Fukuyama's work "The End of History and the Last Man" has caused the broadest discussion in modern sociology and philosophy. But now the fashion on this topic has passed. It seems to us that we now have the opportunity to consider Fukuyama's concept in a more balanced and thoughtful manner, focusing on the theoretical component of his constructions and concentrating not on the political, but on the socio-philosophical side of his research. In our opinion, it is wrong to ascribe to F. Fukuyama's concept a rigid connection to the period of the end of the Cold War. After all, the picture drawn by Fukuyama is nothing more than atheistic eschatology, a kind of long-term forecast. Fukuyama draws on philosophical and anthropological analysis, on a vast tradition that has developed in European and American social thought, which makes his book profound. In fact, this work has a pronounced character of the theory of societal evolution - it is a speculative philosophy of history of the Hegelian type.
It should not be forgotten that the mental figure of the “end of history” belongs to the universalist philosophy of history and is developed by a number of thinkers, including Lewis Mumford, Arnold Gehlen, Jean Baudrillard. Fukuyama represents a trend that positively evaluates post-history. He has several works on this topic, while in his articles the American researcher is much more superficial in argumentation than in the book. Francis Fukuyama uses the concept of “the end of history” on the one hand as a philosophical construct, on the other in the form of a working tool that reflects the situation that has developed after the end of the Cold War.
Fukuyama's model has a pronounced predictive and sometimes speculative nature. But this is a justified theoretical move necessary for an adequate analysis of the current situation. According to this concept, in the modern world the place of the struggle for recognition has been taken by the struggle for more effective satisfaction of human needs. The participants in the dispute are now not fundamentally different "ideologies" (including religions and worldviews), but slightly different strategies for the structure of the consumer society. The point at issue is not (moral) values, but (economic) efficiency. The antagonism of systems was replaced by competition within one system. If one follows Fukuyama, then the end of the historical movement is supposed to be the end of cultural differentiation. With the victory of liberal democracy, the "West" also wins as a type of culture. This kind of "bad teleology" is subject to well-reasoned criticism, but it is irrefutable (because it does not lend itself to falsification).
Be that as it may, the focus of this essay is not a criticism of Fukuyama's concept, but its content itself. In this regard, the main source for us is Fukuyama's book "The End of History and the Last Man" (as well as F. Zakaria's research on this topic). Within the framework of this work, we propose to restore and comment on the logic of the reasoning of the American thinker. For this, it is necessary to consider questions about the content and mechanisms of the Universal History and about the basic nature of man. In accordance with this sequence, the presentation is built in our test work.
2. Indicate how other researchers evaluate the ideas of this author (provide examples, describe the views)
For the theoretical concept of Fukuyama, it is extremely important to accept the thesis about the possibility of cognizing the whole of History as a logically consistent process. The American researcher claims that it is linear: "from simple to complex." The understanding of history as an upward evolution was instilled by Hegel and Marx into the entire intellectual atmosphere, which is reflected in the use of words such as "primitive" or "developed", "traditional" or "modern" in relation to human communities. In this case, the question of the vector of development becomes extremely important: after all, if history has a beginning, then there must also be an end, a certain state of society, to which there simply will not be a better alternative.
Let us emphasize that the “end of history” does not mean the end of its chronological course: political disputes and social transformations continue, but they are not of a fundamental nature.
The question arises, what is the basis of historical progress, what makes it move forward, "to its end." Fukuyama gives a twofold answer: science and the desire for recognition. Modern science is an important starting point because it is the only significant social activity that is both cumulative and directional. The progressive conquest of nature, which became possible after the development of the scientific method in the era of Descartes and Newton, proceeds according to certain rules established not by man, but by nature and its laws. That is, in essence, science is a derivative of natural evolution.
The development of modern science has had a uniform impact on all societies where it took place, and there are two reasons for this. First, technology provides certain military advantages to the country that owns it, and no state that values its independence can neglect the need to modernize its defense. Second, modern science creates a uniform room for economic productivity growth. Technology opens up the possibility of unlimited accumulation of wealth, and thereby - the satisfaction of the ever-growing desires of man. This process guarantees the growth of homogeneity in all human societies, regardless of their historical roots or cultural heritage. The interconnection of such societies is growing through global markets and the spread of a universal consumer culture. Moreover, the logic of modern science seems to dictate a universal evolution towards capitalism. But this logic is insufficient to explain the phenomenon of democracy. Liberalism and capitalism can exist without democracy (the example of the states of Southeast Asia), and democracy can appear without real liberalism (the example of Venezuela and other "total democracies").
The increment of scientific and technical knowledge can explain to us the emergence of liberalism based on the rational satisfaction of human desires. But this approach is overly materialistic. For Fukuyama, consciousness is a cause, not an effect. Failure to understand that economic behavior is conditioned by consciousness and culture leads to a common mistake: explaining even phenomena that are ideal in nature by material reasons. Here it is extremely important for us to understand the very nature of man, his primary anthropology. The economic interpretation of history is incomplete and unsatisfactory because man is not just an economic animal.
Referring to the authority of Plato and Hegel, Fukuyama offers the following vision: human nature consists of desire, reason and ... the need for recognition (thymos). Liberalism satisfies reason and desire, but fails to explain why people behave in irrational and economically disadvantageous ways. A number of social phenomena (for example, patriotism) can be explained only through thymos. What makes citizens stand up to defend their principles, their Fatherland? After all, there is always an opportunity to escape, taking property with you. But a person has not only biological, but also social needs. He has a pride that does not allow him to leave the belligerent homeland. This pride comes from the part of the soul called "thymos", it is similar to the innate human sense of justice.
So, the universal engine of History is the synthesis of desire and reason, which is reflected in science, and most importantly, the need for recognition. Unlike science, which appeared no more than 400 years ago, this mechanism is timeless, that is, it lies in the human matrix itself.
