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we would take control of our own history. That was Marx s theorem; that we
understand history in order to master our history. That was the theorem of
enlightenment. Marx was a child of the enlightenment. The idea is the more we get
to know about the world, the more we can control the world for human needs. The
late twentieth century has shown us that this premise, attractive though it is, is false;
that there is something much more complex involved in the relationship between
human knowledge, history and control. The advance of human knowledge, including
science and technology, does not lead simply to a world more and more under our
control. In some respects, it produces a world out of our control, as you can see from
the very ecological crisis itself. The ecological crisis is not a crisis of nature, it is a
crisis of human intervention in nature. Science and technology have created many
new risk situations for us which were not anticipated in the nineteenth century. The
overall issue, the fundamental enlightenment issue, then is in some part behind the
struggles of socialism and capitalism in the latter part of the twentieth century.
History will not bend itself to our will in the way in which Marx believed it could, and
should.
Well, I hope to see you all again next term. It is a bit early on, but I wish you all a
happy Christmas, and I look forward to seeing you at some point in January. Thanks
very much for coming.
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