The End of History
Once upon a time in a land far far away (America), a political scientist named Francis Fukuyama suggested that we’d reached the end of history.
He didn’t mean that things would stop happening, but that we’d reached the end of the longstanding human struggle to manifest the best form of human society.
As a species, we’ve tested a diverse range of social models. We’ve fiddled with our economies and experimented with politics. We’ve played with being ruled by gods, royalty and the rule of law. We’ve tried and failed and tried again… And it was Francis’ belief that with no viable alternative, the Western model of liberal democracy (along with our capitalist economic system) was perhaps our final creation.
In his opinion, this was not only the best we could do right now, but the best we might ever do in human history — and therefore, the end.
I remember reading his paper years ago and hating the thought that we might all be doomed to live like this forever.
In his essay he mentions that there is a, “broad unhappiness with the impersonality and spiritual vacuity of liberal consumerist societies. Yet while the emptiness at the core of liberalism is most certainly a defect in ideology — indeed, a flaw that one does not need the perspective of religion to recognize — it is not at all clear that it is remediable through politics.” (The End of History? p.14)
I think part of the trouble is that Canadian consciousness and culture generally don’t value human life outside of our our relationship to things. Our culture actively sabotages our ability to connect with each other. And we’re not taught to understand ourselves in relation to nature but instead according to the property we possess and produce.
This contribute to the “emptiness”, the great “spiritual vacuity” that haunts us and our institutions. The beliefs that we are nothing without money and that our very humanity is defined by our ability to labour, are woven into our founding philosophies. So their influence is everywhere.
This means that even as we’re abusing our environment, our spirits are breaking, we’re deprived of rest, our relationships are suffering and the threads of democracy are loosening around us — we pretend those losses are worth it so long as we can keep saying “record profits” and “economic growth”. Perhaps so we can distract ourselves from death with a trail of little treats along the way.
But fuck, wouldn’t it be great to live in a world where people were happy? Where we all felt it was okay to rest? Where our ideas of success were oriented towards improving our quality of life? And where quality of life wasn’t wholly dependent on the amount sitting in your CIBC savings account? Where people weren’t so chronically stressed about money that the had space to explore their desire?
I mean, if we’re all going to die anyways, might as well live a little better than this. Right?
A girl can dream.