We are faced with the concept of "master and slave" proposed by Hegel and developed by Alexander Kozhev.
Man's desire to gain recognition of his dignity from the very beginning of history led him into bloody deadly battles for prestige. As a result of these battles, human society was divided into a class of masters who were ready to risk their lives, and a class of slaves who gave way to the natural fear of death. But the relationship of domination and slavery, which took different forms in all societies based on inequality, in all aristocratic societies that characterize most of history, absolutely could not satisfy the thirst for recognition from either masters or slaves (albeit for different reasons). In this situation, the slave is deprived of his dignity and turns into a subhuman, unable to rise above his own biology and fear. The master, on the other hand, risking his life, won for himself freedom and recognition ... the recognition of a slave ... the recognition of a subhuman. Dissatisfaction with this lack of recognition, inherent in aristocratic societies, constituted a "contradiction" that is the driving force behind the transition to further stages. But all of them in one form or another reproduce the dialectic of "master and slave", they are unable to give universal recognition to their members.
In this regard, a unique discovery is democracy, which overcame the distinction between master and slave, made slaves masters of themselves and established the principles of the sovereignty of the people and the rule of law. Internally contradictory and defective confessions of masters and slaves have been replaced by mutual recognition, where every citizen is recognized as human dignity by all other citizens, and where this dignity is also recognized by the state through the granting of rights. This model compares favorably with all other forms of government.
Thus, the struggle for recognition may give us the missing link between liberal economics (capitalism) and liberal politics (democracy). Democracy is better suited to human nature because it removes the problem of subordination and bestows upon its members the widest possible recognition. The desire to be recognized as the best is replaced by democracy with the desire to be recognized as an equal. The nature of democracy is to restrict thymos: the megalothymia of the few had to give way to the isothymia of the many. But this does not mean at all that thymos should be destroyed or completely conquered by Leviathan. On the contrary, thymotic energy should be institutionalized and channeled in useful forms. For example, the merging and identification of liberal democracy with patriotism enhances its thymotic appeal and makes citizens proud of "their democracy."
Fukuyama writes that liberal democracy can represent "the end point of the ideological evolution of mankind" and "the final form of government in human society", being the very "end of history" that we talked about above. This means that while earlier forms of government were characterized by irreparable defects and irrationalities that ultimately led to their downfall, liberal democracy is said to be devoid of such fundamental internal contradictions. This statement does not mean that stable democracies such as the United States, France or Switzerland are free from injustice or serious social problems. But these problems are associated with the incomplete implementation of the twin principles: freedom and equality, and not with the defects of the principles themselves. While some modern countries may fail in trying to achieve stable liberal democracies, and others may return to other, more primitive forms of government, such as theocracy or military dictatorship, the ideal of liberal democracy cannot be improved.
Some definitions should be clarified: although liberalism and democracy are closely related, they are separate concepts. Political liberalism can be defined simply: as the rule of law that recognizes certain individual rights or freedom from government control. Among them, the main ones are: civil rights - “liberation of a citizen from control over his personality and property”; religious rights - “freedom of expression and worship”; and rights that are often called political rights - “freedom from control in matters that do not directly affect the welfare of society as a whole in a way that would make control necessary” - this includes freedom of the press. On the other hand, democracy is the right of all citizens without exception to be carriers of political power, that is, the right of all citizens to elect, be elected and participate in politics. The right to participate in politics can be seen as another liberal right - of course the most important - and for this reason liberalism and democracy are historically strongly linked. But under an hour, with the growth of democracy, the degree of freedom and the level of efficiency decrease. But this is again a situational, and not an inborn defect of liberal democracy.
In the outgoing century, two main challenges were thrown to liberalism - fascism and communism. Expansionary ultranationalism, promising endless conflicts and ultimately military disaster, lost all appeal. That is, fascism and militarism suffered a direct military defeat in the fight against democracy. And the awareness of the tragedy of Auschwitz and Treblinka made their revival impossible.
On the other hand, there was a competing project in the form of socialism. Marx argued that a fundamental insoluble contradiction is inherent in liberal society: it is the contradiction between labor and capital. But in this assumption, the German thinker was wrong: the growth of the middle class blunted economic contradictions. Since the class issue has faded into the background, the attractiveness of communism in the Western world is at a low level. In addition, the collapse of socialist experiments in the USSR and Eastern Europe exposed the internal contradictions of the communist idea. Total control over the economy by the state turned out to be flawed in comparison with economic liberalism. In addition, the legitimacy of the communist regime was questioned, since it creates a very flawed form of recognition, not allowing the people to directly govern the country, resurrecting the "master-slave" pair in the relations between the party and the people.
Possible challenges to democracy: nationalism and religious fundamentalism. Democracy is most often not effective in conditions of ethnic mobilization and pronounced nationalism. The fact is that, as Farid Zakaria writes, liberal democracy will not function in a situation where relations between the minority and the majority are built on a primordial basis. Democracy loses flexibility and turns into "pressure from the majority" when the border that separates the minority is known in advance.
Fukuyama sees the situation more optimistically: liberal democracy will resolve these challenges, just as it previously overcame fascism and communism. Nationalism and religious fundamentalism are in many ways a manifestation of a thirst for recognition: a religious person seeks recognition of his gods or sacred rites, while a nationalist demands recognition of his specific linguistic, cultural or ethnic group. Both of these forms of recognition are less rational than the universal recognition of the liberal state, since they are based on arbitrary distinctions between the sacred and the secular, or between social groups of people. For this reason, religion, nationalism and a complex of ethical habits and customs have traditionally been considered as obstacles to the establishment of political institutions of democracy and a free market economy. But as modernization progresses, these distinctive lines will fade.
