"Oh, you like the peace, prosperity, and boundless optimism of the post-Cold War order? Well buckle up bitches because your fellow humans will fuck this up real quick..."
The problem is that it didn’t provide a reasoning for this other than “people like to fight” (paraphrased ofc). Had he actually understood the material relationships involved in this era of capitalism he would’ve been able to predict exactly the contradictions that would arise, esp. w/r/t ecology.
The Clash of Civilizations is to anti-Muslim bigotry and the European far-right as Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West was to antisemitism and 20th century fascism. Its racist worldview provided the bones for more hateful ideologies to build on. And ironically they’re now the bigger threat.
It’s this effort to preserve a simulacrum of European-ness against a perceived onslaught from Others that degrades the social cohesion of the West more than anything else. But the solution is not Newtonian separation, it’s in living one’s values and providing a positive example.
The main thing that unites Islamism and the western far-right is a deep cynicism about the West and Islam respectively, and it’s not because there’s some metaphysical ancient hatred or biological circuit hardwired to find conflict, it’s b/c of material conditions.
The birth of Islamism was a reaction to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire which had introduced many western ideas into the Muslim world. Positive examples of these ideals were abound at the time and carried relatively little baggage for these peoples. No sooner did they….
….get a chance to implement them than they came under the yoke of European colonialism and saw first hand the depredations of the dominant western powers of the day. The West in its dealings with the Muslim world did not live its values and that has poisoned the well ever since.
Zionism owes more to 20th century European nationalism and all its attendant ills than to Judaism and is thus antithetical to liberal democracy which is why it predictably devolved into rank fascist barbarism. Fetterman and his bedfellows have effectively destroyed what was left of the postwar….
….rules-based order which was specifically put in place to identify, intervene, and punish atrocities like the Holocaust. Instead of building upon and strengthening that framework, American Zionists have worked to weaken it….
….b/c the Zionist project itself cannot be sustained w/o violating it. Instead of championing a reform of Zionism and supporting similar Palestinian movements, you turned a blind eye to the depredations of Zionism-as-it-exists. For that, history will not look kindly.
One book may not have the best theory to explain jihad, but recognizing that they reject peaceful coexistence and learning of the long history is crucial.
Zionism rejected and continues to reject peaceful coexistence, yet I don’t think that warrants a massive overreaction that destroys social cohesion. The only thing that will stop this spiral is when someone says “enough is enough” and embraces prosociality even when others don’t.
History did end in 2016 and everything since then has been slowly phasing in the simulation (your consciousness flickers between timelines) and it’s been mostly sim since COVID. Obviously.
Tbf Fukuyama, even in his original essay in 1989 before he wrote the book, does say he expects liberal democracy to not be stable because people have too much of an appetite for the fight of history, and things will change essentially out of boredom. That's what the entire 'last man' bit is about.
Liberal democracy is unstable because boredom??? How about unchecked wealth accumulation? Reliance on a foreign underclass? Rising reactionary movements undermining democracy?
When was wealth or income disparity higher than it is now?Everywhere I see puts the Gini coefficient at an all time high, and that’s just income, which doesn’t even accumulate the same way.
A foreign underclass requires that a hierarchy of states be maintained that some would call a neocolonial empire. Many states get an *explosive* dose of “democracy” after attempting to nationalize their resources, and the same will happen for labor once it gets scarce enough.
I meant within US history or any liberal democracy...
Though I'm not even sure your point is correct that ancient societies had greater wealth inequality. Hard to measure of course, but it's practically impossible to even conceptualize the amount of wealth billionaires have.
He does cede to your first point, though there is a broad spectrum for systems of (re)distribution under the umbrella of LD. On your last, people are discontent with not having a cause to fight for, so are attracted to backsliding movements that undermine democracy against their own interests.
Fair, I just think that many liberal democracies are fundamentally not equipped to withstand the power of a few people owning most of everything in the country. It’s effectively a totally different economic and political system, and silly to still call it liberal democracy.
I partially agree that reactionaries are fighting for no reason, but it’s also mainly misguided backlash to a decaying capitalism’s falling wages, inflation, requirements for a stream of immigrant workers, all of which they cannot be allowed to change democratically.
I mean liberal democracy is doing fine. It's being undermined by the most common source of government, which the two superpowers and the one petrochemical dystopia are under: oligarchy.
He asserts the success of Liberal democracy to be 'the end of history' as it finally solves the internal contradictions of previous systems of government - so we have reached its end in finding it. 'History' is in the Hegelian sense of the development of ideas, not the chronological order of events
Though Fukuyama doesn't emphasise it as much, for Hegel the 'end' in the 'end of history' is meant more in terms of end as in goal or telos — so the final telos of history has been achieved in its discovery, if one believes, as Fukuyama does, that liberal democracy is the best form of government.
TEoH presents, I think, a rather weak argument for its claim (though it does somewhat compensate by saying ‘Megalothymotic’ a lot). But people really like to argue against an even sillier version of the book they imagine based on the title
Hahaha. Absolutely agree and despite his clunky readings I and shaky philosophical grounding (mainly inconsistencies around his analysis of ‘the event’) he does point out something very important about what arose in public perception.
yeah its like 80s and history was like "yeah this seems like a good spot to park hist ...wait a minute what is that?" Here ccomes Reagan with neoliberalism and said..."nah lets fuck things up....we dont really want utopia do we?"
Wrapped up Hegelian dialectics of a great ideas in conflict, it never occurred to Fukuyama that such mundane pursuits as feeding people and lifting them out of poverty could constitute “History.” 
Comments
I have actually read it (years ago). Say what you want about the overall thesis, it's not fluffy rhetoric. It's a dense read.
(I'll check out the podcast though. I like some of the other episodes I've heard.)
Liberal democracy and capitalism uniquely satisfy these underlying social tensions
So, while such systems can sometimes backslide to older systems, they can’t progress into a “higher” system
"Oh, you like the peace, prosperity, and boundless optimism of the post-Cold War order? Well buckle up bitches because your fellow humans will fuck this up real quick..."
#history #booksky #books #sociology #politics
Well... it didn't work.
Today's problems are bad, but they're not what's wrong with liberal democracy. Having an enemy during the Cold War was the best thing for stability
Though I'm not even sure your point is correct that ancient societies had greater wealth inequality. Hard to measure of course, but it's practically impossible to even conceptualize the amount of wealth billionaires have.
TEoH presents, I think, a rather weak argument for its claim (though it does somewhat compensate by saying ‘Megalothymotic’ a lot). But people really like to argue against an even sillier version of the book they imagine based on the title
But it’s nice to see it acknowledged that it’s not literally 400 pages of “The Super Nintendo just came out, and now nothing will happen ever again”
I wonder if Fukuyama feels like the notoriety and impact is worth it? My guess would be yea.
https://www.persuasion.community/p/valuing-the-deep-state-series
vs.
Recognizing a book you see on the internet 😥
the afterword: “So… turns out…”
https://youtu.be/WiMw8tSb9k0?si=-KrWGiTdQmPYSwdE
vs.
Robocop (1987).