The Post-Language System of Historical Critique Three Reductive Forces Dominating Contemporary History and the Fate of Truth for Future Generations
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Contemporary history, despite an unprecedented explosion of documents, images, and narratives, has paradoxically been emptied of the capacity to record truth. Drawing on the theory of "Post-Language" (Qeytani-Fard, 2021), this article argues that three reductive systems have surrounded contemporary history from three directions: Cartesian ontological reduction (history as quantitative data), Derridean epistemological reduction (history as a referenceless text), and Baudrillardian phenomenological reduction (history as simulation). These three reductions respectively eliminate the qualitative dimension of historical experience, the extra-linguistic referentiality of events, and access to the original occurrence of events. The result is a history that has been neither measured, nor truthfully narrated, nor truly seen. The central question of this article is: if these three systems dominate our history, what will future generations understand of us? The answer is that future generations will find us better documented than any era, yet more unknown than any era; for they will face a mountain of meaningless data, referenceless interpretations, and originless images. Keywords: Post-Language, Cartesian reductionism, Derridean reductionism, Baudrillardian reductionism, historical critique, future generations, historical truth
Author: Gheytanifard, Karim
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204483434
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