Speaking about international politics, Fukuyama emphasizes that in a sense, nationalism is the megalothymia of the early times, which has taken on a more modern and democratic form. Now entire nations are demanding recognition of their dignity. This struggle for international recognition leads to the same impasse as the battle for prestige between aristocratic masters: defective recognition. The solution to this problem lies in the spread of liberal democracy in the field of international relations: liberal states have never fought with each other in history.
But at the same time, the macro-conflict between the blocks of states will not disappear. For even at this time the world will be divided into two parts: one will belong to history, the other - to post-history. Both terrorism and national liberation wars as residual phenomena of history in post-history will remain on the agenda. However, for a serious conflict, large states are needed that are still within the framework of history, but they just leave the historical scene.
Evolution / Universal History discarded monarchy, fascism, theocracy and communism as ineffective models of social order. Only liberal democracy is capable of combining two necessary mechanisms of historical progress: science / economics and the thirst for recognition / thymos. Thus, according to Fukuyama, democracy must accept the challenge of nationalism and religious fundamentalism, since it is organically more consistent with human nature, and all competing ideologies will sooner or later be rejected.
It would seem that having reached the end of history, having built an ideally constructed society, a person should ... that's exactly what a person should do at the end of history in an ideally constructed society. He, in fact, has no room for maneuver, no room for achievement. The modern liberal project is trying to shift the foundations of human society from thymos to the safer soil of desire. Liberal democracy "solved" the problem of megalothymia, limiting and sublimating it with a complex series of institutional constraints - the principle of the sovereignty of the people, the definition of rights, the rule of law, the separation of powers, and so on. Timos is supposed to submit to desire and reason, that is, a desire guided by reason.
But is the recognition available to the inhabitants of modern liberal democracies entirely satisfactory? Socialists will argue that universal recognition in liberal democracies is necessarily incomplete because capitalism creates economic inequality and requires a division of labor that, by this very fact, entails unequal recognition. In this regard, even the absolute prosperity of a nation does not provide a solution, because there will always be people relatively poor, in whom fellow citizens will not see people. In other words, liberal democracy continues to recognize equal people in an unequal way.
The second and, in our view, more significant criticism of universal recognition comes from the right, deeply concerned about the leveling effect created by democracy's commitment to equality. The most brilliant exponent of the views of the right in philosophy was Friedrich Nietzsche, who believed that modern democracy is not the emancipation of former slaves, but the unconditional victory of the slave and the slave spirit. The typical citizen of liberal democracy is the "last man" who, having been schooled by the founders of modern liberalism, abandoned the proud belief in his own superior dignity for the sake of comfortable self-preservation. Liberal democracy gives rise to "people without breasts", consisting of desires and reason, but not having "thymos". The last person has no desire to be recognized as greater than others, and without such a desire, achievement is impossible. Satisfied with his happiness, unable to feel the shame of not being able to rise above his desires, the last man ceases to be a man. Nietzsche admires the heroic aristocrats of the past and demands to restore the relationship between master and slave, which, in his opinion, give full recognition to a few, but worthy.
So, the "end of history" is sad, according to Fukuyama. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk life for a purely abstract goal, the ideological struggle that requires courage, imagination and idealism is leaving the arena of world history. Instead of all this - economic calculation, endless technical problems, concern for customer satisfaction. The decline of social life suggests that in the future we risk becoming the serene and self-righteous the last people who crave only personal comfort. But there is also the opposite danger, namely that we will again become the first people to get involved in bloody and senseless wars for prestige, only this time - with modern weapons. There is a suspicion that some people will not be satisfied until they show themselves by the very act that constituted human essence at the beginning of history: they will want to take mortal risks in battle and thus prove without a shadow of a doubt to themselves and their fellows that they are free.
An objective and insurmountable barrier to the revival of history and the return of the first people is the impressive Mechanism of modern science and capitalism, set in motion by unlimited desire and controlled by reason. The successes of democracy in "taming" thymos give us hope that democratic ideology will be able to reproduce itself without inflicting a crushing blow on basic human anthropology.
3. Express your attitude to the issues and ideas raised
So, Fukuyama's "end of history" brings to an end ideologies that previously fought for political and social domination. The end of ideologies coincides with the end of the confrontation between systems. The form of government inherent in liberal democracy and its characteristic legal foundations are final and not subject to improvement, they are the essence of the form of a "homogeneous liberal universal state." The victory of the liberal state is directly related to the "attractiveness" and "vitality" of the market economy. The ideals of the French Revolution are also final; under the umbrella of "human rights" liberalism, democracy, the rule of law, the market economy and civil society are brought together. The internal social structure of the state is egalitarian, the existing social differences are reduced to insignificant ones either stemming from cultural differentiation, or simply inherited from the past. Fukuyama's reflections on world history are characterized by the understanding of the latter as a necessary, almost natural process and the assumption of progress inherent in events and automatically manifested in them. His proclaimed goal is to uncover the mechanism underlying this progress. Fukuyama associates this mechanism, in fact, with rationalization through science and technology and with the formation of a capitalist economy. By assimilating the Hegelian concept of the struggle for recognition, Fukuyama believes that he has grasped the forces leading to the formation of political democracy. Developing Hegel's concept, he postulates the individual's organic need for "pride in his own worth." Fukuyam's interpretation of the struggle for recognition, which is not limited to the confrontation between master and slave, is aimed rather at achieving an overall balance of history. It is liberal democracy that provides the greatest opportunities for the realization of this need. Thus, democracy and liberalism are postulated as universal values.
Fukuyama has absolutely no class opposition, which he considers a completely overcome historical form. Liberalism no longer faces fundamental contradictions that threaten its own existence. Fukuyama mentions, however, the danger that religious and national ideologies carry with them, but he does not attach much importance to this danger. This is a clear flaw in Fukuyama's concept.
