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This war can save liberalism Putin has shown us what the alternative looks like

Nations are necessary. Credit: Alexey Furman/Getty Images


March 24, 2022   10 mins

Francis Fukuyama helped define how we understand contemporary history in his 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man. His new book, Liberalism and its Discontents, is a trenchant defence of an ideology under attack. Freddie Sayers spoke to Dr Fukuyama about the war in Ukraine, current trends in Western democracy, and how liberalism can better understand aspects of the human condition it has historically neglected.

 

Some people are seeing this war as further evidence of the demise of the liberal world order; you seem to see in it an opportunity?

Vladimir Putin is at the centre of a global anti-liberal campaign waged by authoritarian great powers like Russia and China, but also by a number of populists that have arisen in democratic countries, like Viktor Orbán in Hungary or our Donald Trump. Putin said very explicitly that he thought liberalism was an obsolete doctrine. And a lot of conservatives in the United States have actually (they’re backing away from it now) said they like Putin; they like the idea of a strongman that could cut through all the liberal nonsense they saw going on in their societies. With this invasion of another democratic country, Putin has created a certain amount of moral clarity. The biggest advantage of a liberal state is the fact that it’s not authoritarian. It’s not a dictatorship; it doesn’t kill people; it doesn’t invade neighbours. Putin’s demonstrated what the alternative to liberalism is.

So you see in this war the possibility of “a new birth of freedom”. What do you mean by that?

Well, I think that our liberal democracies have gotten very complacent over the last 30 years. After the fall of the former Soviet Union, we had this extended period of peace and prosperity. And I think that especially younger people who grew up in that world, where they didn’t experience either the violent conflict of the twentieth century, or the dictatorship of a communist regime, began to take liberal democracy for granted. They assumed that this was simply the way the world was, and nobody could threaten that. And as a result, they weren’t willing to actively defend democracy where it was under threat. And I think that’s one of the reasons that Putin thought that he could get away with this invasion: because he thought that the United States is internally very divided, that Europe really doesn’t believe in much of anything anymore. One of the nice things that has happened is the unity that’s been expressed within the Nato alliance, especially in Germany, where they basically revised 40 years of Ostpolitik.

But the reality is that it’s a nationalist battle, isn’t it? 

I don’t think you can be in favour of liberal democracy unless it’s embedded in a nation. I don’t think there’s an abstraction called “liberal democracy” that people fight on behalf of; they fight for liberal institutions in their country, and they fight as a result of national pride, and because they like the institutions. I remember distinctly — I’ve been to Ukraine many times since 2013 — walking around Maidan Square: you feel like you’re in a free society because people can come and go as they wish, they can criticise the government, they can vote for opposition parties. There was a freedom that you could experience in Ukraine prior to this invasion that you couldn’t experience in Russia. That’s really what made Ukrainian nationhood different from Russian nationhood: Russians had to live with this centralised dictatorship and Ukrainians could live with a very similar culture, but in a free society.

Is there an outcome where, while the West becomes more assertive, it continues on the road of becoming essentially less liberal — because it’s more effective to assert your competitive advantage in a more Chinese or East Asian-style society?

No, I think that the real alternative is to correct some of — what I would regard as — the excesses of liberalism that have driven some of the opposition to liberalism itself, and I think that exists both on the Right and the Left. It has nothing to do with accommodating a more Chinese type of regime. But really the important choices are within what we’ve understood to be the liberal tradition, and I think that’s true on both the Right and the Left. On the Right, you had a kind of economic liberalism that evolved into what’s now called neoliberalism, which was a kind of worship of the market and a denigration of the state, which led to a kind of globalisation that put economic efficiency above all other social goods and led to a big increase in inequality. Globally, it led to a deterioration of a lot of public services; everything was just seen to be an expression of private interest. That needs to be walked back. On the Right, you had a vast expansion of the idea of personal autonomy. One of the good things about a liberal society is that it protects personal autonomy, but our autonomy is not unlimited. We are creatures that want community: we want to share values with other people. When you have a liberalism that is like an acid that destroys any prior sense of community: that’s something people don’t really like. When it undermines a sense of nation, and the ability to feel patriotic: that’s a problem liberal societies have had.

