NAME: Jenny Bebs R Dalisan

REFLECTION PAPER

Francis Fukuyama is a Rand Corporation senior researcher. He is also a fellow of the Foreign

Policy Institute at John Hopkins University’s School for Advanced International Studies. He is a

political scientist who specializes in the political-military relations of the Middle East and the

former Soviet Union’s foreign policy. He has had a variety of posts with Rand and the US

Department of State during the last 15 years. He has published extensively on topics relating to

Soviet foreign policy in the Third World, as well as on issues of democracy and political

economy. In 1989, with the downfall of socialist regimes represented by the fall of the Berlin

Wall, he penned his renowned work “The End of History.”

He declared liberal democracy’s eventual victory, arguing that, it may mark the conclusion of

mankind’s conceptual growth and the final form of human government, and therefore mark the

end of history. In his article, he declared liberalism’s victory over all other ideologies, claiming

that liberal states were more stable on the inside and more peaceful on the outside. He wrote The

End of History and The Last Man in 1992 in response to the essay’s critics and to defend his

central premise. He explains in his book why he wrote the article “The End of History.”

Additionally, he made several references to historical processes, philosophers’ notions, and his

own definition of history. In 1999, on the tenth anniversary of the publication of the article “The

End of History,” he wrote “Second Thoughts,” which was also published in “National Interest.”

He admitted in this paper that he erred in his 1989 piece’s allusion to modern natural disciplines.
Fukuyama wrote this book in 1992 in response to his now-famous piece. He begins this book’s

opening section by explaining why he authored his 1989 piece. He states that he was invited to

offer a talk on the subject by University of Chicago professors. With the assistance of an editor

from the National Interest, this talk became an essay. And encouragements from Free Press

personnel as I progressed from article to book. These words by Fukuyama demonstrate that he

did not intend to communicate the concept of ‘the end of history’ in the first place. In an

interview with Fukuyama, he notes that the book’s focus is the debate over whether or not there

is such a thing as history. Additionally, he says; The end of history, I believe, refers to the

question of whether that evolution ultimately ends in a particular type of civilization that will be

the last civilization that mankind achieves, because it is the proper one, because it fits human

nature appropriately.

And, as I argue in the book, liberal democracy is far more compatible with human nature than

any other form of governance or political organization not every country is a liberal democracy;

there are still many dictatorships on the right and left, but as a systematic idea, liberal democracy

is all that exists now, as we saw in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, where communism was

undermined by the fact that people did not believe it was a viable form of government, that it

lacked legitimacy, and that democratic ideas were the primary ones they found exciting and just.

As we can see, Fukuyama continues to defend his core point three years after writing his paper,

this time with more facts and allusions to historical trends and philosophers’ arguments.

However, he falsifies several of his own fundamental claims in his book.

He makes numerous references to Hegel and Marx in this book as well. Hegel and Marx believed

that the evolution of human societies would come to an end when humanity attained a kind of
society that suited their essential goals. This was the liberal state according to Hegel, but Marx

defined it as a communist society. This implies that there would be no further progress in the

creation of fundamental ideas and institutions, as all truly significant issues would have been

resolved. He attributes the trajectory of humanity’s history to two factors: economics and the

drive for recognition. Through global markets and the rise of a universal consumer culture,

societies have become increasingly interconnected. On the other hand, modern natural science

exerts a consistent and directional influence on historical change; it results in consistent societal

changes across nations. On the other hand, his work heavily emphasizes the ‘struggle for

recognition.’ It was a Hegelian idea. This concept distinguishes human beings from animals

fundamentally, because in addition to basic requirements such as food, water, and shelter, human

beings desire recognition as human beings. And he saw this thought as the driving force behind

history. And universal recognition will occur in a liberal state. As a result, there will be no

contest for recognition. Because liberal democracy subordinates the irrational impulse to be

greater than others to the logical goal to be equal. Fukuyama also makes a reference to

Nietzsche’s ‘last man’ notion. According to him, final individual is a typical liberal democratic

citizen. He provides numerous examples of historical processes: the Soviet system’s weakness,

democratic transitions in Latin America and Southern Europe, and even East Asia’s

liberalization process. Additionally, he refers to Hegel’s dialectic perspective. According to

