FEELING FUKUY?

First Kanye, then Fukuyama. Its like a meta-narrative diptych!:

   "Hegel maintained that all human consciousness was limited by the particular social and cultural conditions of man's surrounding environment—or as we say, by "the times." Past thought, whether of ordinary people or great philosophers and scientists, was not true absolutely or "objectively," but only relative to the historical or cultural horizon within which that person lived. Human history must therefore be seen not only as a succession of different civilizations and levels of material accomplishment, but more importantly as a succession of different forms of consciousness. Consciousness—the way in which human beings think about fundamental questions of right and wrong, the activities they find satisfying, their beliefs about the gods, even the way in which they perceive the world—has changed fundamentally over time. And since these perspectives were mutually contradictory, it follows that the vast majority of them were wrong, or forms of "false consciousness" to be unmasked by subsequent history . . .

. . . The radical nature of Hegelian historicism is hard to perceive today because it is so much a part of our own intellectual horizon. We assume that there is an historical "perspectivism" to thought and share a general prejudice against ways of thinking that are not "up to date." Historicism is implicit in the position of the contemporary feminist who regards her mother's or grandmother's devotion to family and home as a quaint holdover from an earlier age. Much as that progenitor's voluntary submission to a male-dominated culture might have been right "for her time" and may even have made her happy, it is no longer acceptable and constitutes a form of "false consciousness." Historicism is also implicit in the attitude of a black who denies that it is possible for a white person to ever understand what it means to be black. For though the consciousness of blacks and whites is not necessarily separated by historical time, they are held to be separated by the horizon of culture and experience within which each was nurtured, and across which there is only the most limited of communication."

   "Thus the nature of human desire, according to Hegel, is not given for all time, but changes between historical periods and cultures. To take one example, an inhabitant of contemporary America or France or Japan spends the greater part of his or her energies in pursuit of things—a certain type of car or athletic shoes or designer gown—or of status—the right neighborhood or school or job. Most of these objects of desire did not even exist and therefore could not have been desired in earlier times, and would probably not be desired by a present-day resident of an impoverished Third World country, whose time would be spent in search of more basic needs like security or food. Consumerism and the science of marketing that caters to it refer to desires that have literally been created by man himself, and which will give way to others in the future . Our present desires are conditioned by our social milieu, which in turn is the product of the entirety of our historical past. And the specific objects of desire are only one of the aspects of "human nature" that have changed over time; the importance of desire in relation to the other elements of human character has also evolved. Hegel's Universal History therefore gives an account not only of the progress of knowledge and institutions, but of the changing nature of man himself. For it is human nature to have no fixed nature, not to be but to become something other than it once was."