Abstract

I want to tell some stories of ends and transformations in the relation of the past to the future. These stories have implications for education and enlightenment. They are stories in which modernity is seen as an end and a beginning. Modernity is the end of tradition, or oppression, or superstition, or other restrictive conditions. It is the beginning of true self-consciousness and rational human history. But there are also stories about an end of modernity. There are stories about postmodernity. These ends don't depend on talk of the millenium, nor are they apocalyptic or cultic, but they do suggest that we live in a time of transition.