Fuck Fukuyama
I just wrote a paper for my globalization class on Fukuyama's "End of History". I wanted to post it here so that 1) I would have it in the future, and 2) because it is kind of funny. It is so hard to take the guy seriously. I had to tone my paper down on numerous occassions, and while it is still pretty scathing, it does not come close to the vitriol I feel.
Anyway, here it is:
Francis Fukuyama’s conclusion that history has come to an end is a little pat, and his assumptions belie his argument. From the fall of the Soviet Union, Fukuyama wants to extrapolate a number of truths about human behavior, societal organization, and the realm of ideas. First, he assumes that the Soviet Union’s failure to implement communist ideas means the refutation of them as ideas altogether. Furthermore, he holds that the Soviet collapse proves the inviolability of classical liberalism. He underestimates the impact of material forces and the creativity of the human brain. His fourth flaw is his belief that liberal nations do not fight each other. Finally, he confuses the spread of technology as the spread of a value system. I understand that the end of the Cold War was a time of great confusion, as the world’s paradigm for the past 45 years suddenly collapsed. Fukuyama’s analysis of events, however, is slightly hyperbolic and falls short in validity.
Fukuyama writes, “The total and manifest failure of communism forces us to ask whether Marx’s entire experiment was not a 150-year detour.” Surely Fukuyama does not want to apply his rubric everywhere. For if failed systems were left in the trash heap of history, never to be resurrected again, then imagine the great ideas we would have lost. Republics would have been discounted more than 2000 years ago, when Augustus Caesar declared himself emperor of Rome, or perhaps in 1478 AD when Lorenzo de Medici formalized the death of the Florentine Republic with the establishment of the Council of Seventy. We would have said goodbye to Judaism when the Second Temple was destroyed in 70, Christianity when the barbarians sacked Rome in 410, and Islam when the Ottomans were defeated in World War I. Not only did these ideas survive, but they still flourish to this day. It is preposterous to think that the failure of a manmade system implies that the ideas behind it are bunk.
Despite Fukuyama’s claim that communism’s fall was an “unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism,” there is little consensus on why the Soviet Union failed. Osama bin Laden and his colleagues argue that the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan at the hands of the mujahidin should be regarded as the “unabashed victory” of Islamic fundamentalism over communist heathenism. Still others believe that Ronald Reagan’s increase in defense funding brought down the Soviet empire, symbolizing the weaknesses behind the Soviet war machine. Fukuyama holds that Gorbachev and his allies decided on reform before disaster struck. “What has happened in the four years since Gorbachev’s coming to power is a revolutionary assault on the most fundamental institutions and principles of Stalinism, and their replacement by other principles…whose only connecting thread is liberalism.” Thus, the Soviet Union was conquered by the idea of liberalism. Even assuming that Fukuyama is correct, that Gorbachev and his lieutenants were converted to liberalism, the state of Russia today demonstrates that the idea of liberalism was not enough to root out totalitarian elements. For some reason, liberalism is not being implemented in Russia, so other forces must be at work.
The discrepancy between the material world and the realm of ideas may explain the lingering of such an “historical” idea. Fukuyama’s disregard for materialism appears premature given the technological advances that have so changed our lives since he wrote the article in 1989. It is precisely the nature of history that we are not yet able to predict what new ideas will come about, but Fukuyama should rest assured that human creativity will always flourish. How the internet will change the way that we govern ourselves is still up in the air, but there is no question that it will. Just as the industrial age revealed the shortcomings of 19th century liberalism and economics, so the information age will expose new inadequacies in our ways of thinking.
For this very reason, the world’s increased liberalization, if it occurs at all, will not bring the end of conflict. Fukuyama follows Michael Doyle in arguing that “international life for the part of the world that has reached the end of history is far more preoccupied with economics than with politics or strategy.” If it were not for illiberal threats, he continues, liberal countries would not need defense establishments. But liberal societies are prone to crusades, and capitalist societies are hungry for markets. If we could ask the Melians about Fukuyama’s theory, they would probably object. The US’ current war on tyranny demonstrates the absurdity that liberal societies can reach in their passion for crusade. Similarly, the Opium Wars in China and Admiral Perry’s bombardment of Japan in 1853 are just two examples of the extents to which democratic, capitalist nations will go to ensure access to markets. Indeed, to think that the spread of liberalism will suddenly alter human nature, wipe away our greed, envy, and insecurity, is rather naïve. When new “liberalisms” arise, we will fight over which liberalism is correct. The reason modern liberal states have not fought against each other is simply that they have not yet found a reason.
Fukuyama’s introductory paragraph purports the most blatantly specious assertion of the whole paper:
"The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident…in the ineluctable spread of…color television sets now omnipresent throughout China, the cooperative restaurants and clothing stores opened in the past year in Moscow, the Beethoven piped into Japanese department stores, and the rock music enjoyed alike in Prague, Rangoon, and Tehran."
Here is his proof of the victory of liberalism? Color televisions are a technology. To imply that China is becoming Western because it purchases televisions is as absurd as asserting that Europe became Chinese when it started to use gun powder. The fact that Hitler listened to Beethoven illustrates that a Japanese citizen’s embrace of the composer implies nothing about ideology. The Nike-clad, rock n’ roll loving Serbian youths that participated in the brutal genocide of their Nike-clad, rock n’ roll loving Bosnian and Croatian cohabitants should be evidence enough against Fukuyama’s claim about the spread of liberalism through consumer goods.
The Code of Hammurabi calls Babylon the “everlasting kingdom, whose foundations are laid so solidly as those of heaven and earth,” and yet Babylon’s kingdom has been so forgotten that many today do not know who Hammurabi was. For time immemorial, man has claimed victory in the wars of ideas, only to be later thwarted by reality. Karl Marx quipped, “History repeats itself: first as tragedy, second as farce.” Fukuyama believes that authors all of these other folks were wrong, whereas we have finally reached the apex of human ability. History will surely prove him wrong.
Anyway, here it is:
Francis Fukuyama’s conclusion that history has come to an end is a little pat, and his assumptions belie his argument. From the fall of the Soviet Union, Fukuyama wants to extrapolate a number of truths about human behavior, societal organization, and the realm of ideas. First, he assumes that the Soviet Union’s failure to implement communist ideas means the refutation of them as ideas altogether. Furthermore, he holds that the Soviet collapse proves the inviolability of classical liberalism. He underestimates the impact of material forces and the creativity of the human brain. His fourth flaw is his belief that liberal nations do not fight each other. Finally, he confuses the spread of technology as the spread of a value system. I understand that the end of the Cold War was a time of great confusion, as the world’s paradigm for the past 45 years suddenly collapsed. Fukuyama’s analysis of events, however, is slightly hyperbolic and falls short in validity.
Fukuyama writes, “The total and manifest failure of communism forces us to ask whether Marx’s entire experiment was not a 150-year detour.” Surely Fukuyama does not want to apply his rubric everywhere. For if failed systems were left in the trash heap of history, never to be resurrected again, then imagine the great ideas we would have lost. Republics would have been discounted more than 2000 years ago, when Augustus Caesar declared himself emperor of Rome, or perhaps in 1478 AD when Lorenzo de Medici formalized the death of the Florentine Republic with the establishment of the Council of Seventy. We would have said goodbye to Judaism when the Second Temple was destroyed in 70, Christianity when the barbarians sacked Rome in 410, and Islam when the Ottomans were defeated in World War I. Not only did these ideas survive, but they still flourish to this day. It is preposterous to think that the failure of a manmade system implies that the ideas behind it are bunk.
