Francis Fukuyama believes we are still at the End of History, and the end is called the European Union.

 


Hmmmm - or not.
 

Peter: "Yet a wave or even a crooked line can have a direction too. There is an undisputable “amelioration” in the way most societies are evolving."

 

Please define this "crooked line" that has a linear direction and this "amelioration."

 

Peter: "The ethics in the roman empire were considerably worse then those of the slave-keeping south in the US two centuries ago. And those were again considerably worse then the ethics of the USA and Europe of today. Some of the letters of the founding fathers read like anti-Semitic and racial-hate pamphlets, yet they the founding fathers made big steps forwards in the evolution to better. Tintin in Congo is horrifying, but was completely fascionable in the time it was written. Unlike Fukuyama, I’m certain that within a century, we will be looked at as barbarians."

 

These observations do not challenge the conception of history as cyclical. Even today, many other societies regard Westerners as "barbarians." What the Founding Fathers proposed was not revolutionary, for secular and civil societies had been attempted throughout the world, often by city-states, tribes and occaisionally (e.g. the Jagiellonian Commonwealth) larger communities; indeed, what was revolutionary was that the United States was established in the first place and that it survived.

 

Peter: "There is no end of history what so ever. Often a big leap forwards comes with severe fall backs or undesired side effects, true, but forward we go..."

 

How is this not cyclical?

Francis Fukujama has become something like a wheather-vane.   He turns and tosses much too quickly, throwing caution to the wind. 

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and of communism as an ideology, at the end of the 1980's, he posited his famous thesis of "the end of history", i.e. the inevitability of the whole world moving to liberal democracy and market capitalism.   By the late 1990's, the absurdity of the thesis was thoroughly exposed by numerous developments.  For instance, by the gathering of the jihadist storm across the muslim world and beyond, by the absence of any serious signs of political liberalization to accompany market capitalism (started 20 years earlier) in totalitarian China, and by the emergence of various new (and in some ways, worse)  tirannies in parts of Africa, central-Asia and South America.  

In subsequent publications Fukujama tried to rephrase his thesis, giving it a 'new' interpretation, but without conviction and certainly without convincing his thoughtful critics.   He even flirted for a while with neocon-illusions of being able to change other societies towards his vision of the end-of-history (i.e. liberal democracy and market capitalism), instead of contemplating past history to discern what made liberal democracy possible in some cultures and not in others.   The reality of 'Irak' was a great disappointment to him, but apparently has not turned him towards 'realism' in geopolitics.  His latest fad is no longer "liberal democracy", but rather the "transnational rule of law of the EU".  

It is obvious that Fukujama has to do some more thinking about the nature of "law" and that it is inextricably linked to the nature of the polity of which it is part.   The "law of liberal democracy" does not derive from any "transnationality" of any "rules", but from the liberal democratic nature of the polity.  By that measure, Fukujama is bound to be disappointed again in the future. 

And those, like PVDH, who naively think that there is "undisputable amelioration" in the way societies are evolving over time, seem not to know even recent history and to be blind to the lessons of history.   The 'meticulously planned holocaust' took place in the heart of Europe, only 60 years ago, still in my lifetime!   Many others have since then taken place, and at least one (perhaps two) is/are currently going on. 

The sad reality, that history teaches, is that genuine freedom does not rest on "transnational rules" but on the willingness of political systems to fight for it against constant new threats.   And it can never be gained but temporarily, which means that almost every new generation wil have to fight for it again ...or lose it (again).             

From LanceGrundy "Hopefully, it is the Americans’ continuing belief in God, national sovereignty and their military that will provide them with the wherewithal to resist the imposition of ‘transnational rule of law’ on their country - until such time as the messy collapse of the EU discredits this pernicious form of totalitarianism for all the world to see."

 

Yeah right.  I am from the Detroit area.  Care to visit my home neighborhood?  The US will collapse from within in a fit of selfish lawsuits and reverse discrimination class action suits that drive the last productive citizens to seek refuge ANYWHERE else they can go.  External threats actually do more to unify the US than harm it unlike the EU I think.

The European Union looks more like the end of Western civilisation than the ‘end of history’.

 

 

 

Hopefully, it is the Americans’ continuing belief in God, national sovereignty and their military that will provide them with the wherewithal to resist the imposition of ‘transnational rule of law’ on their country - until such time as the messy collapse of the EU discredits this pernicious form of totalitarianism for all the world to see.

