ABSTRACT
In the 1990s we exist in a unique time. It is a time when both tolerance and intolerance are in cultural ascendancy. Both freedom and oppression are at home in the world. The origin of today’s contentious cultural politics are tightly tied to two events: 1) the re-emergence of a nationalistic religious and political fundamentalism; and 2) the intellectual collapse of the Hegelian Marxist epic. The signature theme of the present, then, is the appearance of a contentious cultural politics in which tolerance and intolerance prowl around each other in an unsettling and puzzling dance.
