It is of course not sufficient to appeal to the authority of Hegel,
Marx, or any of their contemporary followers to establish the
validity of a directional History. In the century and a half since
they wrote, their intellectual legacy has been relentlessly assaulted
from all directions. The most profound thinkers of the twentieth
century have directly attacked the idea that history is a coherent
or intelligible process; indeed, they have denied the possibility
that any aspect of human life is philosophically intelligible. We in
the West have become thoroughly pessimistic with regard to the
possibility of overall progress in democratic institutions. This profound
pessimism is not accidental, but born of the truly terrible
political events of the first half of the twentieth century-two
destructive world wars, the rise of totalitarian ideologies, and the
turning of science against man in the form of nuclear weapons
and environmental damage. The life experiences of the victims of
this past century's political violence-from the survivors of Hitlerism
and Stalinism to the victims of Pol Pot-would deny that
there has been such a thing as historical progress. Indeed, we
have become so accustomed by now to expect that the future will
contain bad news with respect to the health and security of decent,
liberal, democratic political practices that we have problems recognizing
good news when it comes.