@kapitein andre

“All manner of ideologues conceive of human history as a linear process, because this legitimizes their respective ideologies as either being rooted in the mists of the past or the wave of the future.”
Except yours, who is seeing the human history as cyclical, because it legitimizes your pessimistic “survival of the ruthless” ideology.
Human history is not a linear process. That much is true. Yet a wave or even a crooked line can have a direction too. There is an undisputable “amelioration” in the way most societies are evolving. The ethics in the roman empire were considerably worse then those of the slave-keeping south in the US two centuries ago. And those were again considerably worse then the ethics of the USA and Europe of today. Some of the letters of the founding fathers read like anti-Semitic and racial-hate pamphlets, yet they the founding fathers made big steps forwards in the evolution to better. Tintin in Congo is horrifying, but was completely fascionable in the time it was written. Unlike Fukuyama, I’m certain that within a century, we will be looked at as barbarians. There is no end of history what so ever. Often a big leap forwards comes with severe fall backs or undesired side effects, true, but forward we go. .

Francis Fukuyama: "The “End of History” was never linked to a specifically American model of social or political organization. Following Alexandre Kojeve, the Russian-French philosopher who inspired my original argument, I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States. The EU’s attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a “post-historical” world than the Americans’ continuing belief in God, national sovereignty and their military."

 

Currently, the European Union is undemocratic, unaccountable and detrimental to its constituent national communities; is this the ideal Mr. Fukuyama envisages? Moreover, the European Union is not a monolithic entity and is frequently used by its more powerful members for national gain, often at the expense of other members. Though Mr. Fukuyama lauds the supranational authority and power wielded by Brussels, he fails to take into account that unless Europe is to drown in migrants, the entire world must be placed under a supranational government with a significant degree of harmonisation of laws, and economic and social policies and programmes. Clearly, Mr. Fukuyama regards the European Union as a precursor to a world government, however, I do not understand how God, national sovereignty and the military can be excluded from this equation:

1. It is natural for passionate religionists to desire harmonisation between the religious and socio-political spheres, and therefore it is necessary to either recognize only one conception of God or to recognize the global superstate as secular
2. The global superstate must recognize its own sovereignty to guard against national secession and independence, and irredentism
3. The global superstate requires overwhelming conventional and unconventional military capabilities to achieve:
• Its political control over the entire planet
• The imposition of its laws on dissenting regions and peoples
• Deterrence during its establishment
• Social unity and territorial integrity

The United States is as much an attempt at a global state as the European Union is due to their liberal underpinnings, however, each is founded upon particularistic not universal values, after all 1.3 billion Muslims can't be wrong.

All manner of ideologues conceive of human history as a linear process, because this legitimizes their respective ideologies as either being rooted in the mists of the past or the wave of the future. However, the human brain has evolved very little over recorded history and the individual and group paradigms that existed millennia ago persist today, albeit adapting to scientific, technological and economic changes. Although it is evident that humans remain unchanged emotionally, many argue that we have intellectually advanced; I disagree. While human knowledge has increased, the human capacity for analyzing and applying that knowledge (intelligence) was there from the beginning. Indeed, that humans can ask questions such as "if the universe is finite, what is beyond it?" is indicative of intelligence outpacing knowledge. Even atheists must contend that the concept of 'God' is not so much superstitious as scientific, an attempt to explain events.

 

From the cyclical perspective, the European Union is presently safe from military conquest because of its superior conventional capabilities, unconventional weapons (e.g. the Anglo-French nuclear deterrent), and its enjoyment of protection by the 'first among equals' of great powers, the United States. It is interesting that this has not stopped invasion through immigration and conquest through demographic expansion, both of which are possible under the auspices of liberal democratic institutions. From Fukuyama's linear perspective, ethnic nationalism and armed conflict are primitive and soon to be abolished. Unfortunately, similar grandiose claims have been made throughout human history, notably in 1555 and 1919. The European Union, by deconstructing the European peoples through myriad programmes and policies is not fostering peace, prosperity and unity anymore than the Treaty of Versailles contained German aggression. In fact, ethno-cultural struggles are on the rise, the Malthusian triumvirate appear the only means of combating overpopulation and environmental degredation and the threat of a global conflict over religion, race, ethnicity and socio-economic inequalities seems more likely now than ever.

of acadamia, and, as far as can be told by their philosophy, they've never heard of Locke, Smith, or Madison.    You might even say they've discarded the Magna Carta to boot.   What do we call post-modern Europe; Eursoc?  Bureaudictat?  Soft collectivism?      

How can one call for the end of the EU when there has never been a Union ?.