End of History is Bunk
Stunned by a link I randomly clicked on through a guy named Eric Alterman's blog, found via Radio Free Blogistan . (see how adept I now appear at doing that? It takes me forever. Swans paddling furiously comes to mind)
Anyway, the relevant article is
http://www.cis.org.au/Events/JBL/JBL02.htm
This is Francis Fukuyama, explaining why his previously well publicised view that History had ended remains relevant, even though it might appear to the untrained eye that two aeroplanes destroying skyscrapers in New York was the kind of thing they used to put in history books.
In truth, don't really bother reading the guff. I'm only stunned because I can't believe that there are still people who'd act as an audience for a charlatan like that.
Briefly, Mr Fukuyama felt that history had been moving in one direction, as Marx before him had said. But Mr. F. had realised that while Marx thought we were all destined to live in Communist societies sooner or later, in reality we were all destined to live in Liberal Economic Democracies.
Just to be very clear on this. History has no end-point we're working towards. Religion aside, there is no grand plan to human endeavour. Empires fall and rise, ideas grip millions and then are forgotten, the irrational becomes accepted, and is then rejected and neither event is foreseen.
In short, the idea that your favourite kind of society will inevitably win out for always is bunk. Self deluding bunk at that. As our hard to spell friend's enduring fame demonstrates, nothing succeeds like telling people things they want to hear. But nobody is done any favours when you do that.
In truth, democracies are pretty good things. But I think my kind of electoral system is better than the US's or the UK's, but I'm not going to assume that it will eventually replace them. Similarly, just because democracy appears better, doesn't mean that people will get it everywhere. Intangibles like cultures, histories, strong willed individuals and the like tend to play a part.
The mistake is to see modernity as irreversible. A bit of bad luck, like a burst of bubonic plague or the sudden rise in influence by Christian fundamentalists and Europe could be back to the 18th or 19th C within a generation.
So lets all be careful out there. OK?
5:57:37 PM 
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