<< That is him, but he was right, although everybody misunderstood him. Fukuyama is (imo) one of America's best political scientists. Fukuyama was defining history in the Hegelian sense - that is, as the clash between two competing ideologies. He said that with the fall of the Soviet Union, there was no longer any meaningful ideological alternative to free-market liberal democracies, just small variations on the theme. He was, and remains, correct. No ideological alternative has presented itself, nor is it likely that one ever will. Thus the end of history, even though historical events continue. >>
See, with all due respect, this is bullshit. This is the fallacious so-called "Whig Interpretation" of history. It assumes that "history" has an ending point, which is, in this case, the triumph of free-market liberal democracies. Except, A) it hasn't triumphed yet; and B) you are assuming that it will. And even if it does, there's no guarantee that it will stay triumphant. Me: Describing it as fallacious doesn't make it so, obviously. But history - in the sense that Hegel, and Fukuyama, use it, might well have an ending point. It is not impossible that liberal democracy is the best form of government, period. In fact, I think it is. I certainly am unaware of any even vaguely credible alternatives. Intellectually it has triumphed - there are no serious ideological challenges to liberal democracy. Tom: Plenty of ideological alternatives have presented themselves. There's one brewing as we speak in Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan, and elsewhere in the Islamic world. It doesn't seem attractive to most of us in the West, but it seems to have a mighty appeal in some areas. Me: I don't think you can describe radical Islam as an alternative, really. It simply has no persuasive power in the West, or, really, in anywhere where Islam is not the sole religion of any prominence. In other words, it is essentially incapable of surviving in the marketplace of ideas, which suggests that it is not a meaningful intellectual rival to liberal democracy and thus not part of Hegelian history, however important it is to the rise and fall of nations. Tom: History will not end until the world does. Nobody can predict the future. Fukuyama, to me, was just an avatar of right-wing Republican tub-thumping triumphalism, celebrating the here-and-now as if it were the whole point all along. Well, Marx was wrong, and so is Fukuyama. Tom Beck Me: I'm not trying to be offensive, Tom, but have you read the book? I honestly don't think that you have, judging by this response. I'm not even certain that Fukuyama is a Republican, to be honest, although he is quite conservative (in a philosophical, as opposed to a political, sense). I shoudl note that Fukuyama placed the end of history in _1815_, when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. I wouldn't go that far - I think Communism did present an ideological alternative, if one that you had to be remarkably deluded to buy. What we have here, I really believe, is a difference in terms. Fukuyama - who did not, I believe, think that his article would receive quite the publicity it did - meant history in a Hegelian sense, while you mean it in a historian's. To disagree with him, you'd have to point to a coherent alternative that has something to add to liberal democracy - I don't think there is one - whatever changes that it will experience will be internal, not a product of conflict with an incompatible, but still valid, ideology. Gautam
