The Thinking Person’s Guide to the New Millennium

by Fakrul Alam

The Future of Knowledge and Culture: A Dictionary for the 21 st Century. Edited by Vinay Lal and Ashis Nandy. New Delhi. Penguin Viking, 2005.

By the end of the twentieth century, projects of modernity were becoming increasingly discredited in the realm of ideas. Postmodern thinkers had undermined most grand narratives and dismantled quite a few of the structures erected by enlightenment thinkers. Nevertheless, habits of thoughts shaped by well entrenched disciplinary apparatuses, models of development promoted by organizations pushing globalizing schemes and models, media blitzes sponsored by multinational capitalism, and constant ideological interpellation had blunted the sensibilities of most people. Many had started to believe that it was enough to live in a world of conspicuous consumption and have their desires satisfied instantly, endlessly.