----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 9:46 PM Subject: Re: Disconnect the Dots
> > For Fukuyama to argue that, because he can see no alternative, there IS no > alternative, is a bit short-sighted. It is an example of what is known as the > "Whig Interpretation" of history; i.e., that whatever is the dominant culture > at the time the writer celebrating it is writing, is in some way the > culmination of what history has been striving toward. But just as an > Englishman in 1850 could not possibly have imagined that England would > someday not be the dominant country Are you seriously suggesting that if educated Englishmen were asked their serious opinion of whether the English would be the most powerful country for the next 5000 years or if some other country might be more powerful by then, that they wouldn't admit that it was possible. >and as a southern American in 1830 could not possibly have imagined that slavery would ever be abolished, Well, it already had been abolished by the British. Perhaps, as a matter of Southern Pride, they were in denial, but they would have had to be absolutely stupid to not accept that their main customer had/was abolishing slavery. >so Americans on Sept. 10, 2001, could not possibly have imagined that terrorists would > attack and destroy the World Trade Center. Well, I wrote of deaths when an airliner hit Shea Stadium as a regular comparision for a nuclear accident on this list, many times. There was a panel headed by Sen. Kerry which talked about the significant risk of attacks on the US with significant death tolls and damage. This is pretty mainstream stuff before the hitting of the trade towers. > > So what? I can imagine a lot of things, few if any of which are likely to > happen. All I'm saying is, the fact that most people CAN'T imagine anything > different is NOT an indication of "the end of history". And THAT'S what this > discussion has been about. > First of all, what Gautam reported was not saying things would not change. Its that change, from now on, would be evolutionary, not a war between two ideologies. An example of where that has happened is science. Before Newton, there were a lot of ways to do natural philosophy. The various philosophies were "warring" systems. Science is not like that. Although we talk about paradigm shifts and scientific revolutions, it is not a war between different basic systems. Quantum Mechanics doesn't consider Classical Mechanics as absolute nonsense. Rather, it has a hallowed place as a limit value special case within QM. I'd argue that whatever new systems we have will be evolutions from liberal democracies, not a warring system like Communism. Dan M.