There is another version of the "end of history", presented in very different ways, represented by heterogeneous intellectual currents. Here, a completely different assessment of the processes that, according to Fukuyama, lead to the end of political life in liberalism, is possible. These concepts, with all the differences between them, are united by one assumption, namely, that the “end of history” is by no means a desirable state, but a threat. With particular mistrust, these theories approach the automatisms of technical, scientific and economic development, as well as political institutions that have so far failed to adequately respond to the demands posed by this development. Those social forces that, according to Fukuyama, work for the betterment of humanity, or at least its political institutions, are severely criticized here. If you follow the theory of Gehlen and Baudrillard, it turns out that the story has come to a negative end. If we follow Mumford's theory, then the goal of new political institutions is precisely to break with the uncontrolled course of technological development. Modern political institutions are unsatisfactory in responding to the challenge posed by the latest development, and are by no means perfect. The story is open and unfinished.
The strength of the “end of history” figure, as represented by Fukuyama, lies, it seems to us, in the ability to channel collective expectations and set the vector for the application of forces. At the same time, democracy and human rights are not ideals by which any social and political reality should be verified, but something already embodied in liberalist states. That is, the ideal is not only achievable, but has already been achieved in a number of countries. Many people like this approach, especially in the West.
Concluding this essay, let us turn to the statistical generalizations given in the work of F. Zakaria, in 1900, not a single country had what we consider to be a democracy today, namely, the power formed by the results of elections, in which any adult can take part. citizen. Now such a system operates in 119 states, that is, in 62 percent of all countries of the world. What was once the practice of only a handful of states on the shores of the North Atlantic has now become a familiar form of government for a large part of humanity. Monarchies are outdated, fascism and communism have completely discredited themselves. Even Muslim theocracy attracts only a few fanatics. In the vast majority of states, democracy has become the only source of political legitimacy. Even if the opponents of democracy resort to its rhetoric and reproduce its rituals, then it really won.
But this conclusion is overly optimistic: it turned out that in the structure of liberal democracy sometimes democracy and liberalism do not correspond to each other. Here are the data: in 1990, 22 percent of the world's countries could be classified as illiberal democracies; in 1992 the corresponding figure rose to 35 percent; by 1997, it peaked at 50 percent, and then declined slightly. Thus, the path to liberal democracy for many countries is much more difficult and tortuous than Fukuyama assumed. But this, it seems to us, does not refute the theory of the American philosopher, but forces us to consider it in a broader time perspective and give it a more allegorical interpretation.
List of used literature
Fukuyama democracy nationalism fundamentalism
1. Fukuyama F. End of history and the last person / Per. from English - M .: Ermak, AST, 2005 .-- 592 p.
USA
Yoshihiro Fukuyama
Toshiko Kawata
Laura Holmgren
Julia, David and John
Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama(eng. Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama) is an American philosopher, political scientist, political economist and writer of Japanese descent. Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. Prior to that, he served as Professor and Program Manager for International Development at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Since February 2012, he has been a Principal Fellow at the Freeman Spoli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
Fukuyama became famous for his book "The End of History and the Last Man" (1992), in which he proclaimed that the spread of liberal democracies throughout the world could testify to the end point of the sociocultural evolution of humankind and become the ultimate form of human government. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages of the world and has caused widespread resonance in the scientific community and the media. Despite the fact that since the publication of the book, numerous events have called into question the validity of his idea, Fukuyama still adheres to the concept of "the end of history." However, some of his political views underwent significant changes: at the beginning of the new millennium, he sharply dissociated himself from the neoconservative movement in American politics, with which he was strongly associated at the dawn of his career.
Biography
Bibliography
Books in English
- The End of History and the Last Man. Free Press, 1992. ISBN 0-02-910975-2
- Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0-02-910976-0
- The End of Order (1997)
- The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order. Free Press, 1999. ISBN 0-684-84530-X
- Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. ISBN 0-374-23643-7
- State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century. Cornell University Press, 2004.
Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama(eng. Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama; October 27, Chicago) - American philosopher, political scientist, political economist and writer of Japanese origin. Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. Prior to that, he served as Professor and Program Manager for International Development at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Since February 2012, he has been a Principal Fellow at the Freeman Spoli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
Fukuyama became famous for his book "The End of History and the Last Man" (1992), in which he proclaimed that the spread of liberal democracies throughout the world could testify to the end point of the sociocultural evolution of humankind and become the ultimate form of human government. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages of the world and has caused widespread resonance in the scientific community and the media. Despite the fact that since the publication of the book, numerous events have called into question the validity of his idea, Fukuyama still adheres to the concept of "the end of history." However, some of his political views have undergone significant changes: at the beginning of the new millennium, he sharply dissociated himself from the neoconservative movement in American politics, with which he was strongly associated at the dawn of his career.
Biography
Francis Fukuyama earned a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Studies from Cornell University, where he studied Political Philosophy under Allan Bloom. Initially, he entered graduate school in comparative literary studies at Yale University, visited Paris, where he studied with Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida for six months, but became disillusioned with the chosen direction of scientific research and, after returning to the United States, switched to political science at Harvard University. There he studied with S. Huntington and Harvey Mansfield, among others. "Huntington was my teacher at Harvard University and is still my friend," Fukuyama later wrote. In 1981, he received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard for his dissertation on the Soviet threat of intervention in the Middle East. However, even before that, in 1979 (then in 1983-1989 and 1995-1996), he joined the strategic research center of the RAND Corporation - one of the oldest "think tanks" in the United States.
Shortly after his defense, he received an invitation to work as a guest lecturer at the universities of California and Los Angeles. In 1981-1982 (then in 1989) F. Fukuyama worked in the US State Department, first as an expert on Middle East policy, and then as Deputy Director for European Political-Military Affairs, and was a member of the American delegation at the negotiations on the Palestinian Authority in Lebanon, deals with issues of Sovietology. Here he gets to know and quite closely converges with the iconic figure of the Bush Jr. administration, Lewis Libby, the future chief of staff of Vice President Dick Cheney.