Hegel, humanity’s global history is man’s progressive ascension to complete rationality, which

manifests itself in liberal self-government. The other point of reference is Kant, whose ultimate

goal is the fulfillment of human liberty. He adds another reference to Kojeve, who asserts that

the ‘European Community’ is an apt institutional expression of history’s end. This demonstrates

both Kojeve’s and Fukuyama’s ethnocentric perspective. Industrialization, he argues, should

result in liberal democracy. Because democracy is the appropriate platform for resolving the

conflicting interests that a modern economy generates. Additionally, science can only proceed in

an atmosphere of liberty.

To get at the concept of ‘last man,’ he makes allusions to Locke’s and Hobbes’ ‘first man,’ who

exist in their natural state. The ‘first man’s’ primary objective is self-preservation. Additionally,

Hegel employs the term ‘first man.’ According to Hegel, in addition to self-preservation, ‘first

man’ battles for recognition.

Fukuyama also makes reference to Plato’s concept of ‘thymos’. ‘Thymos,’ according to Plato, is

vital for the existence of every political community. Because it is upon this foundation that man

is drew away from his self-centered life of want and toward the common good. Additionally,

Nietzsche emphasizes ‘thymos’ in opposition to desire and reason. According to Fukuyama, the

struggle for recognition originates in the thymotic element of the soul, and the liberal democratic

state satisfies both the wanting and thymotic parts of our souls. Fukuyama further highlights the

connection between Christian teaching and the formation of liberal democratic societies in

Western Europe, citing Hegel’s description of Christianity as an absolute religion. Because this

religion establishes men’s worldwide equality in God’s eyes. Fukuyama also discusses the

success of Asian countries. Additionally, he underlines the influence of their cultures on their

economic performance. In his book, he identifies the most serious threat to liberalism as this

structure, which combines liberal economies with cultural ideals rather than communism. In his

book, he critiques realism. He asserts that insecurity, aggression, and conflict are all constant

possibilities in the world system, according to realism. This situation cannot be altered through

the emergence of distinct social forms, as it is anchored in unchanging human nature.

Additionally, he believes that realism ignores history. He asserts that liberal societies coexist
peacefully. They have no basis for contesting each other’s legitimacy because they share

universal values of equality and rights. They engage in conflict with non-liberal states; for

example, the United States participated in two world wars, as well as in Korea, Vietnam, and the

Persian Gulf. On the other side, he asserts that evidence of liberal principles’ peaceful influence

on foreign policy can be found in the changes that have occurred in the Soviet Union and Eastern

Europe since the mid-1980’s.

However, in the 1990’s, particularly in Eastern Europe in the cases of Bosnia and Kosovo, we

witnessed completely different events that refute his thesis on this point. He discusses worlds

both historical and post-historical. For the foreseeable future, he believes, the globe will be

divided into three segments. In a post-historical world, the primary relationship between

governments would be economic, with less emphasis on power politics. There would be

significant economic competition but very little military competition. Although the post-

historical world would have nation-states, nationalisms would have made peace with liberalism.

Economic rationality will ultimately result in the abolition of archaic forms of nationalism. On

the other hand, in a historical world, religious, national, and ideological disputes would still

exist, depending on the country's level of development. Additionally, in the historical world,

traditional principles of power politics continue to apply and nation-states remain the primary

actors. As a result, he acknowledges that there is considerable variation in the stales'

developmental stages. And to bolster his point, he asserts that certain regions of the planet have

reached the end of history. He also acknowledges that even in the most ideal liberal countries,

significant socioeconomic inequities would persist. There would still be conflict between liberty

and equality ideas. There is no point in balancing liberty with equality. As a result of the

unsatisfactory reciprocity of recognition, there may be future Left-wing attempts to discover

alternatives to liberal democracy and capitalism. Thus, he feels that while there have been no

viable alternatives to liberalism, he acknowledges that attempts will be made to discover one.

