So rarely has someone been proven so wrong, so quickly.
End of history and the last man
well i haven't read it but of course Fukyurmama was a pessimist about humanity in general and he wasn't championing neo-liberalism as a utopian creed - he is a serious elitist, like all the most nutty neo-cons. Hence being a signatory to PNAC. PNAC completely cancels out any question of him seeing people as free to compete in the market, it is all about how America should and will achieve global domination.
I've read it, and disagree with your interpretation. Yes, he does suggest that there is a growing ennui amongst Western societies - but his overall claim is as to the superiority of Western, iberal capitalism. That truly awful image with which he ends the book syas it all: the world is like a wagon train heading out into the west. some of these wagons get there sooner than others, and some lose their way, but sooner or later they'll all get there. Found that pretty revolting. It's based on Hegel's 'the sun rises in the East and sets in the West' thing. as far as I understood Fukuyama's claims, the comfort and complacency entailed by living in the West was a small price to pay for the security and benefits of living in the most 'rational' form of society.
Quote:
If nothing else, you have to admire his sales technique.
indeed! annoucning the end of History will certianly get you headlines. But he is talking about History not history - of course human events are going to run and run. The book's had a lot of flak for not taking into accoutn Islam, etc., etc., but he does actually deal with this in the book. In fact, he cheats by dividing the world into the Historical and post-historical halves and says that one is just catching up with the other but they are all broadly on the same course. I think he is right in this respect, but wrong to assume that the world has reached its ideological resolution.
The argument of the book is more complex than commentators relate. At its centre is the model of Hegel's stuggle between master and slave. The dialectical sturggle for recognition, Fukuyama says, involves the quest for mutual recognition and public glory.
So, he is a serious elitist, but in a Nietzschean way - and a capitalist way, of course. Incidentally, Fukuyama accepts there are differences between lib-dem capitalist states and that he errs towards the US model, though his teacher Kojeve believed civilisation reached its apogee in the form of the European Union. Kojeve even ditched his job as a philosopher to become a bureaucrat in the organisation that would become the European Commission (the flaws with the argument should be obvious).
But this is what is most curious about the argument. Bourgeoisdom is boring - he, a theoretician of the triumph of capitalism and the ideologies of the European and US bourgeois revolutions, accepts this. Sure, for those of us in the post-historical world (whose wealth and dependence on the historical world Fukuyama does not consider) there are widespread decent level living standards, but once we get to the plateau of liberalism the desire for glory, dignity and recognition through struggle ebbs away and people become insular.
Actually, coming to the final chapters of the book this morning, it is disappointing as he seems to imply that the loss of public glory and purpose engendered by the "victory" of liberal democracy (and it still seems victorious to me, after nearly two decades, as there is no serious ideological force to challenge it) can be countered within capitalism by encouraging entrepreneurship and looking to people like Donald Trump. It's a pisspoor argument.
Who'd have thought Nietzsche's Ubermensch would be reborn as Thatcher's brats?
And this is where the book's ultimate contraidtiction is most apparent. Forget argiung against it because events subsequntly proved it "wrong" (a trivial way of dismissing the work easily parried by Fukuyama). Instead think about how, at the moment of its supposed triumph, capitalism is revealled as being hollow.
I think that what most people did was only read the article that was published in the Atalantic Monthly, and preceded the book. I've only read the article, and what SatanIsMyCopilot wrote is pretty much what I got out of the article as well. And in the article, very offhandish, he recognizes that liberal democracy and capitalism has not resolved the problem of class. It's towards the end of the article, and just once sentence, but I found that very interesting that it was in the article at all.
Has anyone ever read this?
I am almost finished with it. It surprised me because it is not the book it is reputed to be.
People generally say it is an account of capitalist triumphalism in the aftermath of the collapse of the communist states in the east, but while there is an element of this, the overall tone of the book, I find, is pessimistic.
People have concentrated too much of the end of History side of the thesis and less on the Last Man concept. Essentially, Fukuyama is arguing that while liberal democracy is the only viable ideological game in town, it is leading to a widespread ennui in which no-one takes any risks and life is comfortable but dull.
The book is quite easy to read and is also more thoughtful than I expected. Fukuyama is not a vulgar neocon nor a libertarian free market individualist (though he certainly favours market capitalism).
Of course in that way the book is totally one-sided, but it should nevertheless be read.
Dunno what anyone else thinks ...