One example of this is the debate around free speech, which you observe has become more problematic in the past few years. Do you now see that being able to be reversed?

Some of the biggest threats to free speech are not actually those that are being done by governments, particularly governments in the democratic world. The real problem is a private one. Big internet platforms like Google and Facebook have been amplifying material that is toxic — often conspiracy theories — because what they’re primarily interested in is not the broader democratic community. They care about their bottom lines. A big concentration of private power has contributed to the toxicity of a lot of the discourse in modern democracies. And it leads to these real conundra, because there’s then a call for the government to regulate their activity. So in Germany, they have the NetzdG law that criminalises publishing false or fake news. And that’s where you get into real danger, because it’s not clear that the government is the right regulator of that kind of activity. But it’s not clear either that these large platforms should simply be allowed to make these determinations on their own. Right now, for people on the Left, the leaders of Google and Facebook are sympathetic to their agenda. But imagine if a Rupert Murdoch takes over Facebook, or some equivalent character on the Right, and has that kind of power to amplify certain messages and suppress others.

One of the deeper themes in your work that stretches right back to the End of History — you talk about the Greek word thymos in that book — is that there’s something about polite, liberal democracy in its perfected sense that doesn’t answer some deep questions in the human soul. Do you now think we are predisposed to prefer war to peace in some way?

Not under all circumstances. But there is something that drives us in that direction. Thymos is usually translated into English as spiritedness. You could call it pride, or the demand for respect or recognition. And I think that a great deal of politics is really not about contest over material goods, it’s really a contest over respect. So you think about something like gay marriage or the Me Too movement, these are fundamentally dignity issues where gays and lesbians want to have their unions celebrated as having equal status to heterosexual unions, or women want to be treated with the same respect as men. And this is not really governed by economic calculations. It’s governed by a different kind of desire that oftentimes works at cross-purposes. If you think about what’s going on in populist politics: this kind of demand for respect was very much driving the whole upwelling of voters that voted for Brexit and voted for Donald Trump. It’s really the more educated, more cosmopolitan people living in big cities like London, or New York, or San Francisco, that tended to vote for progressive parties, and then people living in smaller communities in the countryside with more traditional values that voted for populists. There’s an economic division there. But there’s also a respect division, because those more educated people tended to look down on the others that didn’t share their particular kind of cosmopolitan worldview. And a politician like Donald Trump was quite brilliant in understanding how much resentment there was, and could play on those resentments. That’s defined a lot of our politics in recent years.

You don’t actually differ that dramatically from some of the more populist thinkers — only while they felt these impulses were virtues or important things that needed to be accommodated, you seem to think they are dangers. Is that fair?

No, I don’t think that’s right. I think that any human striving depends on this sense of pride. This is true at an individual level. If you didn’t want to be recognised as a great pianist, or a great writer, or baseball player, or football player, or whatever, you probably wouldn’t strive for excellence. All of us want the attention and the respect that comes with great human achievement. But the greatest criminals in the world are driven by that desire to stand out. Donald Trump realised that he could be noticed by everybody for saying completely outrageous things that didn’t make any sense in a more narrowly rational way, but they excited people and it got him attention. This desire for respect and recognition is the basis of good behaviour and it’s the basis of bad behaviour. But it doesn’t fall within the economic calculus associated with classical liberalism.

What about the instinct to want to belong to a culture that you recognise as your own, and that you feel at home in. Is that something that the liberal world needs to accommodate better?

