The End of the End of History
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Title : The End of the End of History
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Title : The End of the End of History
link : The End of the End of History
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History does a fine line in irony. When Francis Fukuyama suggested in his famous 1989 article, followed by The End of History and the Last Man in 1992 that history is coming to an end was always going to be a foolish boast, a proper hostage to fortune. And viewed from the perspective of the close of 2018 it sounds faintly absurd, a historical curio, one for the professional historians of ideas and connoisseurs of concepts that never went anywhere. Even Fukuyama himself has intimated this is the case. Yet the end of history was, for a time, very relevant. Even on the left.
Fukuyama's basic thesis wasn't that history as such had stopped. There were still people and events, dear boy, events, but that certain big political questions had been settled. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its client regimes in Eastern Europe coupled with the spread of free market capitalism and the wave of (liberal) democratisation suggested that the most optimal, most agreeable social and political forms - how we should organise our societies - had been achieved. Liberal democracy had seen off its fascist rivals in the 1940s, and come the late 80s the spectre of communism was unmasked as a feeble, broken system that could barely meet the basic needs of its citizens. History understood as competing visions of the good society was dead. As it was put on the sleeve of Fukuyama's book:
Of course, even back then there was a certain audacity to Fukuyama's claim. If one was wedded to a particular teleological reading of Marx, i.e. history was unfolding according to a certain logic with an end point down the line, it was supposed to be communism understood as a super-advanced society of free producers that marked not the ending of history, but rather the cessation of our species pre-history. Only when a society is fully conscious of itself and in which the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all, a social arrangement permissive of individuality, creativity and new ways of being human can flourish without the bite of hierarchy, class and oppression can we say history has truly begun. Fukuyama's argument airily dismissed that and in rolled his tanks on communism's lawn not long after Chinese Stalinism let theirs loose on Tiananmen Square.
Fukuyama's was more than just simple assertion, there was some hokey philosophy underpinning his scheme. Namely that human history is a struggle for recognition as a human being, and by way of Hegel with a dashing of Nietzsche the liberal state is the end point, ideologically speaking, for this struggle for the humanity of humanity. Citizenship, the separation of powers, the law, private property, all give us a stake in society and enabled us to recognise ourselves in others. In the richest societies the middle class is the standard to aspire to. However, all is not well after history. Big risks for the "last men" of this period comes from ennui - if everything is sorted, what is to stop boredom from setting in and subsequent problems arising from thrill-seeking behaviours? Politics and market economics can capture this, but then there are the twin dangers of social stasis, and new social conflicts arising from bordeom, new oppressions, and begin the whole cycle of struggling for recognition back to the beginning.
One needn't subscribe to the liberal Hegelianism of Fukuyama's piece to accept his basic argument was on the money. A number of leftists agreed that the game was up and capitalism with liberal democratic characteristics was the only show in town. Of course, it was less the force of Fukuyama's rhetoric and more the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the repeat defeats of the workers' movements in the West, and the explosion of consumerism and attendant cultural fragmentation that read the rites. New Labour was one result of this end-ism, but it persisted well into recent times. In the context of UK politics, those who would be heirs to Blair have politics bounded by liberalism and capitalism. Even under Ed Miliband his pale version of social democracy was couched entirely in a 'variety of capitalisms' argument, and in crucial respects remained as committed to "economic calculation ... and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands" as his immediate forebears.
I read The End of History and the Last Man when I was an undergraduate. It was the Autumn before New Labour won its famous election victory and remember thinking, like many others, this really was the end and the best we could hope for were telegenic grins and stealing policies from the Tories. Though even then I understood enough about Marx and how class struggle works that nothing is forever, and what seems permanent at one moment reveals itself as transient in the fullness of time. In his New Statesman interview Fukuyama concedes that some inroads into private property is not only probable but desirable, but while discounting a return of communism (at least as he knew it) he does accept that Marx was right about capitalist crisis and its tendency to periodically slip into them. To give him some credit, he has noted the world has changed and has altered his views accordingly - which is more than can be said about some.
The truth of the matter is history is back. Authoritarian politics is on the rise around the world, liberalism is disarmed and in a state of collapse, Third Way politics is dead, and mainstream conservative parties are in trouble. But there is more at work than gloom and dystopia. Corbynism here. Bernie-ism over there. The rise of Melenchon in France, the example of Podemos in Spain, these are beginnings pointing to a rising international of new class forces. History then is offering a choice between reaction and hope, what is - with added brutality and nightmarish accoutrements - or what could be. The period Fukuyama described and hailed is gone, and it's not coming back. What comes next depends on the side you pick.
