Every once in a while, Gerard Vanderleun fires out a diamond gem of an essay. "On the Return of History" is one such. I strongly recommend reading the whole thing, but the Net is fickle over time so I'll also include a few key excerpts here:
"With the end of the Soviet Union in a whimper and not a bang brighter than the sun on earth, history was officially over. The moment even got its own book, "The End of History," which stimulated an argument that even more than the book emphasized that history was over.
Most sensible people liked it that way. In fact, a lot of people really liked it that way. Because if history for the world was over, these people could get on making the history that really mattered to them: The History of Me."
Gerard admits that this described him too, delves a bit deeper, and discusses his 2000 election vote for "Mini-Me" along the way. You should probably be reading it all.
"Then on one bright and unusually fine New York September morning History came back with a vengeance we'd never seen before in the history of America. It came back and it stayed and stayed and stayed. The doors of history swung open again and we were all propelled through them into... what?
Nobody knows. Not the President, not his opponents, not the right, left, center, or just plain unhinged and now in low-earth orbit. We know how it began, but we don't know how it will end. We don't really know what's next. Indeed, we never know.
It was better when we lived in The History of Me. We knew how Me would end -- birth, fun, school, fun, job, fun, family, fun, age, fun, death and then ... probably fun, who knew, who cared? The meaning of this history was not deep but was to be found in the world "fun." Mini-Mes love fun. You could almost say it is their religion, a religion of fun. A funny concept, fun. Fills the space between birth and death. "He was a fun guy" could be a generic epitaph for the era.
Now we find ourselves back in history as it has always been and it is not fun. Not fun at all. The history of history has little to do with fun, almost nothing at all."
If you're still reading here, you should definitely head on over and just read the whole thing - you've already missed some really good parts. This is just here in case something ever happens to his site.
"History, having returned, will continue to happen, not to Me, but to Us.
We will have war whether we wish it or not. It will continue to be brought to us as it was brought for many years before we could see it in a pillar of flame by day and a pillar of smoke by night. We will be long in this wilderness, perhaps as long as forty years, and it will take a terrible toll from us, soldier and civilian alike; a toll we have not yet begun to see. Like all global wars in the past century, the war upon us will rise in violence until such time as we either capitulate, or find the will to kill our enemies wholesale. This is not what we would choose, but it is what we shall have.
We could, if we wished, withdraw every soldier from every inch of soil that is not American territory and leave them here inside our borders rusting for a decade. War will still come because war is already upon us, and wars do not end in staged withdrawals, but in either defeat or victory. The lessons of Vietnam and the Cold War teach this to us if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.
In this First Terrorist War, the character of our leadership will make a difference to some degree, but it will not decide. It is who we are and who we shall become as a people that will decide. How that will be in the end, I do not know. What I do know is that history, no matter what they tell you, never comes to an end. And because of that, the one small thing that I have the power to do is to decide that I shall no longer vote for Me. I shall vote for Us."
UPDATES:
- Dadmanly comments in "A Warning for Us"
- Rocket's Brain Trust comments in "A True Hero from another War", which includes a ton of related links from arund the bogosphere.
- Celebrim has a very worthy comment right here, as he goes into Fukayama's flawed conception of history and the rise and fall of civilizations. Interesting take on the Dark Ages, too. Two excerpts I rather liked:
"Those of you who think that Islam is just going to collapse on itself, I hope you realize that even if you are right, Islam has a record of successfully governing crappy societies for centuries with no apparent sign of internal collapse. I hope you are prepared to deal with that time frame."
"The barbarians are at the gate just called. They'd like to inform us that history doesn't always turn out the way you think it will, and they want to know what if anything we are going to do about it."
...the one small thing that I have the power to do is to decide that I shall no longer vote for Me. I shall vote for Us.
I've found myself making the same hard choices. Not just as regards voting, but w/r/t what I put my time, money, and energy toward. I don't see as many movies or watch as much T.V. (unless it's Book TV) and I spend three times as much on books and reading as before the fullness of 9-11 set in on me.
Suddenly I'm all grown up and serious. No longer earnest, but serious. Slow to answer and deliberative. It's a strange change and I have yet to completely understand it, but for the first time in my life I feel like something which is much larger than myself is filling my horizon and if I'm patient and watchful I'll know what to do when the time comes. It sounds a bit melodramatic, but it comes close to expressing the sentiment.
