2.1 The Collapse of the Old Dialectic

How the Cold War Ended Without a Replacement

From Civilizational Tension to Ideological Vacuum

In Part 1, we have traced the role of opposition in shaping Western civilization. We began with the argument that ideological dualism, the structuring force of rival worldviews, has been central to the West’s development. From Athens and Sparta to Christianity and pagan Rome, from monarchy and liberalism to capitalism and communism, each civilizational leap was forged in tension.

We examined how opposition generates meaning, how it produces clarity and purpose, and how the friend/enemy distinction, articulated most famously by Carl Schmitt, underpins political identity itself. We then explored the work of Antonio Gramsci, whose theory of cultural hegemony explains how modern power functions through norms rather than force.

Finally, we argued that opposition is not merely a historical feature of Western civilization, it is a structural necessity. When opposition disappears, so too does ideological vitality. That is what happened after the Cold War. And it is into that vacuum that a new ideology, unnamed, moralizing, identity-based, has emerged.

Part 2 begins where Part 1 leaves off: with the consequences of ideological victory. We explore how liberal democracy, lacking an external adversary, became susceptible to internal transformation. We trace the transition from class-based struggle to identity-based morality, and from ideological contestation to cultural reprogramming. We show how a new counter-ideology emerged, not through revolution, but through drift.

It is the story of how a civilization built on dualism faltered when its oppositional structure disappeared, and how a new ideology, born in the shadows of liberalism, quietly grew before stepping into the foreground. This shift from structural dualism to moralized identity politics marks the most profound reorientation of Western political life since the Cold War.