Towards an innovative model of complementary opposites analysis in the field of sciences and humanities
[Hacia un modelo innovador de analisis de opuestos complementarios en el campo de las ciencias y las humanidades]
Humberto Ortega-Villasenor
DOI: 10.18355/XL.2019.12.03.12
Abstract
These are dark days in Europe, in both developed and developing countries in the Western world. Our human condition and our survival as a species are endangered, under attack from multiples fronts (economic, political, social, moral, among others). The neo-liberalism and free trade of the last 40 years have proven to be less than effective in achieving the type of development that brings benefits, equity and sustainability to the populations that live in the region. Far from it, this development model has fostered social injustice, an unprecedented polarization of processes, growing concentrations of wealth, political and financial power in the hands of the very few, and above all, a monopolistic power wielded by a tiny elite over a wide range of activities that affect the fate of millions of human beings. We believe that a review of the ideas that connect thinkers like Søren Kierkegaard and Karl Marx can serve to build a complex critical scaffolding for understanding the orientation of these developments and estimating their historical weight and transcendence. In fact, we contend that in an extensive and profound sense, the critique that Kierkegaard made of his times (1846) with regard to the bourgeois Christian world comes ironically close to the Marxist critique of the bourgeois capitalist world (1847). This represents a relevant convergence that can shed light on the future consequences of current developments and help to find feasible solutions for preventing or counteracting their negative impact on the majority over the medium and long terms.
Key words: Christianity, historical materialism, neoliberalism, neo-totalitarianism
Pages: 162 -178
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