Joe,
Great piece. Unfortunately history does tend to repeat itself.
RBT just linked here with this comment:
A real barn burner ala VDH for those history-challenged folks. Unfortunately history tends to come back and bite us in the butt from time to time.
[...]
>>War will still come because war is already upon us, and wars do not end in staged withdrawals, but in either defeat or victory.
I see that the end of the British Empire led to the sacking of London by its former colonies. How very interesting.
T.J., give 'em time....
...after all, Rome didn't fall in a day....
been to london lately ?
in all fairness, Fukuyama didnt say that there would be no more wars, or no more dictatorships. Those are just incidentals. As a Hegelian, he defined history as the debate among different conceptions of society. and in his view democratic capitalism had triumphed, in that no one had a serious counter proposal anymore. Hitler and Stalin denied the validity of capitalist democracy. Someone like Pinochet, OTOH, formulated no alternative ideology, but simply said (rightly or wrongly) his country wasnt ready for it yet. To FF, all the residual non-democracies were like Pinochet, either pretending they were democracies, or pretending they were just paving the way - but not articulating an alternate vision. If you look at Putin, say, this is certainly true - he denies undemocratic aspects of the system ("we really only shut that network down for tax reasons") or claims its an expedient due to the instability of the country.
The only real alternative today, and FF already hinted at it, is religious fundamentalism. And FF's reply is that rel fundamentalism is self defeating as much as Communism is - it cant run states for a prolonged period of time. This is debatable, but I dont think FF is obviously wrong on this.
To liberalhawk (#6),
There are a couple of other considerations. Religious fundamentalism, like Communism, can run the state as long as the money supply holds up, in part because money is necessary to maintain repression. If the state can circumvent that problem, it will survive. It doesn't seem to matter too much whether the money comes from oil, or drugs, or slave labor, or intellectual property theft, all of which are propping up repressive states today.
The other concern is failed states. At present, these states seem to be magnets for religious (or non-religious) oppression, but the oppressor is not the government. Instead, it's a warlord or a terrorist organization, and the money comes from the terror-masters, charities, NGOs, or other external sources.
Call it a downside of globalization. The sickness of these societies can no longer be constrained by national borders.
Thanks, Joe.
liberalhawk: Fukuyama didnt say that there would be no more wars, or no more dictatorships ... As a Hegelian, he defined history as the debate among different conceptions of society. and in his view democratic capitalism had triumphed, in that no one had a serious counter proposal anymore.
Bertrand Russell called Hegelianism "a monument to German stupidity", and the way to be fair to Fukuyama is to say that he isn't as monumentally stupid as the original Hegel was. Democratic Capitalism would have made a much better ending to history than Hegel's ending, which was some kind of Franco-Prussian imperialism. Way, way better than the Marxist Hegelian ending, in which all human conflict is resolved because everybody is dead.
Hegel and Marx may have ended European history, but the rest of the world is still doing stuff. Nobody has a reasonable alternative to Democratic Captialism, but the problem has always been the unreasonable alternatives.
Still, I can half understand why Fukuyama would have said that when he did, and I can understand what Vanderleun is saying. I pretty much spaced off the Clinton Administration. Admit it, everybody did. It was the what-the-hell-who-cares presidency. With the Soviets out of the way, it was safe to let Democrats play with the Big Toybox.
That's right. Because after vietnam we completely closed ourselves off from the world. We didn't support any dictators, or toil in the politics of other nations, bankroll other conflicts, or attempt the occassional assasination.
'The war with Islamism' as WOC often puts, would come to pass one way or the other. But the idea that we were 'isolationsists' in the middle east is ludicrous.
You're right though. Most americans have no idea what they're goverment was doing when they weren't paying attention.
Thanks for the link to a great article Joe.
Vanderleun reflects on the societal and political forces that emerged from the carnage and destruction of World War Two, and acknowledges how ready for the end of history, were those generations who endured.
We wanted history to end in our day, because so much of what we saw, and heard, and were taught from the pages of history was horrible, hurtful, and an affront to all cherished ideals and moral frameworks.
History spoke of evil, of powers and principalities who so rudely intruded upon our consciousness, that we could not maintain the centrality of our self-awareness, that desire to see ourselves as the center of everything. Civilization’s most cherished artifact became the mirror, not fire, and surely not the printing press.