It really depends on what that community is based on. In today’s world, if you simply base it on race, or ethnicity, or on a single religion, it isn’t going to work — because our societies today are too diverse, really, to have a single point of reference. But people have a very deep social instinct: they want to have something in common, they want to conform to social norms, they believe in their national identity. And I think the key trick is to make that national identity compatible with liberal values. So it should be based on things that can be accepted by people regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity. That kind of community is going to be thinner than one that’s based on a single, let’s say, religious belief. But I think that it can still be built. The classic one was the Republican community coming out of the French Revolution: it was based on the French language, literary tradition, even a culinary tradition. Someone like Léopold Senghor, the great Senegalese poet, could be taken into the Académie Française because, despite the fact that he’s a black man, he writes beautiful French. That’s my understanding of what a liberal national identity is. You need that identity, but it also needs to be an open and accessible one that accommodates the actual diversity that exists in your society.

So you’re arguing for a pushing back of some of the excesses of liberalism: less ultra-individualism, more of a sense of community, a sense of virtue. In a European context, you’re sounding like a conservative.

If to be a European conservative means that you still believe in the importance of nations, then I would probably categorise myself that way. You need nations, for very pragmatic reasons. The nation is the repository of legitimate violence, basically. This is the old Max Weber understanding of what a state is: a legitimate monopoly of force. And right now, there isn’t an alternative to the nation as a locus of power that is, at the same time, controlled by institutions like the rule of law, and democratic accountability. Therefore, you’re going to have to deal with a world of nations. The European Union sought to get beyond that. In theory, you could have created a federated Europe that behaved more like an actual nation, but what you ended up with was something that wasn’t really that. And when push came to shove, like during the Euro crisis, it fell apart it. There wasn’t that sense of European solidarity between, let’s say, Greeks and Germans.

In this latest book you discuss the preconditions for a confident liberal democracy — its institutions, its rule of law. Are you worried that confidence has now gone in Western countries?

I worry about that more in the United States than in most parts of Europe, because our polarisation has become really intense, to the point where a lot of people on the Republican Right are willing to actually abandon some really important aspects of institutionalised democracy: a pretty strong majority of Republican voters believe that the 2020 election was fraudulent, based simply on a manufactured lie by one person. That’s a really big threat. Liberalism does not accommodate all forms of diversity. If you have a particular party or force or political movement within your society that rejects some of the foundational principles of liberalism, you can’t deal with that. And I think we do face that kind of threat in the United States. It’s ironic, because the United States was always seen as the ur-liberal country. But actually, it’s safer in most parts of Europe, where there’s a greater degree of political consensus.

So does that mean you’re less optimistic about the future for the US?

There are scenarios for the 2024 election that could be very, very nasty, and involve actual violence. I hope it doesn’t come to that. But I think it’s a real danger that, as an American citizen, I’m quite worried about.

Your phrase, “the end of history” is constantly quoted back at you, but it quite accurately describes a period of history. What are we to call the next period that’s coming?

I don’t know what it’s going to look like. A lot of it will depend on the outcome of this war in Ukraine. Because if Putin, who has been so central to the anti-liberal world order, succeeds, then that period is going to look much more authoritarian. On the other hand, if he’s humiliated, forced to back down, then it’s going to look much better for liberal societies around the world. But even if the latter materialises, and he is forced to back down, there are plenty of other illiberal forces out there in the world. There’s China, which is a bigger challenge in a sense, because they’re a more powerful country, and more successful in many ways than Russia has been. There’s all the Venezuelas and Irans and Syrias — these would-be authoritarian or actually authoritarian countries that have ambitions. There’s going to be plenty of struggle left, even if we win this one in Ukraine in the short run.

And your bet, for the record, is that we are going to win that one in some form?

The only reason I think liberalism is going to survive all of this the history of the last 300 years. Liberalism arose after the European Wars of Religion because people realised that fighting over which sect of Christianity you followed was not worth it, and therefore we should have religious toleration. It then got challenged by the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And after those two bloody world wars, people again said, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t be fighting over which nation is dominant, maybe we should come up with a more tolerant system.” And we’ve now gone through another cycle where we have taken liberal principles for granted. And now people are striving for more. So maybe we have to go through another cycle of witnessing the alternatives to liberalism, before we come back to saying, “Oh, well, maybe, tolerating diversity is not such a bad thing after all.” It’s not as bad a cycle as the previous ones. Maybe we might get a little bit inoculated by what Putin has done in Europe.

