It's not my area, but I just downloaded both essays from JSTOR, and will look into them soon. I'll be interested in knowing what Fukuyama thinks constitutes the /beginning/ of history. I'm showing my ignorance here, but isn't it a bit narrow to define history as ideological conflict? Wouldn't that make history by definition only start in the Enlightenment?
Robert, thanks for taking the time to read and comment. Hope you find the essays interesting when you find time to read them. Fukuyama is working with an essentially Hegelian theory of history as dialectic. (His real influence is a later follower of Hegel, Alexandre Kojève, but I have not read Kojève's work.) So there is an internal logic and directionality to history driven by the human desire for recognition, which takes different forms at different stages of history but is only universally satisfied by the liberal democratic state's recognition of everyone's equality, liberty, and dignity. As with Hegel, he thinks that with the vantage point provided by history's end, one can look back and discern the logic that has been at work. (I'm not persuaded by the Hegelianism, but I do think the claim is at least plausible that liberal democracies satisfy certain universal human needs more adequately than alternatives.)
That makes a lot more sense. Both articles were really interesting and I bet you get some good discussion from students. I'm in no position to argue with either author. I can make a couple of observations, though. They both seem to think of history as the story of conflicts. One prefers the story of ideological conflict and the other of cultural conflicts. But, I don't see right away that conflict is the only lens through which we must view our past. They both also seem to want to project how the story will unfold, based on how it has so far developed. To do that, however, I should think there would need to be empirical laws we can glean from the past (that is, laws with empirical or predictive force). I'm vaguely recalling the dispute between Carl Hempel's covering-law model and William Dray's "understanding" model. But, whoa! it's been forty years since I read that stuff. I'd better stop now.
They do tend to spark discussion, yes. I don't know if they would say that history is primarily the story of conflicts, but they are coming at it (and of course not as themselves historians) with an interest in predicting the possible sources of future conflict. So they're thinking about conflict in the past because they want to know what kinds of conflict might or might not be likely in the future. As for laws, Fukuyama certainly thinks there is a lawlike logic to history. Huntington not necessarily, though he was very interested in looking for patterns. But I don't read him as claiming that history is necessarily following a set of laws, only as noticing that in different historical eras, conflict seems to be rooted primarily in different factors, and then wondering: what will it be now?
It's not my area, but I just downloaded both essays from JSTOR, and will look into them soon. I'll be interested in knowing what Fukuyama thinks constitutes the /beginning/ of history. I'm showing my ignorance here, but isn't it a bit narrow to define history as ideological conflict? Wouldn't that make history by definition only start in the Enlightenment?
Robert, thanks for taking the time to read and comment. Hope you find the essays interesting when you find time to read them. Fukuyama is working with an essentially Hegelian theory of history as dialectic. (His real influence is a later follower of Hegel, Alexandre Kojève, but I have not read Kojève's work.) So there is an internal logic and directionality to history driven by the human desire for recognition, which takes different forms at different stages of history but is only universally satisfied by the liberal democratic state's recognition of everyone's equality, liberty, and dignity. As with Hegel, he thinks that with the vantage point provided by history's end, one can look back and discern the logic that has been at work. (I'm not persuaded by the Hegelianism, but I do think the claim is at least plausible that liberal democracies satisfy certain universal human needs more adequately than alternatives.)
That makes a lot more sense. Both articles were really interesting and I bet you get some good discussion from students. I'm in no position to argue with either author. I can make a couple of observations, though. They both seem to think of history as the story of conflicts. One prefers the story of ideological conflict and the other of cultural conflicts. But, I don't see right away that conflict is the only lens through which we must view our past. They both also seem to want to project how the story will unfold, based on how it has so far developed. To do that, however, I should think there would need to be empirical laws we can glean from the past (that is, laws with empirical or predictive force). I'm vaguely recalling the dispute between Carl Hempel's covering-law model and William Dray's "understanding" model. But, whoa! it's been forty years since I read that stuff. I'd better stop now.
They do tend to spark discussion, yes. I don't know if they would say that history is primarily the story of conflicts, but they are coming at it (and of course not as themselves historians) with an interest in predicting the possible sources of future conflict. So they're thinking about conflict in the past because they want to know what kinds of conflict might or might not be likely in the future. As for laws, Fukuyama certainly thinks there is a lawlike logic to history. Huntington not necessarily, though he was very interested in looking for patterns. But I don't read him as claiming that history is necessarily following a set of laws, only as noticing that in different historical eras, conflict seems to be rooted primarily in different factors, and then wondering: what will it be now?