In the late 1980s, Fukuyama gained international fame. His article "The End of History?", Published in the neoconservative journal of his friend's father, I. Kristol, "National Interest" (1989), 5 months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, brings him worldwide fame, fame and influence. In an article published against the backdrop of the collapse of the socialist camp, Fukuyama made a bold assumption about the universality and lack of alternative to the Western model. Later it is processed into the book "The End of History and the Last Man" (1992). The book went through 20 editions in more than 20 languages and became a bestseller in the USA, France, Japan, Chile. Fukuyama “… came up with the theory and catchphrase that turned him into an intellectual rock star,” writes Australian magazine columnist S. Baxter. Reflections of an unknown government official turned into a book that became a global bestseller. "
After the overwhelming success that followed the publication of the article, Fukuyama himself made the decision to retire from the State Department to focus on writing the book. Thereafter, he served as Professor of Public Policy at the George Mason University School of Public Policy from 1996 to 2000. 2001-2004 - Member of the US Presidential Council on Bioethics. Until July 10, 2010, he was Professor of International Political Economics and Director of the International Development Program at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Resident of the Center for Democracy, Development and Law Enforcement at the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
Scientific work and evolution of views
"The end of history" and the triumph of the West
Fukuyama's first and most famous book, The End of History and the Last Man, was published in 1992 and instantly brought its author such fame, which he himself had never expected. Noting the reasons for such popularity, some researchers pointed to the successful coincidence of the place and time of publication: the book was created in the conditions of the fall of the Soviet Union and the general euphoria of the West.
Fukuyama realized that economic factors alone would not be enough to explain the collapse of the socialist system; he needed a concept that would explain not only the transition of the second world countries to democratic reforms, but the reasons for the collapse of the seemingly "eternal" USSR. Therefore, the American political scientist chose the idealism of the German philosopher Hegel as the starting point of his research and after him declared that man is radically different from animals in that he “desires” not only material objects, but “desires of other people”: “In other words, a person with from the very beginning he was a social being: his own sense of self-worth and identity is closely related to the assessment that others assign to him. " The desire of a person to receive recognition of his dignity leads him to bloody battles for prestige, as a result of which human society is divided into a class of masters who are ready to risk their lives, and a class of slaves who yield to their fear of death. Democratic revolutions remove the contradictions between master and slave. Replacing the irrational desire to be recognized above others by the rational desire to be recognized as equal to others becomes the basis of the "end of history." Thus, history finds its logical end in liberal democracy, when the universal desire for recognition is fully satisfied.
The human model of the struggle for recognition is carried over by Fukuyama to the international arena. The scientist writes: “The struggle for recognition gives us the opportunity to look inside international politics. The thirst for recognition, which once led to bloody fights between fighters, logically leads to imperialism and the creation of a world empire. The relationship of master and slave within one country is mirrored at the level of states, when one nation as a whole demands recognition and is fighting a bloody battle for supremacy. " Accordingly, the victory of liberal democracy marks the end of “historical” conflicts between states, such as imperialism: “The fundamentally non-military character of the liberal social order is evident in the unusually peaceful relations that countries with such a system maintain with each other.<…>But among themselves, liberal democracies show little mistrust or interest in dominating one another. They adhere to the same principles of universal equality and rights, and therefore they have no reason to challenge each other's legitimacy. " Real politics (politics from a position of strength, as defined by Fukuyama), accordingly, loses its meaning. Economics will remain the main source of interaction between liberal democracies.
However, this does not mean that international conflicts will disappear once and for all. The fact is that during the "triumphal march" of liberal democracy, the world will be temporarily divided into two parts: historical and post-historical. The latter will include liberal democracies. What will happen to the historical world? The scientist claims that it will serve as an arena of conflicts for many years: “Countries such as Iraq and Libya will invade their neighbors and wage bloody battles. In the historical world, the nation state will remain the main center of political identification. " Conflicts between historical and posthistoric states will be possible: “A high and even increasing level of violence on ethnic and nationalist grounds will remain, since these impulses will not exhaust themselves in the posthistoric world either. Palestinians and Kurds, Sikhs and Tamils, Irish Catholics and Welsh, Armenians and Azerbaijanis will accumulate and nurture their grievances. It follows from this that terrorism and national liberation wars will remain on the agenda ”. However, major conflicts between worlds are not foreseen, since this requires large states that are within the framework of history, but they leave the historical arena.
The scientist believes that in most cases, the historical and post-historical worlds will interact little with each other and lead an almost parallel existence. Oil, immigration and world order (security) issues will be possible points of contact. The relationship between the worlds will develop on the basis of realistic politics.
Over the more than twenty years since the publication of the book, Fukuyama has repeatedly responded to his critics, clarified and clarified certain positions in his views, while maintaining the confidence in the absence of viable alternatives to liberal democracy. After the events of September 11, the political scientist noted that the Islamic challenge is not stronger than the socialist one: “Will the conflict between Western liberal democracies and radical Islamism replace the Cold War world? So far, my own observation is that the challenge of radical Islam is much weaker than the challenge of socialism. ”
However, some of Fukuyama's views did change. The evolution of Fukuyama's views is most obvious when considering the causes of Islamic terrorism: if in the book "The End of History and the Last Man" he explains it as a thymotic thirst for recognition, then ten years after the publication of the book, the scientist came to the conclusion that Islamic radicalism is a by-product modernization and globalization, which entail the anomie of society. Is it possible to control the process of modernization in such a way that the frustration of society does not spill over into international conflicts? Yes, Fukuyama replies, it is possible, with the help of "strong" states. In the works of the beginning of the new century, the political scientist pays more and more attention to the problem of authoritarianism and "strong states", more and more inclined to the opinion that authoritarian states are a real alternative to liberal democracy, whereas earlier he considered them to be an unviable temporary transit point on the way to liberal democracy.
