to Japan (1959) that I had a radical change of opinion on this point. There I was able to observe a society that is one of a kind, because it alone has for almost three centuries experienced life at the "end of History" - that is, in the absence of all civil or external war (following the liquidation of feudalism by the roturier Hideyoshi and the artificial isolation of the country conceived and realized by his noble successor Yiyeasu). Now, the existence of the Japanese nobles, who ceased to risk their lives (even in duel) and yet did not for that begin to work, was anything but animal. "Post-historical" Japanese civilization undertook ways diametrically opposed to the "American way." No doubt, there were no longer in Japan any Religion, Morals, or Politics in the "European" or "historical" sense of these words. But Snobbery in its pure form created disciplines negating the "natural" or "animal" given which in effectiveness far surpassed those that arose, in Japan or elsewhere, from "historical" Action-that is, from warlike and revolutionary Fights or from forced Work. To be sure, the peaks (equalled nowhere else) of specifically Japanese Snobbery - the Noh Theater, the ceremony of tea, and the art of bouquets of flowers - were and still remain the exclusive prerogative of the nobles and the rich. But in spite of persistent economic and political inequalities, all Japanese without exception are currently in a position to live according to totally formalized values - that is, values completely empty of all "human" content in the "historical" sense. Thus, in the extreme, every Japanese is in principle capable of commiting, from pure snobbery, a perfectly "gratuitous" suicide (the classical epee of the samurai can be replaced by an airplane or a torpedo), which has nothing to do with the risk of life in a Fight waged for the sake of "historical" values that have social or political content. This seems to allow one to believe that the recently begun interaction berween Japan and the Western World will finally lead not to a rebarbarization of the Japanese but to a "Japanization" of the Westerners (including the Russians).
Now, since no animal can be a snob, every "Japanized" post-historical period would be specifically human. Hence there would be no "definitive annihilation of Man properly so-called," as long as there were animals of the species Homo sapiens that could serve as the "natural" support for what is human in men. But, as I said in the above Note, an "animal that is in harmony with Nature or given Being" is a living being that is in no way human. To remain human, Man must remain a "Subject opposed to the Object" even if "Action negating the given and Error" disappears. This means that while henceforth speaking in an adequate fashion of everything that is given to him, post-historical Man must continue to detach "form" from "content," doing so no longer in order actively to transform the latter, but so that he may oppose himself as a pure "form" to himself and to others taken as "content" of any sort.
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