What do you think?
Rate this book
The End of Everything: A society in transition
This is the strange story of how our society is questioning its own identity. We live in liquid times in which everything flows and nothing stays the not philosophy, not politics, not diet, not sex, not even death. It is literally “the end of everything”, but at the same time the beginning of a new era. How did we come to this?
The book is full of real-life examples showing the diversity and complexity of a society straddling modernity and postmodernity. Through its pages we will adulterous presidents, jilted lovers, homophobes turned transsexuals, artists smearing themselves in excrement, scientists exterminating ‘inferior’ people, suicidal musicians, alchemists, vengeful goddesses, philosophers sentenced to death and a long etcetera of captivating characters. All in all, an intellectual journey like no other that once read, it will be impossible to ignore.
With the rigour of a Philosophy graduate and the clarity of a Master's in Contemporary Culture, the author explains, and contextualises, the causes of this situation.
The book is full of real-life examples showing the diversity and complexity of a society straddling modernity and postmodernity. Through its pages we will adulterous presidents, jilted lovers, homophobes turned transsexuals, artists smearing themselves in excrement, scientists exterminating ‘inferior’ people, suicidal musicians, alchemists, vengeful goddesses, philosophers sentenced to death and a long etcetera of captivating characters. All in all, an intellectual journey like no other that once read, it will be impossible to ignore.
With the rigour of a Philosophy graduate and the clarity of a Master's in Contemporary Culture, the author explains, and contextualises, the causes of this situation.
- GenresPhilosophy
301 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 24, 2023
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 15, 2024
Solid reading
Pretty good look at the transition from modern to postmodern. Written with the layperson in mind so it doesn't get deep in the philosophical weeds. Accessible, but erudite. I would definitely recommend to those confused by the world of today. I could also see using the epilogue as part of a reflection assignment at the secondary or tertiary level.
Pretty good look at the transition from modern to postmodern. Written with the layperson in mind so it doesn't get deep in the philosophical weeds. Accessible, but erudite. I would definitely recommend to those confused by the world of today. I could also see using the epilogue as part of a reflection assignment at the secondary or tertiary level.
January 10, 2024
I’m not sure what to make of this book. It started off relatively coherently with the setting of the theme that many of our uncertainties right now derive from the fact that society is in a transition from the modern to the post-modern world.
There is no central meaning anymore. The certainties of the past have evaporated. People are questioning not only institutions such as liberal democracy, but our very being, including our gender relations and links with the natural world.
The author is a philosopher by training and he uses his thesis as an introduction for lay readers to the work and ideas of great thinkers from Plato to Satre. But it seems to be me that he stretches his one idea too thinly.
I’m not sure that the modern to post-modern transition really so neatly explains what’s going on right now. Obviously to a philosopher more comfortable in a world of abstractions this is a compelling hook.
But he really does shy away from answering the ‘why’ questions, as in why there is a growing sense internationally that we are at a break in history. To be sure, he alludes to some of the elements like the financial crisis, the rise of populism, the disruption wrought by social media and attention economy, and the climate crisis.
But he refuses to engage with the underlying arguments around these themes other than blandly resorting to ‘on the one hand some people believe this and on the other hand another group believes that ’ and then uses this disagreement as proof of his central theme that there is no agreement about anything anymore.
The chapter on democracy is where he really lost me, almost managing to sound like one of those journalists hooked on ‘both-sidesm’. Everyone disagrees so nobody can be right and there is no objective truth. Yeah, right.
This reads to me like a young academic trying to have it both ways - skating over the surface of contentious issues and then blandly pirouetting to the conclusion: ‘See kids, there is no objective truth. Hey, post-modernism man!’
For the record, I believe the point we have reached is a reflection of the exhaustion of 250 years of continuous exponential economic growth and the failure of democratic institutions to account for the impossibility of this continuing.
The climate crisis is real. We have an economic system built on fossil fuel industries, which are incredibly powerful and confound the possibility of change. Neoliberal policies over 40 years have hollowed out Western manufacturing-based economies, depressed income growth among the mass of society and led to a popular revolt against the continuation of those policies.
These are real issues, not some post-modern intellectual exercise. I suggest the author do a course in political economy before he writes another book.
There is no central meaning anymore. The certainties of the past have evaporated. People are questioning not only institutions such as liberal democracy, but our very being, including our gender relations and links with the natural world.
The author is a philosopher by training and he uses his thesis as an introduction for lay readers to the work and ideas of great thinkers from Plato to Satre. But it seems to be me that he stretches his one idea too thinly.
I’m not sure that the modern to post-modern transition really so neatly explains what’s going on right now. Obviously to a philosopher more comfortable in a world of abstractions this is a compelling hook.
But he really does shy away from answering the ‘why’ questions, as in why there is a growing sense internationally that we are at a break in history. To be sure, he alludes to some of the elements like the financial crisis, the rise of populism, the disruption wrought by social media and attention economy, and the climate crisis.
But he refuses to engage with the underlying arguments around these themes other than blandly resorting to ‘on the one hand some people believe this and on the other hand another group believes that ’ and then uses this disagreement as proof of his central theme that there is no agreement about anything anymore.
The chapter on democracy is where he really lost me, almost managing to sound like one of those journalists hooked on ‘both-sidesm’. Everyone disagrees so nobody can be right and there is no objective truth. Yeah, right.
This reads to me like a young academic trying to have it both ways - skating over the surface of contentious issues and then blandly pirouetting to the conclusion: ‘See kids, there is no objective truth. Hey, post-modernism man!’
For the record, I believe the point we have reached is a reflection of the exhaustion of 250 years of continuous exponential economic growth and the failure of democratic institutions to account for the impossibility of this continuing.
The climate crisis is real. We have an economic system built on fossil fuel industries, which are incredibly powerful and confound the possibility of change. Neoliberal policies over 40 years have hollowed out Western manufacturing-based economies, depressed income growth among the mass of society and led to a popular revolt against the continuation of those policies.
These are real issues, not some post-modern intellectual exercise. I suggest the author do a course in political economy before he writes another book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews