I grew up in the New Jersey suburbs in the 1990s. While an undergrad at George Washington University in the 2000s, I remember a fellow student in a political science class saying, “Fukuyama was right, until 9/11.”
Saying the end of history would be a sad or dull time almost seems like daring history to start again.
You just got me started! I'm itching to lay down all the rest of the evidence that Trump is a fascist, just so you don't think I'm neglecting you. Trump refused to accept a fair democratic election and continues to this day to spread lies about his opponents stealing the election. Verdict - Fascist!
Reading this article, I am reminded of Phillip Shepherd's book Radical Wholeness. He describes how we have two "brains" or intelligence centers - our logical head-brain and our intuitive, sensual gut-brain. These two nodes of "intelligence" are linked by the vagus nerve and in constant communications.
Your analysis is probably correct. Fukiyama's concept of history is a head-brain logical concept, but lacking in the juiciness that our guts, our spirits crave. Shepherd posits we are out of balance having created what he calls the "tyranny of the head." Yes, the end of history will "feel" sad and empty to our hungry senses wanting more engagement than cold logical "history."
If technological liberal capitalism does solve much of humankind's existential problems, it then awakens and shifts energy to deeper, more visceral "hungers" rather than satisfaction with bland utopian finality. Thomas Jefferson included the "pursuit of happiness" in his preamble to the U.S. Declaration of Independence. I imagine he would agree with your argument that our souls need more than logical government and economics. Perhaps a balance between logic and intuitiveness is the key to what Jefferson was referring to as our primal "pursuit?"
Should political theory be religion? Has it ever been? Should it be filling the void of religion? Are materialistic of-this-world religions (whatever this is) good? Is this a general problem having to do with science? What regions of the world and when and for how long had a political future versions of themselves ideology? Did people in the US in the 19th century believe in democracy, or did they just like the idea of free land all your own to settle on? How did people live before science fiction was invented? Does religion deal primarily with the future as its main topic of concern? Was democracy/capitalism millenarianist before communism?
The reality of visible progress in the last 200 years shapes expectations and needs, but this is also sort of hiding the forrest from the trees. It makes ideological things more temporal and linear than they might have otherwise been or been possible to be.
I appreciate this essay. Yet, I'm scratching my head. Throughout, it works from a premise that the solution to whatever we think our problems are, is government. That seems a bit myopic. Persoanlly, the farther away I can manage to get from giovernment, the more I like it. I can't build my own roads, and I don't weant to ciollect my own trash. But I can think my own thoughtds and find my own solutions. I don't feel compelled to go along with anyone, or not to. In the hdsitroy of mankind, I don't think you'll ever find a time of general consensus on much of anything. Is that a problem? I don't think so.
I grew up in the New Jersey suburbs in the 1990s. While an undergrad at George Washington University in the 2000s, I remember a fellow student in a political science class saying, “Fukuyama was right, until 9/11.”
Saying the end of history would be a sad or dull time almost seems like daring history to start again.
I'm thinking more along the lines of "the end of civilization" with the coming of Trump and the resurgence of Fascism.
You just got me started! I'm itching to lay down all the rest of the evidence that Trump is a fascist, just so you don't think I'm neglecting you. Trump refused to accept a fair democratic election and continues to this day to spread lies about his opponents stealing the election. Verdict - Fascist!
Reading this article, I am reminded of Phillip Shepherd's book Radical Wholeness. He describes how we have two "brains" or intelligence centers - our logical head-brain and our intuitive, sensual gut-brain. These two nodes of "intelligence" are linked by the vagus nerve and in constant communications.
Your analysis is probably correct. Fukiyama's concept of history is a head-brain logical concept, but lacking in the juiciness that our guts, our spirits crave. Shepherd posits we are out of balance having created what he calls the "tyranny of the head." Yes, the end of history will "feel" sad and empty to our hungry senses wanting more engagement than cold logical "history."
If technological liberal capitalism does solve much of humankind's existential problems, it then awakens and shifts energy to deeper, more visceral "hungers" rather than satisfaction with bland utopian finality. Thomas Jefferson included the "pursuit of happiness" in his preamble to the U.S. Declaration of Independence. I imagine he would agree with your argument that our souls need more than logical government and economics. Perhaps a balance between logic and intuitiveness is the key to what Jefferson was referring to as our primal "pursuit?"
Should political theory be religion? Has it ever been? Should it be filling the void of religion? Are materialistic of-this-world religions (whatever this is) good? Is this a general problem having to do with science? What regions of the world and when and for how long had a political future versions of themselves ideology? Did people in the US in the 19th century believe in democracy, or did they just like the idea of free land all your own to settle on? How did people live before science fiction was invented? Does religion deal primarily with the future as its main topic of concern? Was democracy/capitalism millenarianist before communism?
The reality of visible progress in the last 200 years shapes expectations and needs, but this is also sort of hiding the forrest from the trees. It makes ideological things more temporal and linear than they might have otherwise been or been possible to be.
I appreciate this essay. Yet, I'm scratching my head. Throughout, it works from a premise that the solution to whatever we think our problems are, is government. That seems a bit myopic. Persoanlly, the farther away I can manage to get from giovernment, the more I like it. I can't build my own roads, and I don't weant to ciollect my own trash. But I can think my own thoughtds and find my own solutions. I don't feel compelled to go along with anyone, or not to. In the hdsitroy of mankind, I don't think you'll ever find a time of general consensus on much of anything. Is that a problem? I don't think so.