It’s like a necessary war of some kind?

I hate to say that any war is necessary. But that’s the way it’s worked out in prior centuries of human history.


Francis Fukuyama is a political scientist and the author of The End of History and the Last Man (1992). His new book, Liberalism and its Discontents, is available now.


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Saul D
Saul D
2 years ago

He doesn’t realise it, but this sounds very like a Trumpian defense of nation, law and institutions, and rally round the flag.
But then he seems blind to authoritarianism of the Progressive Left:

“The biggest advantage of a liberal state is the fact that it’s not authoritarian. It’s not a dictatorship; it doesn’t kill people; it doesn’t invade neighbours.”

If he looked at the world more objectively, without such deep-blue-tinted glasses – mask mandates, compelled speech, fixing primary elections, cancel culture, history revisionism, name-calling, lawfare (abuse of the law), institutional capture, regulatory over-reach, covert gun running (to Syria), Pravda-esque media, selective prosecution, prosecution of journalists, curbs on free-speech and maybe election interference – all of which sit on the Progressive-side, he might notice these are a huge part of the illiberalism that has developed in the last decade.

Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago
Reply to  Saul D

Clearly, a liberal state is not authoritarian, otherwise it wouldn’t be called “liberal”. And I think that’s exactly the problem. We’re acting like everybody is free to do what they want, but then we get so scared of them spreading the sniffles that society breaks down completely. The media and politicians, of course, also play a big part in that dynamic. But the matter of fact is that we just don’t have the courage any more to live in a liberal country. The courage to say no to fear, or to accept death as part of life.
We’ve been coddled for too much, too long. Our emotional resiliency hasn’t developed from when we were 14 years old. Thanks to “social” media and consumerism that makes us into the center of the universe.

Last edited 2 years ago by Michael K
David Batlle
David Batlle
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael K

Liberal in philosophy is very different than liberal in name only, the label. Of course Liberals can be authoritarian. Just ask Justin Trudeau.

And clearly N. Korea is a republic, otherwise it wouldn’t be called the peoples Republic of North Korea.

Last edited 2 years ago by David Batlle
Andrew Lale
Andrew Lale
2 years ago
Reply to  David Batlle

Liberal in name only- LINO. Now there is an acronym I can get on board with.

William McKinney
William McKinney
2 years ago
Reply to  Saul D

He’s a Democrat shill. Pure and simple.

Warren T
Warren T
2 years ago
Reply to  Saul D

Deep Blue tinted glasses is an understatement!

Mathieu Bernard
Mathieu Bernard
2 years ago
Reply to  Saul D

It’s been said that the Right is more aware of it’s excesses than the Left is. And there are indications, as you’ve clearly stated, that the Left has gone beyond the limits of liberalism and into very some very dangerous – and perhaps uncharted – territory. Fukuyama seems almost myopic in this regard. Just because liberalism has reigned for 300 years is no guarantee of its perpetual success. If history teaches us anything, civilizations rise and fall, and from the looks of things, liberalism is trending toward the primrose path.

Will Liddle
Will Liddle
2 years ago

It’s not a dictatorship; it doesn’t kill people; it doesn’t invade neighbours.”
No, it just props them up in, and invades, far-off countries in order to spread itself and maintain strategic dominance.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago
Reply to  Will Liddle

The Russians are just as guilty of propping up and supporting friendly regimes as the west is

Will Liddle
Will Liddle
2 years ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

It was a comment on what seems to me to be an entirely incorrect statement about the purely benign nature of liberal democracies in world politics, not a comparison to any other regime, almost all of which are as bad or worse.

