b) A World Devoid of an 'Unsurpassable Horizon': Sartre

Before passing judgment, let us consider a great thinker deeply engaged with the era of the 'grand narratives': perhaps he can help us understand it better from within. In Situations, Sartre describes Marxism as the unsurpassable horizon of our time. Here, we encounter a second perspective, which uses the concept of 'horizon' rather than 'narrative'. What can this second perspective offer? What is a 'horizon'? And what does it mean to be a 'horizon' for something?

A horizon is that which lies immensely far from me; it remains unreachable, always receding when I attempt to approach it. Its distance reveals the power of my vision, the formidable breadth of what I can encompass. Often, it is while contemplating the sea or surveying a landscape of snowy valleys from a mountain pass that a feeling of power seizes the mind, swelling it beyond measure.

So, when Sartre describes Marxism as the horizon of his time, he means that it is the perspective from which people can understand the entirety of their era, with every event encompassed and given meaning within this Marxist horizon. For the Marxist, this provides a sense of power through clarity—a grasp of "what the epoch wants" (as Hegel defines the great man in Reason in History).

The post-modern era, then, could be described as a 'time without horizons'—an era that has lost its overarching viewpoint. What would that mean?
It is difficult to imagine, as it seems that the human eye naturally perceives any landscape as having a foreground, a middle ground, and ultimately a background that shapes the horizon. What would a landscape look like if there were only a foreground?

It would no longer appear as a landscape but rather resemble, for instance, a cluttered room. A room is inherently a confined space, one where perspective lines cannot stretch out into infinity or even take shape as vanishing lines. The prevalent disorder is significant as well.
In an expansive landscape, such as the ocean, all elements—like waves—naturally draw the eye towards the horizon. There is nothing obstructing the view, which allows every object or creature to harmoniously join in this grand movement, pulling everything toward the vanishing point. In the mountains, for example, a grazing animal in the foreground aligns naturally with a sheepfold in the middle distance, which in turn merges into a vast meadow in the background, eventually blending into the towering peaks bathed in the light of a setting sun at the horizon. Here, each element appears interconnected, contributing to a sense of unity. The horizon is the element of meaning that ultimately enables this union, giving the objects a 'being-for-one-another'.

In a room filled with a random assortment of items, however, this harmony among elements is absent. The books piled on a table do not connect with the statuette lying overturned on the floor, nor with the half-open crate resting on a dilapidated piano. The objects merely coexist without any coherence. Here, there is no horizon to unify these elements.
If our age lacks an 'unsurpassable horizon', unlike Sartre's, this implies that its elements exist side by side rather than being interwoven for one another. Our time presents a jumble of meanings, rather than a harmonious unity. It is as if humanity has ceased to gaze upon the grand landscape of the ocean, retreating instead into the dim room of a dilapidated hotel.

We now find ourselves equipped to attempt an understanding of the axiological character of our age. More specifically, we are guided by two concepts: the 'grand narrative' and the 'horizon'. Could it be that our era is one that has abandoned all efforts at an 'axiological grand narrative' and lost any 'axiological horizon'?