More Proof That This Is the End of History | Hacker News Reader

More Proof That This Is the End of History

theatlantic.com

12 pointskhehy11 comments

He is still on this bit? Madness. “The end of history” was just a brief period of Pax Americana in the 90’s. Then there was the war on terror, the Arab spring, the rise of China, and now the destabilization of Russia and the rise of India. History is still going strong.

Do you know what he means with the "End of History"? It seems to me that you are reacting naively to the title and making up the meaning.

The "End of History" here means that there are no more any serious ideological competitors against liberal democracy. Religious fundamentalism, Chinese and Russian systems and their reactions so far prove it. China and Russian are reacting and defending against liberalism, they are not providing anything new, they are not doing anything better. No solutions, only reactionary rejection and nihilistic decay.

As long as no nother political structure can provide citizens with the levels of wealth and personal liberties that a liberal democracy can, this is the end of history.

Yes I read his book ages ago. See the examples I gave in my post. You can make everything about democracy, but that says more about you. You can also understand things on their own terms. Putin and Xi, for example, are not motivated by destroying democracy, that’s just a byproduct of what they actually want (imperial ambitions).

> You can make everything about democracy, but that says more about you.

Why wouldn't you? Democracy is the only thing that pulled at least some of us out of terrifying cycles of tyranny, rebellion, and war.

> Putin and Xi, for example, are not motivated by destroying democracy, that’s just a byproduct of what they actually want (imperial ambitions).

Putin's and Xi's original ambitions were destroying democracy. Now that they're dictators, their ambitions have grown.

You make it sound like they don't have anything against democracy, which is ludicrous.

Yet in the last paragraph: "Liberal democracy will not make a comeback unless people are willing to struggle on its behalf."

If it might not make a comeback then how is it anywhere near the 'End of History'?

This essay is a lot of nonsense, could have been written by an AI, which might also be a better form of government than liberal democracy.

He's arguing all nations will eventually have democratic governments that resemble 1990s America. This probably seemed a little bit more plausible shortly after the Soviet Union fell than it does today.

That's not what he is arguing. His own words:

>The End of History was never linked to a specifically American model of social or political organization. Following Alexandre Kojève, the Russian-French philosopher who inspired my original argument, I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States. The EU's attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a "post-historical" world than the Americans' continuing belief in God, national sovereignty, and their military

His main argument is that the evolution is over and there will be no better system than some type of liberal democracy. There can be devolution to worse, but there are no alternatives that work better. Even if there are reversions to totalitarianism, the long term trend is towards liberal democracy.

His language would be way more understandable if he had used more descriptive title, like “end of authoritarianism” or “end of traditional history.” Just calling it “end of history” is misleading.

>The "End of History" here means that there are no more any serious ideological competitors against liberal democracy.

Unfortunately democracies around the world - especially the United States - have become markedly less "liberal" in every conceivable way as we move ever closer towards being an oligarchy.

> Chinese and Russian systems and their reactions so far prove it.

I would argue the jury is still out wrt to China. A massive population 4x the size of US and 3x the size of the EU, with strong cultural work ethic that prioritizes education. Scientific and technological advancement comes from widespread tinkering and experimenting, be it govt funded, corp lab, or hackers in garages, all of which China can have in more abundance than anywhere else, except maybe India. China has a significant advantage in that respect, and it's too early to tell how much or if their totalitarian govt model will constrain or undermine that dynamic.

That's the grand socio-techno-political experiment happening now. History is far from over.

Maybe the Mayan prophecies had some weight. 2012 was supposed to be the end of times, but for me it was always about a new beginning. Politics has now become so fractured and polarized and there are countless warring factions evangelizing their ideology and claiming it's the 'one true way'. But it's worth being apolitical and not taking part in this fashion contest you see playing out all around us. In the end, it will all crumble catastrophically with the main culprit being climate change. We need something biblical to dismantle all the political zealots.

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