Last edited 2 years ago by Will Liddle
Paul Smithson
Paul Smithson
2 years ago
Reply to  Will Liddle

“… Almost all of which are as bad or worse”

I am sure in some cases that is true, but if you travel widely you will hear many people who think the USA is absolutely evil and the UK and Europe are not far behind.

We tend to see ourselves as a good guy, which is no different to the school bully who is skilled at justifying to himself why the weak, spotty four-eyed dweeb needs a whack around the head.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Smithson

It is a very fair point.
The one way Western media and the permitted commentary leave no doubt that there is only one way to see the current conflict.
Rightly or wrongly large parts of the rest of the world take a different view

Paul Smithson
Paul Smithson
2 years ago

Oh yes. We have freedom of speech in the West as long as you don’t have a view that goes against the given narrative. Should you dare to question ‘The Science’ (as given to us by Saint Fauci) you will ostracized from civilised society, banished from the airwaves, and have your online communication channels cancelled. And heaven forbid you should choose not to take the jab, that will mean travel restrictions and losing your job and more.

Anyone who thinks we live in a liberal democracy anymore really isn’t paying attention. It is nothing but an illusion.

Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Smithson

Liberalism itself is an empty place. It thrives between wars and revolutions: between Paris February Commune (1848) and the Great War, between the later and WWII, etc. It is the emptiness of polite and privileged gentlemen sitting down and sipping lattes waiting for the next war to remind themselves how great is to be a gentleman.

Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
2 years ago
Reply to  Dan Croitoru

There are major differences between Classical Liberalism and Neoliberalism. When men like Fukuyama start muddying the two, it is not an accident. It is intentional.

Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt Hindman

-)) And what exactly is the difference between “Classical” and “Neo” liberalism ? From its inception, liberalism was “Neo” and it must be Neo all the time since it cannot reach a Classical stage.

Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
2 years ago
Reply to  Dan Croitoru

Oh, just major philosophical differences. Reposting comment from Progressives Have Sacrificed Liberalism by Paul Marshall.
For the last half a decade we have been inundated with media articles and pundits lamenting the decline of “liberalism.” This modern “liberalism” that the politicians and pundits insist is so important, what does it have in common with the Classical Liberalism that has formed the basis of modern Western Civilization? Belief in the rights of citizens? Well… I mean as long as you say, do, and think the way we want you to. Understanding the limits of the expert class? TRUST THE SCIENCE! The recognition of universal human fallibility? Eh, depends on your race and pronouns. Understanding the limits of what government can accomplish? We will try it again but harder this time and throw more money and government force at it. Recognition of the nation state? Citizen of the world, baby! Equality under the law? It’s equity now. Sorry, but I will take Classical Liberalism with its Enlightenment values over Neoliberalism and its Postmodernist “values” any day.

Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt Hindman

So you say Classical Liberalism ~ Enlightenment Values. Do you think that a magazine such as UnHerd which promotes shameless pro Ukrainian propaganda is inline with Enlightenment? Russians are losing because they got frostbites … (as we all know Russia is a subtropical country -) ) Kiev could not be taken in 48 hours … Putin committing genocide while at the same time losing soldiers at the rate they did not lose in WW2 … Is this the level of a cultural magazine aligned with Enlightenment values?

Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
2 years ago
Reply to  Dan Croitoru

Closer than most and I will take what I can get at this point.

Dominic A
Dominic A
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Smithson

Anyone who thinks we don’t live in a liberal democracy anymore really hasn’t got about very much. I recommend spending time in Belarus, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, Chad, Egypt, Angola, Bangladesh etc etc etc – or for that matter, how about really remembering, ‘warts and all’ Western cultures from 1999 backwards.

Paul Smithson
Paul Smithson
2 years ago
Reply to  Dominic A

On a scale of one to ten the countries you mention maybe nearer a ten than Western countries, but that does not mean our democratic rights and freedoms have not been massively eroded.

Also some of those countries are slowly becoming more free, where as we are heading rather rapidly in the opposite direction.

