The End of History and the Last Man
A book-length development of a 1989 essay, The End of History and the Last Man is a book by Francis Fukuyama, in which he argues that two forces, "the logic of modern science" and the "struggle for recognition" make liberal democracy a natural end state of historical development. If this is the case, however, he asks whether man will be satisfied with this, or if the "last man" will have a need to seek power and fulfillment through military or theological dictatorship.[1]
Strong vs. liberal states
Universal history
The struggle for recognition
While Fukuyama agrees the term may not be familiar, he traces it to the earliest Western political philosophy.[2] Plato wrote there were three parts to the soul:
- A desiring part
- A reasoning part
- thymos, or a spiritual parts
Fukuyama wrote that "the propensity to feel self-esteem arises...out of the thymos. It is like an innate sense of justice."
When human beings are treated as being less than their sense of self-worth, they feel anger, while if they fail to live up to their own sense of self-worth, they feel guilt. The relative emphasis is dependent on the society, with anthropological discussions of shame-based cultures and guilt-based cultures.
He returns, again and again, to Hegel's ideas in this area "the desire to be recognized as a human being with dignity drove man at the beginning of history into a bloody battle for the death for prestige...[this divided society] into a class of masters, who were willing to risk their lives, and a class of slaves, who gave in to their natural fear of death."
Technological innovation
The unreality of realism
Men without chests
References
- ↑ Francis Fukuyama (1992), The End of History and the Last Man, Free Press, ISBN 0029109752
- ↑ pp. xvi-xviii