Fukuyama's basic thesis wasn't that history as such had stopped. There were still people and events, dear boy, events, but that certain big political questions had been settled. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its client regimes in Eastern Europe coupled with the spread of free market capitalism and the wave of (liberal) democratisation suggested that the most optimal, most agreeable social and political forms - how we should organise our societies - had been achieved. Liberal democracy had seen off its fascist rivals in the 1940s, and come the late 80s the spectre of communism was unmasked as a feeble, broken system that could barely meet the basic needs of its citizens. History understood as competing visions of the good society was dead. As it was put on the sleeve of Fukuyama's book:
The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one's life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands. In the post historical period there will be neither art nor philosophy, just the perpetual caretaking of human history
Of course, even back then there was a certain audacity to Fukuyama's claim. If one was wedded to a particular teleological reading of Marx, i.e. history was unfolding according to a certain logic with an end point down the line, it was supposed to be communism understood as a super-advanced society of free producers that marked not the ending of history, but rather the cessation of our species pre-history. Only when a society is fully conscious of itself and in which the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all, a social arrangement permissive of individuality, creativity and new ways of being human can flourish without the bite of hierarchy, class and oppression can we say history has truly begun. Fukuyama's argument airily dismissed that and in rolled his tanks on communism's lawn not long after Chinese Stalinism let theirs loose on Tiananmen Square.
Fukuyama's was more than just simple assertion, there was some hokey philosophy underpinning his scheme. Namely that human history is a struggle for recognition as a human being, and by way of Hegel with a dashing of Nietzsche the liberal state is the end point, ideologically speaking, for this struggle for the humanity of humanity. Citizenship, the separation of powers, the law, private property, all give us a stake in society and enabled us to recognise ourselves in others. In the richest societies the middle class is the standard to aspire to. However, all is not well after history. Big risks for the "last men" of this period comes from ennui - if everything is sorted, what is to stop boredom from setting in and subsequent problems arising from thrill-seeking behaviours? Politics and market economics can capture this, but then there are the twin dangers of social stasis, and new social conflicts arising from bordeom, new oppressions, and begin the whole cycle of struggling for recognition back to the beginning.
One needn't subscribe to the liberal Hegelianism of Fukuyama's piece to accept his basic argument was on the money. A number of leftists agreed that the game was up and capitalism with liberal democratic characteristics was the only show in town. Of course, it was less the force of Fukuyama's rhetoric and more the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the repeat defeats of the workers' movements in the West, and the explosion of consumerism and attendant cultural fragmentation that read the rites. New Labour was one result of this end-ism, but it persisted well into recent times. In the context of UK politics, those who would be heirs to Blair have politics bounded by liberalism and capitalism. Even under Ed Miliband his pale version of social democracy was couched entirely in a 'variety of capitalisms' argument, and in crucial respects remained as committed to "economic calculation ... and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands" as his immediate forebears.
I read The End of History and the Last Man when I was an undergraduate. It was the Autumn before New Labour won its famous election victory and remember thinking, like many others, this really was the end and the best we could hope for were telegenic grins and stealing policies from the Tories. Though even then I understood enough about Marx and how class struggle works that nothing is forever, and what seems permanent at one moment reveals itself as transient in the fullness of time. In his New Statesman interview Fukuyama concedes that some inroads into private property is not only probable but desirable, but while discounting a return of communism (at least as he knew it) he does accept that Marx was right about capitalist crisis and its tendency to periodically slip into them. To give him some credit, he has noted the world has changed and has altered his views accordingly - which is more than can be said about some.
The truth of the matter is history is back. Authoritarian politics is on the rise around the world, liberalism is disarmed and in a state of collapse, Third Way politics is dead, and mainstream conservative parties are in trouble. But there is more at work than gloom and dystopia. Corbynism here. Bernie-ism over there. The rise of Melenchon in France, the example of Podemos in Spain, these are beginnings pointing to a rising international of new class forces. History then is offering a choice between reaction and hope, what is - with added brutality and nightmarish accoutrements - or what could be. The period Fukuyama described and hailed is gone, and it's not coming back. What comes next depends on the side you pick.
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You are now reading the article The End of the End of History With link address https://newstoday-ok.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-end-of-end-of-history.html