As for Western countries prior to 1999 I am puzzled as to what you mean as our freedoms have been dramatically curtailed since then.

Dominic A
Dominic A
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Smithson

As for Western countries prior to 1999 I am puzzled as to what you mean as our freedoms have been dramatically curtailed since then.
Ok, I don’t see any dramatic curtailment – so I guess it behoves you to point out the things that I can’t see?
I took a look at some NGO indices (The Human Freedom Index; The Index of Freedom in the World; Worldwide Press Freedom Index) – none of these show declines in the West you speak of. One that does show some decline, Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press Report, finds that press freedom is generally decreasing globally, and even in many Western democracies due to populist leaders – Orban, Bolansaro, Erdogan, Kurz, and Trump (though Trump failed to actually clamp down on the press).

Elizabeth dSJ
Elizabeth dSJ
2 years ago
Reply to  Dominic A

Are any of those countries seeing the indigenous or founding populace being displaced relentlessly by foreign nationals, much if through illegal entry that tramples the rule of law and the very purpose of government?
The total demographic displacement of indigenous Europeans by the liberal order is a bit more than a mere “wart.”

Dominic A
Dominic A
2 years ago
Reply to  Elizabeth dSJ

Britons have long been a mongrel nation.

J Bryant
J Bryant
2 years ago

It’s certainly significant that Francis Fukuyama has written on the need to not just recommit to liberalism but to revisit what it means to be a liberal society and rein in the more extreme elements.
But all the examples I heard in this interview of extreme behavior that threaten liberalism are from the right, such as the refusal to accept the 2021 US election results, or the propagation of right-wing conspiracy theories on the internet. I didn’t hear him address the extreme intolerance of the left especially as that appears in universities. Sadly, Freddie didn’t press him on this issue.
For me, at a certain point in this interview, Mr Fukuyama started to sound like just another left winger whose only interest is in “correcting” the excesses of the right.
Another great interview from Unherd. Thanks.

Paul Smithson
Paul Smithson
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

You criticise the interview and rightly so. Your criticism was very valid. But then you go on to say ‘Another great interview from Unherd’.

Last edited 2 years ago by Paul Smithson
Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Smithson

I am sure many paying UnHerd members are so liberally and politely disagreeing yet never forget to congratulate the boss for another wonderful interview.

C Yonge
C Yonge
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Smithson

Exactly

J Bryant
J Bryant
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Smithson

Fair point. I did, however, enjoy the interview. Agree with him or not, Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’ is a significant book and it was interesting to hear him discuss, thirty years after its publication, the state of the modern world. I was disappointed with what he had to say. I thought he would be more objective when considering the behavior of the Left and how an obsession with individual rights to the exclusion of all else could lead us to such a surreal place, but apparently I was wrong.

Paul Smithson
Paul Smithson
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

A good point, and to be fair to you JB, it is good that someone can acknowledge the positives in an interview even if one disagrees with much of the substance.

Tom Watson
Tom Watson
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

I think he is just another left winger whose only interest is in correcting the ‘excesses’ of the right, isn’t he? Was he ever anything else?

C Yonge
C Yonge
2 years ago

This guy describes things as on the right when they are things done on the left. He is not worth listening to. He’s completely blind. He just turns everything around to make it be the fault of the “right” or Trump. I’ve rarely heard such an obviously twisted way of thinking displayed on Unherd. It’s great example of how leftists are going to justify remaining left no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.

Warren T
Warren T
2 years ago
Reply to  C Yonge

I quite agree and thanks for saying it. When I think of “illiberalism”, I am reminded of today’s Democrat party, who claims to be fighting to save democracy, yet exhibits completely anti-democratic behavior. I can’t think of anything more anti-democratic than seeking to remove the U.S. constitution, implementing truly racist policies, and de-platforming those who you disagree with!