Study of culture and social relations
In his next book, The Great Divide, Fukuyama, comparing data on developed Western countries, found that since the mid-1960s, negative phenomena have sharply increased in developed countries caused by disorganization of family relations, an increase in crime and a drop in trust between people. There is a sharp increase in the level of crimes of all kinds, vagrancy, drunkenness, etc. are growing. As for the institution of the family, there is also a sharp drop in the birth rate, the divorce rate is constantly growing, as well as the percentage of children born out of wedlock. The most important thing, according to Fukuyama, is the growth of mistrust between people, a simultaneous decline in trust in public institutions and in each other. All this is, as Fukuyama called it, the Great Rift - the growth of the state of anomie, loss of orientation in life, a kind of "intermediate", when the old norms are deformed or destroyed, and there are no new ones yet. Society is fragmented, turning into a crowd of loners.
The success of capitalism in various communities is not determined by financial factors, but by trust. It is this that ensures the economic well-being of society. For business to go beyond family boundaries, individual families and businesses must trust each other. Family and state exist in all modern communities. The rest of the groups that fall between these concepts differ in different societies. Trust is the ability of people to unite outside the family and without the help of the state. Fukuyama analyzes the impact of cultural traits such as trust on the economic success or failure of modern communities. Successful, in his opinion, communities (America, Germany, Japan) are characterized by a high level of trust. Less successful communities (according to Fukuyama, this is not only Russia, China, but also France) are similar in that families or the state conduct business here, and middle-level associations (communities, societies, circles, etc.) are not developed.
Strong state
For the first time, Fukuyama used the concept of a strong state in The End of History, but if there he characterized a strong state as a temporary obstacle to a democratic society, then in his 2004 book he returns to this problem in order to explore what advantages a strong state provides. In the introduction to this book, the political scientist argues that "weak, incompetent or non-existent governments are the source of serious problems, especially in the developing world." Weakness or lack of statehood pulls with them a string of problems: terrorism, immigration, extreme poverty, AIDS, etc. The problem of "weak" states has existed for a long time, but only the events of September 11 revealed the need for their solution. Fukuyama redefines the relationship between economics and politics (political governance). A "strong" state prevents the process of inciting conflicts and becomes a useful acquisition of third world countries: another fact of the evolution of Fukuyama's views. In the 1990s. he was an active champion of the minimal role of the state in the life of society (especially in the economy). An excessively strong government, in his opinion, led to the suppression of civil society, deformation of market relations and even the emergence of "criminal communities." In addition, the professor denied the state a decisive role in the successful development of the economy of such eastern states as Japan, Korea, Taiwan. The appearance of the book "A Strong State: Governance and Order in the 21st Century" was an "unexpected" and "interesting" turn for researchers. Indeed, in it, Fukuyama revised his positions on the necessary degree of centralization of the state. Although decentralized decision-making is closer to local sources of information: it responds faster and better to changes in the local environment; a large number of elements create competition and lead to innovation ...
If in "The End of History" Fukuyama called the main methods of maintaining world order (post-historical world in relation to the historical) - force (military), then over time he recognizes the need for non-interference in the process of democratization of societies, the more excluded the possibility of using force in this process.
ZG Iskandarova calls him the main modern defender of the nation state.
Breaking with the neocons
In 1997, 1998, Fukuyama, together with prominent neoconservatives and republicans, signed open letters to President Clinton calling for "the eradication of terrorism and its accomplices", "a decisive campaign to remove Saddam Hussein from power." There were 14 of them in total, 5 of which were signed by Fukuyama (in 1997, 1998, 2001 and 2004).
The letters signed by the political scientist (1997-1998) call for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. For example, a letter to President Clinton says that American foreign policy (policy of "containment") towards Iraq is failing. It is necessary to develop a strategy that would reflect the interests of both the United States and its allies: “The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the very possibility of Iraq's use of weapons of mass destruction. In the long term, this means the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his regime. That should be the goal of American foreign policy today. ”
The events of 9/11 only reinforce Fukuyama's belief in the need for decisive action against countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. In the article "United States" (October 2, 2001), he says that over the past decade America, "flirting" with isolationism, has refused to participate in world affairs. The tragedy that has occurred is capable of overcoming American isolationism and lead to a change in foreign policy strategy.
Fukuyama also signs another PNAC letter, now addressed to George W. Bush. The project participants support the presidential initiative for an uncompromising fight against terrorism and offer their ideas: 1) the capture or murder of Osama bin Laden and his assistants; 2) military operations in Afghanistan or support of anti-Taliban forces; 3) support for the Iraqi opposition and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime; 4) the fight against Hezbollah and the blocking of its financial sources from Syria and Iran; 5) destruction of terrorist groups on the territory of Palestine; 6) * an increase in spending on military forces.
This installation was implemented during the reign of the new president - George W. Bush. Most researchers point out the fact that the foreign policy of the Bush administration is linked precisely with the neoconservatives. The dominant claim is the direct influence and participation of neoconservatives in shaping American foreign policy. One way or another, according to Fukuyama himself, all of his neo-conservative friends ended up in power. Fukuyama himself, after Bush Jr. came to power, receives an expert position in the Presidential Council on Bioethics (2001-2005). This work fascinates the scientist so much that he writes the book “Our Posthuman Future”.