Despite Fukuyama’s claim that communism’s fall was an “unabashed victory of economic and political liberalism,” there is little consensus on why the Soviet Union failed. Osama bin Laden and his colleagues argue that the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan at the hands of the mujahidin should be regarded as the “unabashed victory” of Islamic fundamentalism over communist heathenism. Still others believe that Ronald Reagan’s increase in defense funding brought down the Soviet empire, symbolizing the weaknesses behind the Soviet war machine. Fukuyama holds that Gorbachev and his allies decided on reform before disaster struck. “What has happened in the four years since Gorbachev’s coming to power is a revolutionary assault on the most fundamental institutions and principles of Stalinism, and their replacement by other principles…whose only connecting thread is liberalism.” Thus, the Soviet Union was conquered by the idea of liberalism. Even assuming that Fukuyama is correct, that Gorbachev and his lieutenants were converted to liberalism, the state of Russia today demonstrates that the idea of liberalism was not enough to root out totalitarian elements. For some reason, liberalism is not being implemented in Russia, so other forces must be at work.
The discrepancy between the material world and the realm of ideas may explain the lingering of such an “historical” idea. Fukuyama’s disregard for materialism appears premature given the technological advances that have so changed our lives since he wrote the article in 1989. It is precisely the nature of history that we are not yet able to predict what new ideas will come about, but Fukuyama should rest assured that human creativity will always flourish. How the internet will change the way that we govern ourselves is still up in the air, but there is no question that it will. Just as the industrial age revealed the shortcomings of 19th century liberalism and economics, so the information age will expose new inadequacies in our ways of thinking.
For this very reason, the world’s increased liberalization, if it occurs at all, will not bring the end of conflict. Fukuyama follows Michael Doyle in arguing that “international life for the part of the world that has reached the end of history is far more preoccupied with economics than with politics or strategy.” If it were not for illiberal threats, he continues, liberal countries would not need defense establishments. But liberal societies are prone to crusades, and capitalist societies are hungry for markets. If we could ask the Melians about Fukuyama’s theory, they would probably object. The US’ current war on tyranny demonstrates the absurdity that liberal societies can reach in their passion for crusade. Similarly, the Opium Wars in China and Admiral Perry’s bombardment of Japan in 1853 are just two examples of the extents to which democratic, capitalist nations will go to ensure access to markets. Indeed, to think that the spread of liberalism will suddenly alter human nature, wipe away our greed, envy, and insecurity, is rather naïve. When new “liberalisms” arise, we will fight over which liberalism is correct. The reason modern liberal states have not fought against each other is simply that they have not yet found a reason.
Fukuyama’s introductory paragraph purports the most blatantly specious assertion of the whole paper:
"The triumph of the West, of the Western idea, is evident…in the ineluctable spread of…color television sets now omnipresent throughout China, the cooperative restaurants and clothing stores opened in the past year in Moscow, the Beethoven piped into Japanese department stores, and the rock music enjoyed alike in Prague, Rangoon, and Tehran."
Here is his proof of the victory of liberalism? Color televisions are a technology. To imply that China is becoming Western because it purchases televisions is as absurd as asserting that Europe became Chinese when it started to use gun powder. The fact that Hitler listened to Beethoven illustrates that a Japanese citizen’s embrace of the composer implies nothing about ideology. The Nike-clad, rock n’ roll loving Serbian youths that participated in the brutal genocide of their Nike-clad, rock n’ roll loving Bosnian and Croatian cohabitants should be evidence enough against Fukuyama’s claim about the spread of liberalism through consumer goods.
The Code of Hammurabi calls Babylon the “everlasting kingdom, whose foundations are laid so solidly as those of heaven and earth,” and yet Babylon’s kingdom has been so forgotten that many today do not know who Hammurabi was. For time immemorial, man has claimed victory in the wars of ideas, only to be later thwarted by reality. Karl Marx quipped, “History repeats itself: first as tragedy, second as farce.” Fukuyama believes that authors all of these other folks were wrong, whereas we have finally reached the apex of human ability. History will surely prove him wrong.