Mary Belgrave
Mary Belgrave
2 years ago

‘There is no current alternative to the nation as a locus of power’
No mention of the World Economic Forum and supranational globalist organisations which are in line with Big Tech in pushing for a great reset and fourth industrial revolution. National leaders fell into groupthink and coordinated censorship of alternatives to lockdowns – this was pushed by WHO, Gates Foundation etc and resulted in loss of basic freedoms – but he ignored this completely.

Elizabeth dSJ
Elizabeth dSJ
2 years ago

It’s not a dictatorship; it doesn’t kill people; it doesn’t invade neighbours.”
Of course the liberal order has relentlessly invaded other countries over the last forty years, killing millions.
At the same time, it has trampled upon national sovereignty and the rule of law by aiding and abetting illegal immigration and legal immigration aimed at demographically displacing ethnic European populaces.
Those people of European ancestry who dare to resist being displaced are demonized as “populists.” Their right to freedom of speech, freedom of association, and other core liberties suspended
One of the sickest jokes regarding ardent, flag-waving support for Ukraine, is how the very same people generally loath Hungary and Poland defending their people.

Matt Hindman
Matt Hindman
2 years ago

Hey Fukuyama! How is that “end of history” going for you?

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt Hindman
Terence Fitch
Terence Fitch
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt Hindman

I think that was addressed in the article. I assume that like all of us other perfect people who have been forever correct you can cast the first stone.

Bernard Hill
Bernard Hill
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt Hindman

…read his 1992 book Matt. The history he was talking about, is the history of political structure ideology, not the history of geopolitical events.

Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Bernard Hill

I read it and I could hardly find a more emptier and corrupt theory. That book could be written in 1850 predicting that liberalism is the optimal ideology . This liberalism is nothing else that the eternal re-incarnation of the petty bourgeois: the polite gentleman, the neocon, the neoliberal, etc. As a reaction to this emptiness we had socialism and fascism almost destroy humanity, yet we continue to prop up the illusion.

Nicolas Jouan
Nicolas Jouan
2 years ago
Reply to  Dan Croitoru

Maybe but to be fair with Fukuyama, his main point is not that liberalism is a utopia or even necessarily the preferred solution. His theory says that liberalism seems to be the inescapable ‘end of the road’ of political ideology, and that it tends to generate its own problems.

Last edited 2 years ago by Nicolas Jouan
Dan Croitoru
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Reply to  Nicolas Jouan

Without achieving progress in the symbolic we’ll not be able to sustain a global capitalistic society and we’ll continue to have catastrophic crisis. That’s why it is important to look for real alternatives to liberalism.

Michael K
Michael K
2 years ago

And I think that especially younger people who grew up in that world, where they didn’t experience either the violent conflict of the twentieth century, or the dictatorship of a communist regime, began to take liberal democracy for granted.

That viewpoint, in my opinion, is completely jumbled. It’s not that due to the fact these people haven’t experienced fascism, that they failed to defend democracy. It’s due to that fact that they are now actively creating fascism themselves. We humans are just too short-lived. History repeats, or rhymes, far too regularly.

Last edited 2 years ago by Michael K
Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael K

I feel like both things can be true. They take liberal democracy for granted AND are creating a brand new form of fascism.

Bernard Hill
Bernard Hill
2 years ago

….first Matt Taibbi, then Glenn Greenwald, then Bill Maher, and now Francis F. All strength to their bows I say. This is is how the the nutty end of the Left gets frayed.

Elizabeth dSJ
Elizabeth dSJ
2 years ago
Reply to  Bernard Hill

You must have read a different interview than I did. The one above is from a smug, hypocritical liberal elitist, who above all hates “populism” — i.e. ordinary people democratically exercising self-determination.

