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I don't think anyone can possibly take the guy seriously after he wrote _The End of History_. What an absolute joke of a hot take that was. Did he truly believe

by jeffdn 4y ago

I don't think anyone can possibly take the guy seriously after he wrote _The End of History_. What an absolute joke of a hot take that was. Did he truly believe that just because the Soviet Union and its satellites had a governmental collapse that the entire planet was going to turn into a liberal democracy?

nh23423fefe 4y ago
That's not the thesis of end of history, you are repeating bad headlines as a quick take.
- jeffdn 4y ago
  I've read the book, albeit 15 years ago. That may not be the entire thesis, but it is the primary component of it. From Wikipedia[0]: > Fukuyama argues that history should be viewed as an evolutionary process, and that the end of history, in this sense, means that liberal democracy is the final form of government for all nations. According to Fukuyama, since the French Revolution, liberal democracy has repeatedly proven to be a fundamentally better system (ethically, politically, economically) than any of the alternatives, and so there can be no progression from it to an alternative system. Fukuyama claims not that events will stop occurring in the future, but rather that all that will happen in the future (even if totalitarianism returns) is that democracy will become more and more prevalent in the long term. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man#Overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...
  - nh23423fefe 4y ago
    I didn't realize I replied to you in 2 different threads lol. I'm going by his articulation on a recent podcast with Chris Hayes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY9yBZm_57w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY9yBZm_57w He would say that its not that liberal democracy is some teleological final state. But more like a local optimum that we can't hill climb out of. There simply aren't different ideas about how to organize states "beyond" democracy. I think the shift is subtle but important. It implies a lack of ideas as opposed to a "prediction" about the consequences of 1991.

by jeffdn 4y ago

nh23423fefe 4y ago

That's not the thesis of end of history, you are repeating bad headlines as a quick take.

jeffdn 4y ago
I've read the book, albeit 15 years ago. That may not be the entire thesis, but it is the primary component of it. From Wikipedia[0]: > Fukuyama argues that history should be viewed as an evolutionary process, and that the end of history, in this sense, means that liberal democracy is the final form of government for all nations. According to Fukuyama, since the French Revolution, liberal democracy has repeatedly proven to be a fundamentally better system (ethically, politically, economically) than any of the alternatives, and so there can be no progression from it to an alternative system. Fukuyama claims not that events will stop occurring in the future, but rather that all that will happen in the future (even if totalitarianism returns) is that democracy will become more and more prevalent in the long term. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man#Overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...
- nh23423fefe 4y ago
  I didn't realize I replied to you in 2 different threads lol. I'm going by his articulation on a recent podcast with Chris Hayes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY9yBZm_57w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY9yBZm_57w He would say that its not that liberal democracy is some teleological final state. But more like a local optimum that we can't hill climb out of. There simply aren't different ideas about how to organize states "beyond" democracy. I think the shift is subtle but important. It implies a lack of ideas as opposed to a "prediction" about the consequences of 1991.