Read part 1 here.
When the first hardback edition of The End of History and the Last Man hit stores on January 31, 1992, Francis Fukuyama must have been feeling bullish about his own theory. The USSR’s dissolution just over a month earlier had completed the thoroughgoing collapse of communist regimes in Europe. Even Fukuyama had not dared to dream of this in the 1989 essay “The End of History?” that served as prelude to the book.
That most of the former communist states of Europe had transitioned to democracy and the free market more or less peacefully could be taken as evidence in support of Fukuyama’s theory. Of course, contrary evidence was also at hand: the unfortunate Yugoslavia’s failure to follow that pattern. After a brief and relatively non-violent secession of Slovenia from the federal socialist republic, the viciousness of the secessionist war that had broken out there, first, between Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs, then, between Muslim Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs, lent credence to those who argued that Fukuyama had underestimated the continuing appeal of religious chauvinism and ethnic nationalism.
Alan Bloom, while broadly supportive in his response to the ‘The End of History?’ essay, had mused that, though it had been shown that communism “neither works nor is desirable” and fascism had been defeated on the battlefield in the 1940s, the latter’s
“dark possibilities were not seen through to the end. If an alternative is sought, there is nowhere else to seek it. I would suggest that fascism has a future, if not the future. Much that Fukuyama says points in that direction. The facts do too. The African and Near Eastern nations, which for some reason do not succeed easily at modernity, have temptations to find meaning and self-assertion in varieties of obscurantism. The European nations, which can find no rational ground for the exclusion of countless potential immigrants from their homelands, look back to their national myths”.
“Not just a restatement” of his original thesis, the questing, relatively open-ended The End of History and the Last Man entertains these objections and seeks to address them. The central questions of the book are, firstly, whether a Universal History of humanity, one with a beginning, middle and end, can be written, and secondly, whether, if so, liberal democracy’s advent represents the beginning of that end: are the universal values of equality and liberty to win out permanently over the values propagated by nationalists, fascists and religious fundamentalists?
A the central question of the book was whether the universal values of equality and liberty were to win out permanently over the values propagated by nationalists, fascists and religious fundamentalists?
Continuing an Enlightenment tradition, Kant had asked whether a Universal History is possible, Fukuyama notes, and Kant’s important successor Hegel had answered in the affirmative. Such a history must necessarily be directional rather than haphazard or cyclical. And if history is directional, it should be possible to identify the primary factors that drive it, and thereby to understand the essential logic of the process.
Fukuyama identifies natural science as one of those factors. Since, barring some global catastrophe, scientific development is irreversible, all societies sooner or later come to be subject to the same modernizing pressures, above all due to the military threat posed by more technologically advanced societies. In the economic sphere, these pressures force the adoption of a rational division of labour and at least some degree of capitalist organisation—property rights, markets and so on. As it modernizes, a society may pass through a socialist or authoritarian nationalist phase, as Russia, China, Spain and various Latin American countries did, and, during this phase, may even industrialize faster than liberal capitalist rivals. But planned economies having proven to be incapable of keeping up with capitalist ones at higher levels of technological sophistication—the levels achieved since around 1960 by what Daniel Bell called the “post-industrial” societies of the West and of East Asia—so the pressure to adopt capitalism must finally prove irresistible.
Planned economies having proven to be incapable of keeping up with capitalist ones at higher levels of technological sophistication, the pressure to adopt capitalism must finally prove irresistible.
According to Fukuyama, the inescapable superiority of capitalism, and the extraordinary technological progress it brings about, then result in the
“increasing homogenization of all human societies, regardless of their historical origins or cultural inheritances. All countries undergoing economic modernization must increasingly resemble one another … [modern] societies have become increasingly linked with one another through global markets and the spread of a universal consumer culture”.
This is plausible, but I think it is more accurate to say that modernizing societies become homogeneous in some but not all respects. Indeed Fukuyama himself has a nuanced view of the impact of national culture on the modernization process: while it influences how modernization proceeds, national culture is also subject to outside influence and change, and this opens the door to homogenization. Certainly, a growing global homogeneity is visible in economic organization, the functioning of business and the character of working life. After their reconquest of Kabul, the Taliban had to get well acquainted with Microsoft Office. A less well publicized but equally telling example is found in Mulvenon and Yang’s The People’s Liberation Army as Organization (2002), a report on the changing character of the Chinese Communist Party’s military wing. The authors found that the role of political commissar had evolved into one resembling that of an HR specialist.
Thanks to the rapid development of what were formerly called “backward” regions of the world, something like a global culture has indeed emerged, what sociologist Jan Nederveen Pieterse calls a “global mélange” of blended, hybridized cultures mediated by consumerism, smartphones and the internet. There’s a sense in which each one of us is living in, or will be living in, a 21st-century version of Kojève’s Universal Homogeneous State—the Universal Hybridized State perhaps.
There’s a sense in which each one of us is living in, or will be living in, a 21st-century version of Kojève’s Universal Homogeneous State—the Universal Hybridized State perhaps.