After the failure of the state-building project in Iraq, Fukuyama is revising his original positions. In late 2004, he joined the chorus of critics of the Bush administration's actions and left the neocon camp. The scholar's break with his former friends and his refusal to support the foreign policy of the White House begins with the article "The Neo-Conservative Moment" in the National Interest directed against C. Krauthammer. In November 2004, at the presidential elections, F. Fukuyama votes for J. Kerry, the candidate from the Democratic Party. He leaves the conservative magazines Foreign Affairs, National Interest and begins publishing his own magazine, American Interest. The political scientist invites Zbigniew Brzezinski, Assistant to President J. Carter for National Security in 1977-81, to the editorial board of the new magazine; Eliot Cohen, Ph.D., former Defense Planning Staff; Joseph Joff, professor of political science at Standford, international relations at Harvard; and Samuel Huntington. The range of interests of the periodical includes strategic, economic, cultural and historical issues. In addition, American Interest criticizes the unilateralist approach in foreign policy.
Bibliography
Books in English
- The End of History and the Last Man. Free Press, 1992. ISBN 0-02-910975-2
- Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. Free Press, 1995.
USA
Yoshihiro Fukuyama
Toshiko Kawata
Laura Holmgren
Julia, David and John
Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama(eng. Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama) is an American philosopher, political scientist, political economist and writer of Japanese descent. Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. Prior to that, he served as Professor and Program Manager for International Development at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Since February 2012, he has been a Principal Fellow at the Freeman Spoli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
Fukuyama became famous for his book "The End of History and the Last Man" (1992), in which he proclaimed that the spread of liberal democracies throughout the world could testify to the end point of the sociocultural evolution of humankind and become the ultimate form of human government. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages of the world and has caused widespread resonance in the scientific community and the media. Despite the fact that since the publication of the book, numerous events have called into question the validity of his idea, Fukuyama still adheres to the concept of "the end of history." However, some of his political views underwent significant changes: at the beginning of the new millennium, he sharply dissociated himself from the neoconservative movement in American politics, with which he was strongly associated at the dawn of his career.
Biography
Bibliography
Books in English
- The End of History and the Last Man. Free Press, 1992. ISBN 0-02-910975-2
- Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0-02-910976-0
- The End of Order (1997)
- The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order. Free Press, 1999. ISBN 0-684-84530-X
- Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. ISBN 0-374-23643-7
- State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century. Cornell University Press, 2004.
Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama. Was born on October 27, 1952 in Chicago (USA). American philosopher, political scientist, political economist and writer of Japanese descent. Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. Prior to that, he served as Professor and Program Manager for International Development at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Since February 2012, he has been a Principal Fellow at the Freeman Spoli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
Fukuyama became famous for his book "The End of History and the Last Man" (1992), in which he proclaimed that the spread of liberal democracies throughout the world could testify to the end point of the sociocultural evolution of humankind and become the ultimate form of human government. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages of the world and has caused widespread resonance in the scientific community and the media. Despite the fact that since the publication of the book, numerous events have called into question the validity of his idea, Fukuyama still adheres to the concept of "the end of history." However, some of his political views have undergone significant changes: at the beginning of the new millennium, he sharply dissociated himself from the neoconservative movement in American politics, with which he was strongly associated at the dawn of his career.
Francis Fukuyama was born on October 27, 1952 in the Hyde Park area of Chicago, USA. His paternal grandfather fled to America from the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and managed to open his own store on the West Coast before being interned in the US Army during World War II.
His father, Yoshihiro Fukuyama, a second generation Japanese American, was a Protestant believer with a doctorate in the sociology of religion at the University of Chicago and served for many years on the National Council of the United Church of Christ. Francis's mother, Toshiko Kawata, was born in Kyoto and was the daughter of Shiro Kawata, founder of the Faculty of Economics at Kyoto University and the first president of Osaka Municipal University. In 1949, she went to America to continue her studies, where she met her future husband. After the birth of her son, she became a housewife.
Francis was the only child in the Fukuyama family. He spent his childhood in New York, Manhattan. He had little contact with Japanese culture and did not study Japanese. In 1967, when the family moved to Pennsylvania, little Francis entered high school. As he himself later admitted, the academic atmosphere that reigned in the house had a huge impact on the formation of his personality, made him a "product of the academic family." In one of the interviews, Fukuyama claimed that he was an "academician from birth", as his passion for science was inherited from his grandfather.
Francis Fukuyama earned a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Studies from Cornell University, where he studied Political Philosophy under Allan Bloom. Initially, he entered graduate school in comparative literary studies at Yale University, visited Paris, where he studied with Roland Barthes for six months and, but became disillusioned with the chosen direction of scientific research, after returning to the States, he switched to political science at Harvard University. There he studied with and Harvey Mansfield, among others. "Huntington was my teacher at Harvard University and is still my friend," Fukuyama later wrote. In 1981, he received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard for his dissertation on the Soviet threat of intervention in the Middle East. However, even before that, in 1979 (then in 1983-1989 and 1995-1996), he joined the strategic research center of the RAND Corporation - one of the oldest "think tanks" in the United States.
Shortly after his defense, he received an invitation to work as a guest lecturer at the universities of California and Los Angeles.
In 1981-1982 (then in 1989) F. Fukuyama worked in the US State Department, first as an expert on Middle East policy, and then as Deputy Director for European Political-Military Affairs, and was a member of the American delegation at the negotiations on the Palestinian Authority in Lebanon, deals with issues of Sovietology. Here he gets to know and quite closely converges with the iconic figure of the administration, Lewis Libby, the future chief of staff of Vice President Dick Cheney.
In the late 1980s, Fukuyama gained international fame. His article "The End of History?", Published in the neoconservative journal of his friend's father, I. Kristol, "National Interest" (1989), 5 months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, brings him worldwide fame, fame and influence. Later it is processed into the book "The End of History and the Last Man" (1992). The book went through 20 editions in more than 20 languages and became a bestseller in the USA, France, Japan, Chile. Fukuyama “… came up with the theory and catchphrase that turned him into an intellectual rock star,” writes Australian magazine columnist S. Baxter. Reflections of an unknown government official turned into a book that became a global bestseller. "
After the overwhelming success that followed the publication of the article, Fukuyama himself made the decision to retire from the State Department to focus on writing the book. Thereafter, he served as Professor of Public Policy at the George Mason University School of Public Policy from 1996 to 2000.
