METAPHYSICS IN HISTORY: NOTES ON THE ORIGINS OF AUTHORITARIANISM AND POPULISM

Abstract

This article contains an analysis of metaphysics in historical narrative, especially as it pertains to the study of authoritarianism and populism, and a brief exploration of the political implications of metaphysical narratives. The article engages closely with twentieth-century accounts of the origins of authoritarianism and populism and related topics insofar as they are relevant today. Some present-day authors continue to adopt some of the tropes of twentieth-century accounts, though they do so without acknowledging the uncertainties and doubts expressed by twentieth-century historians and social scientists with regard to their own paradigms. The analysis proceeds through an immanent critique, examining the internal contradictions of complex notions. The focus is on teleology and transcendentalism. Teleology occludes short-term causality, contexts, and conjunctures. It entails anachronism, or the retrospective attribution of meaning, and ontological fatalism, which renders historical explanation irrelevant. Eschewing fatalism means allowing for the causal efficiency of intervening conditions, which contradicts the premises of the teleological approach. The reification of stages (or eras) in teleological successions leads to asynchronies, or the coexistence of elements belonging to different totalities. The formulation of origins as predispositions and potentialities entails a transcendental approach. Immanently, there are no potentialities but actual existents immersed in their historical context; these can only be potentialities with respect to a transcendental being or essence. But this approach leads to irresoluble contradictions and an alienated form of history in which human agency and actors themselves are only manifestations of a beyond. The neglect of social antagonisms as immediate causes of authoritarianism entails a specific political position. The postulation of populism as transcendentally equivalent to authoritarianism carries a negative valuation of challenges to liberal democracy. With a less deterministic approach to history, analytical and normative assessments become less predetermined.