Vince B
Vince B
2 years ago

One misconception, though sadly irrelevant, is the notion that a large percentage of Trump supporters believe his lie that the election was stolen. Over 74 million Americans voted for him in 2020. If even a quarter of that number truly believed the election was stolen, we would have already had mass protest, violence, even civil war in the streets.
There are indeed strong authoritarian instincts coming out on the right, among rank and file conservatives, and intellectuals like Sohrab Ahmari to name just one. But they are at least self-aware.
My larger fear is that self-described liberals, the “good guys,” the ones who control the culture, are so ready to clamp down on anything they now describe as “hate speech,” “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or a “threat to public safety” – all in the name of saving democracy. As Fukuyama points out, it’s mostly the Big Tech social media platforms that are doing the censoring at the liberal establishment’s behest. The mass media slandering of the Canadian truckers and the overwhelming support among “liberals” in Canada and the US for Trudeau’s siezing of some of their accounts, is terrifying.
I am far less sanguine than Fukuyama that the war in Ukraine is going to reinstill a respect and understanding of liberalism in the West. Both “sides” have seem to lost both.

Jürg Gassmann
Jürg Gassmann
2 years ago

I thought Fukuyama was a windbag when I read “End of History”, and this interview has further consolidated that judgement. His ideologically informed selective perception is mind-blowing.

James Anthony Seyforth
James Anthony Seyforth
2 years ago

It’s simple regarding social media. Regulate them such that their systems are just like public utilities and force them to not use algorithms to ciphon viewpoints or propaganda. Instead force algorithms that just present the information. And allow some levers that are user generated (e.g. advertising) to allow them to promote, but not self promote via Facebook algorithms.

Information flow is an essential physical phenomenon just like the flow of goods, light, water, electricity. Information is perhaps even more important than those in it’s power to change the future of human civilisation.

Until we accept that any idea that is created and instantiated in reality – such as Facebook, Twitter – is not in the end the property of those who created it once it becomes ingrained into the populace (that is, if it depends on a society or community to keep it running and profitable) then it must be regulated as if it is a common carrier. The same way water is not biased towards some community because the owner of it has control over who they think will make them the most money if they ciphon it.

Creating an idea such as Facebook is great, but to be able to maintain a grip on such a tool or platform while it’s influencing decisions in every country on earth is wholly destructive.

Last edited 2 years ago by James Anthony Seyforth
Andrew Langridge
Andrew Langridge
2 years ago

What are the arguments against simply removing the anonymity of SM accounts? Requiring some sort of ID would make people accountable for what they post, and subject them to prosecution under existing laws against hate speech etc. There would have to be safeguards, as there are in good companies, to protect whistleblowers, but otherwise what’s not to like?

D M
D M
2 years ago

Having first seen the title, I found the thoughts actually expressed in the article surprisingly realistic. The expectation of the future of ‘liberalism’ seems to based on hope rather than any certainty. And we do need a lot of hope having lived in a world which brought us ‘leaders’ like Trump, Johnson, Biden and others as well as power of global corporations , indulgent wokery, censorship authoritarian governmental edicts etc,etc,etc. And there is no certainty that there won’t be more hot wars.

David Batlle
David Batlle
2 years ago

From the guy who predicted the end of history. Why is anybody still listening to him? At best, it was a pause.

Last edited 2 years ago by David Batlle
Mark Vernon
Mark Vernon
2 years ago

In his famous book, and the reference to the “last man”, Fukuyama recognised what the ancient Greeks called thumos, a spirited part of human nature that yearns to live for more than bare life. We don’t just have a will to pleasure or will to power; the most crucial is our will to meaning. And it will be satisfied one way or another.
Thumos might manifest perversely as a Putin, but can also fire a Socrates to die for truth, as Plato realised when he wrote about Socrates.
This implies the task is not adjusting liberalism but thinking about the soulless flatlands that have come to accompany it.

Rob Britton
Rob Britton
2 years ago

It wasn’t supposed to be this way was it Francis?

János Klein
János Klein
2 years ago

I was nodding at his “demand for respect” idea until he lost me by speaking of “criminals” like Trump.

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
2 years ago

Found it strange (or maybe not so surprising since he is from CA, after all) that he mentioned wanting to see *less* checks and balances clogging up the system but moments later asserted the need for *more* when discussing actions coming from the right…