But will that state necessarily be liberal and democratic? As part of his exploration of this question, Fukuyama considers several economically determinist arguments. For him, the strongest of these rests on the tendency of industrialization to produce a growing, increasingly well-educated bourgeoisie. As the professional and property-owning classes expand, they call more and more insistently for democratic reform, as involvement in the political process is a priority for an ascendant bourgeoisie keen to assert itself and protect its interests. Though this has been an observable reality in Western societies, the case of China calls the universality of this claim into question. For decades, the middle class there has been growing rapidly, but, since 1989, it hasn’t engaged in significant agitation for democratic reform. Indeed, it seems that as Chinese citizens become more prosperous, they become less desirous of systemic change.
For decades, the middle class in China has been growing rapidly, but, since 1989, it hasn’t engaged in significant agitation for democratic reform. Indeed, it seems that as Chinese citizens become more prosperous, they become less desirous of systemic change.
That not all cultures are disposed to want either liberalism or democracy was a criticism even some of Fukuyama’s supporters, like Alan Bloom, levelled at the “end of history” thesis when it was first presented. It was also an argument made by Fukuyama’s former teacher, Samuel Huntington, in his 1993 essay ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, a piece written in response to Fukuyama, and which the elder scholar later expanded into a book. According to Huntington’s thesis—which, in the 1990s and early 2000s, became almost as well-known and passionately debated as Fukuyama’s—the passing of the Cold War ushers in not the end of history, but rather a new age of conflict between seven or eight civilizations: Western, Confucian, Islamic, Hindu, Japanese, Latin American, Orthodox and possibly African. A major source of conflict are each civilization’s very different values, rooted as they are deep in the past, and in religion. In contrast to Fukuyama, Huntington did not believe universal values exist, and he held that a civilization’s values and beliefs are generally resistant to change from outside.
The complete failure of the Bush administration’s attempts to forcibly export democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq would seem to lend support to Huntington’s thesis over Fukuyama’s, especially given that Fukuyama, a prominent neoconservative in the 1990s, exerted substantial influence on that movement’s thinking during that decade. However Fukuyama’s opposition to the Iraq War led him to publicly break with neoconservatism in 2004, and in 2006 he claimed the movement had betrayed its former opposition to social engineering by adopting the “Leninist” belief that “history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will”.
The complete failure of the Bush administration to export democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq would seem to lend support to Huntington’s thesis over Fukuyama’s.
Huntington, too, was sceptical of the wisdom of invading Iraq. His doubts stemmed largely from his belief that the adoption of liberal democracy by those civilizations most unlike, and most antagonistic towards, the West was unlikely. Occidental decline has robbed our values and ideas of their luster, he contended. Yet he didn’t entirely rule out the possibility of democracy spreading. For instance, in the Clash of Civilizations book, he makes a small concession to Fukuyama’s argument regarding rising middle classes:
“If democracy comes to additional Asian countries, it will come because the increasingly strong Asian bourgeoisies and middle classes want it to come”.
However, Fukuyama’s end of history thesis does not rest on a materialist account of history alone, such accounts being, as he acknowledges, not wholly satisfying. To bolster his case, he expands upon his 1989 essay’s Hegelian arguments to provide a supplementary, idealist account of the historical process, one in which man’s need to have his dignity and worth recognized is the driving force of history. So philosophically rich is this thread of Fukuyama’s book that it is, in my view, of lasting value in its own right, whether or not its arguments clinch the case for the present era being “the end of history”. Indeed Fukuyama has used the Hegelian thinking presented here as a foundation for later works, such as 2018’s Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment.
In the 1992 book, Fukuyama integrates his Hegelian / Kojèvian theory with his materialist account by means of an ancient theory of human nature. Plato, in his Republic, divides the human soul into three parts: Desire, Reason and thymos. The first two of these are sufficient for an understanding of the scientific and economic developments with which Fukuyama’s first account of history is concerned. But thymos, translated as ”spiritedness”, manifests, according to Fukuyama, as the Hegelian desire for recognition. He then maintains that liberal democracy is potentially appealing to all societies because it offers universal recognition of the equal worth and dignity of every individual. Whatever the truth of this, I believe Fukuyama’s theory of thymos may have universal explanatory value. In the hierarchical Confucian societies, for instance, if individuals and groups do not want recognition of their being equal to others, they surely do desire recognition of their position in the social hierarchy, along with their moral worth, patriotism and so on.
Fukuyama’s theory of thymos may have universal explanatory value. In Confucian societies, individuals surely do desire recognition of their position in the social hierarchy, along with their moral worth, patriotism and so on.
Finding it useful to expand upon the concept of thymos, Fukuyama coins two subordinate concepts: megalothymia and isothymia. These are the desire to be recognized as better than others and as equal to others, respectively. In the final, “Last Man”, section of his book, Fukuyama deploys these concepts in an exploration of Nietzsche’s piercing critique of Hegel, liberalism and democracy. Is the end of history, as imagined by Hegel, in truth something base and contemptible?