According to Hegel, a slave risks his life in a terrible struggle for recognition at the dawn of

history. According to Fukuyama, at the end of history, no one would have to risk their lives in

battle because all of their wants would be met. Additionally, Fukuyama highlights Nietzsche's

concept of 'last man'. According to Nietzche, human beings do not just battle for 'thymos'

recognition. Additionally, there is a desire to be regarded as superior to others, which is

motivated by'megalothymia'. This ambition underpins invasion and imperialism, as well as the

development of great symphonies, novels, and works of art. He believes that some degree

of'megalothymia' is a required but not sufficient condition for existence. According to

Fukuyama, liberal democracy succeeds in substituting rational consumption for'megalothymia,'

and we become last men. However, human beings would resist against the notion of becoming

uniform members of a global and homogeneous state. They're going to find it tedious. They will

desire to live and die by certain values, and they will be willing to take risks with their life. This

is the enigma that liberal democracy has yet to resolve. By recognizing this contradiction of

liberal democracy, Fukuyama refutes his own central point. Because human beings are unable to

revert to the previous era of liberal democracy. Additionally, he believes that humans cannot

fathom a world devoid of strife. If the majority of the world is peaceful liberal democracy, they

will fight for peace, prosperity, and democracy. By this comment, he once again refutes his claim

of a completely tranquil age in human history. At the conclusion of his work, he makes an

argument that is diametrically opposed to his central thesis. He asserts that no government can

satisfy all men everywhere. This also applies to liberal democracy. Liberty and equality have not

been provided to everyone, which means that those who remain dissatisfied will always have the
option of rewriting history. He then referred to Aristo's cyclical history argument. He also

acknowledges that all regimes are flawed in some way, and that these flaws would motivate

people to overthrow the regime. Thus, Fukuyama acknowledges at the conclusion of his book

that liberal democracy cannot meet all human demands and thus cannot be considered the

pinnacle of humanity's ideological growth or the final form of human government. By making

this assertion, he refutes the arguments he made in his paper 'The End of History.’

His view of history is one of unilinear historical progress, which is a defining feature of both

Hegelian and Marxist thought. From this vantage point, Fukuyama’s theory is a reformulation of

the nineteenth-fundamental century’s postulates. His conception of mankind’s coherent and

directional history is predicated on the identification of mankind with western man and history

with the history of Western civilization. It not only disregards the constructive contributions

made in the past by other civilizations, but also the prospect of these civilizations developing a

theoretical and practical alternative in the future. Non-Western societies, in his analysis, serve

solely as dependent variables or subjects for the growth of Western ideals and institutions. As a

result of his reductionism, the western civilization’s experiences are completely universalized.

As a result, we might conclude that his historicist perspective is subjective and ethnocentric. He

asserts that because the western path to modernism is globally accepted, non-western countries

will likewise follow it. Additionally, he argues that the goal of modernization and growth

requires all nations to adhere to Western principles. Thus, we might conclude that his thought is

largely impacted by a modernist perspective. His idea provides a bulwark against the problems

of the civilizational crisis for the modernist interpretation of western civilization. It is a

pragmatic approach, since rather than focusing on the various components of the political and

social environment that endanger humanity’s security and well-being, he chooses to stress how
fortunate human beings are to be alive at the end of human history. Additionally, we might say

that his thesis is compatible with the modernist paradigm of homo occidentalis. Because the

modernist paradigm of homo occidentalis requires that all components of the non-western

periphery globe acknowledge the West’s primacy.

By and large, endism theories are a Western phenomenon. They attempt to define religion,

ideology, and history in ways that are highly dependent on the Euro-Christian experience, which

is embedded in a certain time-space framework that determines the current quo. As a result, these

endism theories attempt to establish ideological interpretations of the status quo. Fukuyama’s

approach can be regarded as formulating an endism theory in order to lay the theoretical

groundwork for the status quo that the United States wishes to maintain in the post Cold War era.