2001-2004 - Member of the US Presidential Council on Bioethics. Until July 10, 2010, he was Professor of International Political Economics and Director of the International Development Program at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Resident of the Center for Democracy, Development and Law Enforcement at the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
"End of Story" by Francis Fukuyama:
Fukuyama's first and most famous book, The End of History and the Last Man, was published in 1993 and instantly brought its author such fame, which he himself had never expected. Noting the reasons for such popularity, some researchers pointed to the successful coincidence of the place and time of publication: the book was created in the conditions of the fall of the Soviet Union and the general euphoria of the West.
Fukuyama realized that economic factors alone would not be enough to explain the collapse of the socialist system; he needed a concept that would explain not only the transition of the second world countries to democratic reforms, but the reasons for the collapse of the seemingly "eternal" USSR. Therefore, the American political scientist chose the idealism of the German philosopher as the starting point of his research and after him declared that man is radically different from animals in that he “desires” not only material objects, but “desires of other people”: “In other words, man from the very the beginning was a social being: his own sense of self-worth and identity is closely related to the assessment that others assign to him. " The desire of a person to receive recognition of his dignity leads him to bloody battles for prestige, as a result of which human society is divided into a class of masters who are ready to risk their lives, and a class of slaves who yield to their fear of death. Democratic revolutions remove the contradictions between master and slave. Replacing the irrational desire to be recognized above others by the rational desire to be recognized as equal to others becomes the basis of the "end of history." Thus, history finds its logical end in liberal democracy, when the universal desire for recognition is fully satisfied.
The human model of the struggle for recognition is carried over by Fukuyama to the international arena. The scientist writes: “The struggle for recognition gives us the opportunity to look inside international politics. The thirst for recognition, which once led to bloody fights between fighters, logically leads to imperialism and the creation of a world empire. The relationship of master and slave within one country is mirrored at the level of states, when one nation as a whole demands recognition and is fighting a bloody battle for supremacy. " Accordingly, the victory of liberal democracy marks the end of “historical” conflicts between states, such as imperialism: Liberal democracies themselves show little mistrust or interest in dominating one another. They adhere to the same principles of universal equality and rights, and therefore they have no reason to challenge each other's legitimacy. " Real politics (politics from a position of strength, as defined by Fukuyama), accordingly, is losing its meaning. Economics will remain the main source of interaction between liberal democracies.
However, this does not mean that international conflicts will disappear once and for all. The fact is that during the "triumphal march" of liberal democracy, the world will be temporarily divided into two parts: historical and post-historical. The latter will include liberal democracies. What will happen to the historical world? The scientist claims that it will serve as an arena of conflicts for many years: “Countries like Iraq and Libya will invade their neighbors and wage bloody battles. In the historical world, the nation state will remain the main center of political identification. " Conflicts between historical and posthistoric states will be possible: “A high and even increasing level of violence on ethnic and nationalist grounds will remain, since these impulses will not exhaust themselves in the posthistoric world either. Palestinians and Kurds, Sikhs and Tamils, Irish Catholics and Welsh, Armenians and Azerbaijanis will accumulate and nurture their grievances. It follows from this that terrorism and national liberation wars will remain on the agenda ”. However, major conflicts between worlds are not foreseen, since this requires large states that are within the framework of history, but they leave the historical arena.
The scientist believes that in most cases, the historical and post-historical worlds will interact little with each other and lead an almost parallel existence. Oil, immigration and world order (security) issues will be possible points of contact. The relationship between the worlds will develop on the basis of realistic politics.
Over the more than twenty years since the publication of the book, Fukuyama has repeatedly responded to his critics, clarified and clarified certain positions in his views, while maintaining the confidence in the absence of viable alternatives to liberal democracy. After the events of September 11, the political scientist noted that the Islamic challenge is not stronger than the socialist one: “Will the conflict between Western liberal democracies and radical Islamism replace the Cold War world? So far, my own observation is that the challenge of radical Islam is much weaker than the challenge of socialism. ”
However, some of Fukuyama's views did change. The evolution of Fukuyama's views is most obvious when considering the causes of Islamic terrorism: if in the book "The End of History and the Last Man" he explains it as a thymotic thirst for recognition, then ten years after the publication of the book, the scientist came to the conclusion that Islamic radicalism is a by-product modernization and globalization, which entail the anomie of society. Is it possible to control the process of modernization in such a way that the frustration of society does not spill over into international conflicts? Yes, Fukuyama replies, it is possible, with the help of "strong" states. In the works of the beginning of the new century, the political scientist pays more and more attention to the problem of authoritarianism and "strong states", more and more inclined to the opinion that authoritarian states are a real alternative to liberal democracy, whereas earlier he considered them to be an unviable temporary transit point on the way to liberal democracy.
Francis Fukuyama's books in English:
The End of History and the Last Man. Free Press, 1992. ISBN 0-02-910975-2
Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0-02-910976-0
The End of Order (1997)
The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order. Free Press, 1999. ISBN 0-684-84530-X
Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. ISBN 0-374-23643-7
State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century. Cornell University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8014-4292-3
America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy (Yale University Press, 2006). ISBN 0-300-11399-4
The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012) ISBN 978-0374533229
Books by Francis Fukuyama in Russian:
The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order (1999)
Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002)
Great break. (2006) (English Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order) (1999)
Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (1995)
The End of History and the Last Man (1992)
State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century (2006) Cornell University Press, 2004.
America at a Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neo-Conservative Legacy. (eng.America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy) (Yale University Press, 2006).