Fukuyama’s treatment of Nietzsche’s last man has been largely ignored by critics, especially those writing after the 1990s. It’s a pity, because not only are these chapters fascinating, but they give the lie to the unfortunate “triumphalist” label often assigned to Fukuyama’s thesis. In this final section, Fukuyama undertakes a more thorough survey of the unsettling territory he previously only cast a melancholy glance at, when he asserted, in his 1989 essay’s surprise conclusion, that the end of history would be “a very sad time”.
Nietzsche’s last man bears a close resemblance to Kojève’s post-historical man: in Fukuyama’s terms, both entirely lack megalothymia, but are given over to isothymia alone, and hence are well suited to liberal democracy; both are incapable of creating great works of art or literature or accomplishing similarly noble feats; both avoid danger, pursuing security and the satisfaction of petty wants above all. Yet Nietzsche is much more contemptuous of his last man than Kojève is of his equivalent. The radically anti-egalitarian Nietzsche despises this final human specimen for having nothing in him of the master or the aristocrat, those superior types who brought glory to earlier ages. Fukuyama, for his part, recognizes megalothymia as
“a morally ambiguous phenomenon: both the good things and the bad things of life flow from it, simultaneously and necessarily”.
When the princes and generals of past centuries strove to win glory, in politics or in its bloody continuation by other means, they were obeying the promptings of megalothymia. Liberal democracy seeks to tame this lust for glory, but cases of the kind of belligerent megalothymia Donald Trump displayed in the recent Greenland crisis may still arise, posing a potentially grave threat to liberal institutions. Liberal democracies’ impressive record of almost never going to war with each other thus depends on their elites’ megalothymotic tendencies continuing to be controlled. At the same time, no society can do without megalothymia entirely. Prosperity depends on intense rivalries between capitalists; sport benefits from athletes’ drive to break records; literature and the arts are poor indeed in eras (such as our own) when ambition is lacking.
Fukuyama further notes that the present era, “the old age of mankind”, is relativist in philosophy, long experience having led man to believe
“that all horizons and values systems are relative to their time and place, and that none are true but reflect the prejudices or interests of those who advance them”.
Fukuyama continues:
“The doctrine that says that there is no privileged perspective dovetails very nicely with democratic man’s desire to believe that his way of life is just as good as any other”.
Whether intentionally or not, by writing of “the old age of mankind”, Fukuyama suggests that liberal democracy is humanity’s leafy retirement home, to which all societies are destined to be admitted.
But disorder can break out even in a care home. Societies that have arrived at the old age of mankind are vulnerable to unbridled isothymia—an obsession with being recognized as equal—as much as to its opposite. Musing on this threat, Fukuyama almost uncannily anticipates woke:
“If tomorrow’s isothymotic passions try to outlaw differences between the ugly and beautiful, or pretend that a person with no legs is not just the spiritual but the physical equal of someone whole in body, then the argument will in the fullness of time become self-refuting, just as communism was. This is not something in which we should take particular comfort, since refutation of the isothymotic premises of Marxism-Leninism took a century and a half to complete. But nature here is an ally, and while one can try to throw nature out with a pitchfork, tamen usque recurrit—it will come running back”.
Equally resonant is Fukuyama’s discussion of the difficulties “post-historical” societies have stemming mass immigration (his comments echo Alan Bloom’s):
“[Liberal democracies] have had difficulty formulating any just principle of excluding foreigners that does not seem racist or nationalist, thereby violating those universal principles of right to which they as liberal democracies are committed. All developed democracies have imposed limits on immigration at one time or another, but this has usually been done, so to speak, with a bad conscience”.
In identifying these problems, Fukuyama admits that the victory of liberal democracy may not be final: the consequences of unsatisfied thymotic longings may undermine democracies to such a degree that history “restarts”, with wars and revolutions returning to the formerly post-historical world. According to The End of the End of History, a 2021 book by Alex Hochuli, Café Américain author George Hoare, and Phillip Cunliffe, this has already happened, as evidenced by the intensely disruptive rise of identity politics and populism following the 2008 financial crisis. And indeed, compared to the current era, the “long Nineties” of 1989-2008 seem a very different time: what might plausibly be called the Fukuyaman fin de siècle.
So, was Fukuyama right? A quarter of the way into the 21st century, it’s beginning to look like he wasn’t, at least not entirely. It’s certainly possible that an end of history of sorts will come, when the last “historical” societies join the others in a relativist, metaphysically exhausted old age of mankind. But what shape liberal democracy will be in then is unknown.
It’s certainly possible that an end of history of sorts will come, when the last “historical” societies join the others in a relativist, metaphysically exhausted old age of mankind.
In 2018, Fukuyama acknowledged that, in the competition between him and Huntington, his teacher looked to be winning. Nevertheless, the student’s early work has so much to recommend it that it perhaps doesn’t matter. Fukuyama’s breakthrough essay and book remain fascinating exploratory works, and shouldn’t be made to stand or fall on the basis of a prediction that was never their sole raison d’être. Those who know and appreciate Fukuyama understand this. And they are grateful that, 37 years ago, a relative unknown was willing to brave ridicule and risk being wrong.
