The 90s and early 2000s. It was a confident time for people living in the Western World. Its easy to see why people who wrote books (historians in particular) could be so outrageously over confident with statements such as “The end of History” and the triumph of our system and way of life. Our movies were confident, I remember watching “Gladiator” on DVD with other students at college in the UK.
Movies are not released in a vacuum. This was meant to portray the west. The opening scene is us defeating our last enemy, the final barbarians defeated from the East (The soviet union).
A time pre 911 when our only worry was the Millenium bug. Simpler times to yearn back for….
Now as a non-academic person (thats right I don’t have letters after my REAL name) I find it clearly obvious that this comfortable prediction from a time of appararent triumph and confidendence from the west is wrong. Whether it proves to be a DEAD wrong world view remains to be seen after the recent events in Eastern Europe with the big bear Rus and its recent intervention.
Idiocracy of Western Governments
Francis Fukuyama is an academic to be respected of course and I do not like Ad hominem attacks on people. We must analyse the work of people not their backgrounds or personal flaws.
I encourage you to read his book or listen to audio format.
The Western World is a confused bumbling clown and shadow of what it once was.
A-men…. and Women. A New world order of ignorance……
This is from a serving U.S congressmen.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/05/a-woman-prayer-emanuel-cleaver-amen-critics
With general education levels plummeting and people addiction to banal tv and more so social media we have so called representatives displaying levels of ignorance not even simple laborers could be accused of 100 years ago.
Could Fukuyama have predicted a Generation of Decadence and Degeneracy?
The deterioation of mental health in the average Western person is frightening
So in conclusion is this the “End of History” as Fukuyama meant? Have we entered into a new age of benign global tolerance and prosperity?
No. An emphatic no so resounding it actually has become the exact opposite. Our wealth has turned into our weakness. Indeed weakness women and weirdos seems to be the new world order of the day. Cowardice and narcissim is appluaded unwittingly by masses of ignorants.
From drag queens in schools,LGBTQ++ etc infecting young impresionable minds, corrupting them and making them weak and confused. Its a crime and our ancestors are turning in their graves….
I know I am fairly harsh with women in my blog, but I give out critcism fairly justly in my humble opinion. Theres only two sexes and I dont care wht hangs or doesnt hand between peoples legs. All capable adult humans know right from wrong. Men have suffered with the decline as much as women.
“Totalitarianisms of the Right and Left have
kept us too busy to consider the latter question seriously for the
better part of this century(20th Century). But the fading of these totalitarianisms,
as the century comes to an end, invites us to raise this old
question one more time.” – Excerpt from The End of History and The Last Man.
The irony is these very same “Liberal Democracies” are now slowly morphing into totalitarian societies that they apparantly defeated.
Our former Western tolerance has become almost quasi-religious intolerance to others opinions. All the while our rivals, which didnt magically disappear, but were waiting and watching for weakness lick their lips with anticipation.
The individual fall from grace of the average man in the West has doomed us all as a collective and therefore the West as a whole.
I’m not a doom monger but a realist. Are there unseen factors that could reverse this situation? Of course there are but that is exceedingly unlikely to save us.
Also another hint at the inadequacy of Fukuyamas thesis is his constant “updating” or stating it is an incomplete thesis. This is just not acceptable as an excuse to flawed argument.
So let me reply to first the question, although intentionally rhetorical from Fukuyama in his opening sentence of the book The End of History and the Last man. Is there a direction to the history of mankind?
I think mankind is too complex a creature to be linear in direction. Let me modify the question. Is there a pattern? Yes, I think there is clearly a case for that.
Like the Roman and other empires from history there are the rises and falls, and even reversals; knowledge can become lost and dark ages can begin.
In fact an interesting thesis on this is by respected historian and academic Graham Hancock (featured on Joe Rogans podcast) and in his latest book: America Before: The Key to Earth’s Lost Civilization. Knowledge can be lost periodically through human history. Linear progression of history however tempting to believe is just not accurate.
There are many articfacts and historical events that can’t be explained by traditional academics, historians and archeaolgists such as a recently discovered 2000 year old mechanical computer.
The premise is that in the past the world had an advanced civilization (almost as technically advanced as ours) before a cataclysm destroyed it. Wouldn’t such a civilization be a reversion backwards? Indeed it would and what kind of society and governace would these inhabiatants be living with? Would it have been a Liberal Democracy or something else entirely? Interesting questions……
But the premise of a guaranteed “End of History” that will always result in a Democratic Capitalist utopian “End Game” I find naive, laughable and with the past 20 years of hindsight a perversion of reality.
Tubeman 777
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