Dragon
14th February 2003, 03:57 AM
Francis Fukuyama is deputy director of the State Department's policy planning staff and former analyst at the RAND Corporation. This article is based on a lecture presented at the University of Chicago's John M. Olin Center and to Nathan Tarcov and Allan Bloom for their support in this and many earlier endeavours. The opinions expresses in this article do not reflect those of the RAND Corporation or of any agency of the U.S. government.
Accordingly, What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or a passing of a particular period of
postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological
evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human
government.
In this book, Fukuyama expands on the ideas in his original essay and introduces several new ones, the most important of which, embodied by the idea of "thymos", is that the greatest threat to the End of History is the fact that people demand recognition. By recognition, he means something fairly broad, but which we all intuitively recognize :
...that part of man which feels the need to place value on things--himself in the first instance, but
on the people, actions, or things around him as well. It is the part of the personality which is the
fundamental source of the emotions of pride, anger, and shame, and is not reducible to desire, on
the one hand, or reason on the other. The desire for recognition is the most specifically political
part of the human personality because it is what drives men to want to assert themselves over other
men... .
Liberal democracy succeeds brilliantly at fulfilling Man's basic desires--food, clothing, shelter--but it raises several questions. Will Man, once satiated, still have the kind of thymos which has driven the species to achieve technologically and culturally ? Will the most able in society be content to be treated equally with those they consider their inferiors, or will they demand a level of political recognition commensurate with their contributions to society ? Will those at the bottom of the social scale--and liberal democracy does, undeniably, produce a hierarchy from poor to rich--be content to have less than those at the top of the scale, or will they demand that the high be brought low ? Fukuyama seeks to provide answers to these questions, drawing upon thinkers like Plato, Tocqueville, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Alexandre Kojeve, and upon the experiences of modern times.
The book is always fascinating, sometimes wrongheaded and frequently brilliant. In the end, the question that animates the discussion is the same that mankind always faces ; which will ultimately triumph, the desire for security or the urge to freedom. There is no more important issue in human history and the ways in which we answer it will, as always, determine our future. Even if he does not arrive at any final answers, Fukuyama adds immeasurably to our understanding of the question and its importance.
<a href="http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/current.html" target="_blank">http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/current.html</a>
<b>A must read stuff!!</b>
<a href="http://www.cis.org.au/Events/JBL/JBL02.htm]" target="_blank">http://www.cis.org.au/Events/JBL/JBL02.htm]</a>
<a href="http://www.forum-global.de/soc/bibliot/s/smithendhistory.htm" target="_blank">http://www.forum-global.de/soc/bibliot/s/smithendhistory.htm</a>
Accordingly, What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or a passing of a particular period of
postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological
evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human
government.
In this book, Fukuyama expands on the ideas in his original essay and introduces several new ones, the most important of which, embodied by the idea of "thymos", is that the greatest threat to the End of History is the fact that people demand recognition. By recognition, he means something fairly broad, but which we all intuitively recognize :
...that part of man which feels the need to place value on things--himself in the first instance, but
on the people, actions, or things around him as well. It is the part of the personality which is the
fundamental source of the emotions of pride, anger, and shame, and is not reducible to desire, on
the one hand, or reason on the other. The desire for recognition is the most specifically political
part of the human personality because it is what drives men to want to assert themselves over other
men... .
Liberal democracy succeeds brilliantly at fulfilling Man's basic desires--food, clothing, shelter--but it raises several questions. Will Man, once satiated, still have the kind of thymos which has driven the species to achieve technologically and culturally ? Will the most able in society be content to be treated equally with those they consider their inferiors, or will they demand a level of political recognition commensurate with their contributions to society ? Will those at the bottom of the social scale--and liberal democracy does, undeniably, produce a hierarchy from poor to rich--be content to have less than those at the top of the scale, or will they demand that the high be brought low ? Fukuyama seeks to provide answers to these questions, drawing upon thinkers like Plato, Tocqueville, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Alexandre Kojeve, and upon the experiences of modern times.
The book is always fascinating, sometimes wrongheaded and frequently brilliant. In the end, the question that animates the discussion is the same that mankind always faces ; which will ultimately triumph, the desire for security or the urge to freedom. There is no more important issue in human history and the ways in which we answer it will, as always, determine our future. Even if he does not arrive at any final answers, Fukuyama adds immeasurably to our understanding of the question and its importance.
<a href="http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/current.html" target="_blank">http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/current.html</a>
<b>A must read stuff!!</b>
<a href="http://www.cis.org.au/Events/JBL/JBL02.htm]" target="_blank">http://www.cis.org.au/Events/JBL/JBL02.htm]</a>
<a href="http://www.forum-global.de/soc/bibliot/s/smithendhistory.htm" target="_blank">http://www.forum-global.de/soc/bibliot/s/smithendhistory.htm</a>