Fukuyama’s methodological approach boils down historical continuity to a single main factor:

‘the fight for recognition.’ This reduction results in a highly ad hoc historical theory. This

pragmatic approach has the potential to result in a massive deterministic theory of history, as

well as an extremely categorical interpretation of the historical past. Additionally, it generates

spontaneous images of the outward aspects of social systems on its own, which provides an

image of discontinuity. He also departs from Hegel’s methodological principles, because Hegel

maintains that philosophy should concern itself with what has truly objectified itself in the actual

world, rather than with forecasting the future of history based on potentialities, which will

always be the subject of subjectivity. Thus, Fukuyama’s methodological approach is incapable of

providing a consistent analysis of existing actual phenomena or of proposing a pragmatic

problem-solving method and theory for the challenges that humanity’s future will encounter. His

theoretical orientation is neo-liberal. In the second part of the 1980’s, idealist approaches

intensified in the name of neo-idealism or neo-liberalism. This approach is distinct from

Wilson’s liberalism; whereas in Wilson’s liberalism, there is a demand and belief for peaceful

resolution of conflicts and a peaceful world, neo-liberalism asserts that there have been no

conflicts to date; contradictions have been resolved, and liberalism and democracy have emerged

as the winners in the conflict with totalitarian regimes throughout history. Fukuyama believes

that there is no rationale for war between democratic and liberal governments in this

environment. His premise is that ideological victory is a form of idealism.

Fukuyama's, "the end of history" thesis fully fits to the Gulf War conditions. Because, after Iraq's

attack to Kuwait, all democratic countries from all over the world came together to end this

condition which did not suit the world's last stage of ideological evolution. However, his thesis

was completely falsified firstly with Bosnia. Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia marked the end of the

optimistic dreams of Fukuyama's endism. Because none of liberal democratic countries, try to

end this unhumanitarian event. The states that finished their evolution did not act as they had to

do. Moreover, the cases of Kosovo and especially the events on 11 September 2001 in the USA

show that, nothing has come to an end, instead of this, the world history will probably face with

important transformation processes in the future. He tried to make a long-term civilizational

analysis, but with only analyzing short-term indicators. So, he may use the term 'civilizational

transformation', instead of 'end of history'. The era which was tried to be analyzed and defined by

Fukuyama was only one of the turning points in the world history. As we can see, the history is

within an ongoing transformation process which needs further analysis. Consequently, we can

say that, Fukuyama wanted to give a name to the situation after the collapse of communism. He

gave the name 'the end of history', with one-dimensional, ethno-centric perspective. He was too

quick to claim such an assertive thesis. Probably he did this to legitimize and formulate the

theoretical framework of the New World Order. Because to create a new world order, the old one
must have an end. To legitimize US's leader role, he uses Hegel. Because he also ends history

with the victory of one state. To show US's ever lasting victory, he had to create a very

optimistic perspective. His main contribution is, after his article's publishment there has been an

acceleration in critiques about the post cold war world. So, people from all over the world think

and talk about the post-cold war era and its consequences.

Conclusion

Fukuyama responds to accusations of reductionism that “any attempt to construct a universal

history necessarily involves a high degree of abstraction and simplification from the enormous

mass of empirical historical facts, and therefore will always be open to charge of reductionism.

Much of my book was implicitly an attack on the economic reductionism of Marxism and an

attempt to cover the greater richness of human motivation embodied in the concept of the

struggle for recognition” (Fukuyama, 1995: 41).

Fukuyama uses a Marxist method to prove the end of communism. This made him an

extraordinary object of criticism from all ideological directions. It is easy to notice a number of

contradictions in the text. For example, on the one hand, he finds that for societies with a leading

class, or national or religious polarization, democracy is not the best option for resolving

conflicts between class, ethnic and national groups. According to him, a modern system of

dictatorship can be in principle more effective than democracy for the creation of preconditions

that would allow capitalist economic growth and the establishment of a stable democracy.

On the other hand, he writes that class, national, ethnic, and religious tensions can be more

easily alleviated in a system of liberal democracy. Another contradictory example is his finding

that empirical evidence proves that market oriented authoritarian modernizers do better
economically than their democratic counterparts. Yet, shortly afterwards, Fukuyama writes that

there is an unquestionable relationship between economic development and liberal democracy;

and liberal democracy is compatible with industrial maturity and is preferred by the citizens of

many industrially advanced countries. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics.

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