Now, after the collapse of those majestic towers in lower Manhattan in a coordinated attack against our homeland, we are back where we will inevitably be, according to Vanderleun, and it won’t be what we want: "Not fun at all."
Thus it is time, again, for a new seriousness. Not a seriousness in which we stamp our feet and say, “No, really, we mean it this time,” such as with the recent plan put forth for Really Real SecurityTM. Not a seriousness that says, “we’ll do everything they’re doing, only better.” In other words, not a portrayed seriousness that panders yet again to the many mini-me’s (to use Vanderleun’s humorous reference).
No more pandering. What we need, as often expressed by the fine thinkers and impartial analysts at Winds of Change, is an urgent appeal to our mature selves. To the Us that can weigh the threats and opportunities in front of us, gain consensus on the risks, and strive for the greater good without partiality, reserve or constraint.
History is back, and looming larger than ever. We rise to our better natures on the crest of these waves, or risk being swept away in its tides.
I posted further commentary at http://dadmanly.bl*gspot.com/2006/04/warning-for-us.html
An Army of Davids and Seers
Dadmanly,
I really do like your style. I just posted your comment as an update to mine on Joe's great find of the day.
There is a close analogy to what is occuring here. The term is spontaneous order. RBT has written about this before but I can't remember if I've posted it on my blog yet. I will look and post it when I find it.
In essence when people are faced with a common danger/threat and gov't et al won't or can't respond to the threat, individuals will come together in an ad hoc manner. They will assess the risks, independently come up with a plan/solution, and take collective action for the common good of all without preference.
This was seen in the WTC Bldgs by people who ignored "official" sources/directions and made it to safety. Boats arrived to ferry folks away from the danger area.
This was also seen in Katrina when the forum section of the New Orleans Times Picayune functioned as a common site for people trapped in buildings could communicate their location, status, and need for assistance. All without the intervention and aide from governmental sources. There is an ISP provider in New Orleans that deserves a medal as they kept their system up and allowed this to happen. Fortunately a guard unit on the scene recongized the importance of this effort and contributed some help with power and logistics (See WIRED News. and Here). And see this interesting tidbit from the recovery effort. I think the gov't would do well to throw some bucks at the TelComs that are whinning :--).
The analysts here at WOC are the Army of Davids and/or seers that can steer us out of this mess and get the rest to follow the lead.
RBT
Glen
Fukayama was not the first Hegelian to claim that the end state of history was capitalist democracy. Kojeve, was writing that already in the 1940s. I think if you look seriously at what drives Hegels system, the Kojeve-Fukuyama interpretation is a strong one. (and Kojeve explicitly said Marx was right as well, that the final state had to address material needs and create an era of plenty - he just put a twist on this by saying that capitalism, plus a moderate welfare state, did this far better than Marxist societies. Fukuyama, rightly, I think, says that debates about the extent of the welfare state are not about different systems)
"Fukayama was not the first Hegelian to claim that the end state of history was capitalist democracy."
There is in this an undercurrent of social Darwinism. The underlying myth is evolution is a ladder, and each rung represents a higher level of attainment than the previous one. Modernity is obsessed with the notion of progress, and this notion has served it well - far better than competing models of history have served thier culture - but I seriously doubt that progress is an inherent artifact of the natural laws of the universe. I don't think progress, in the sense of progress to 'higher' and more 'advanced' societies, is any fashion garuanteed.
The truth of the matter is that real evolution cares not a wit for subjective values like 'happiness' and is utterly blind to things like 'progress'. Survival of the fittest doesn't mean survival of the best - to say nothing of anyone's standard of 'best'. Modern animals are not 'better animals' than extinct animals, and if we are fortunate enough to live in a time when modern society is better (and don't get me wrong I do feel its objectively better) than that that has come before, we aren't looking at something that is the result of the enevitable sweep of history but in fact as a result of alot of hard work and more than a little good fortune.
I think that anyone that thinks societies enevitably advance into social democracies is going to be in for a major disappointment. I don't think that societies or cultures enevitably advance, or even enevitably turn into anything (except perhaps dead societies and dead cultures).
My own theory of history is that there is some sort of as of now poorly understood intangible social coinage in which societies trade, invest, or squander. This social coinage is subject to laws similar to the laws which govern economics. Now, it would be nice to have an economy which was always growing and creating more wealth, but anyone with a realistic view of the world realizes that sometimes thier are recessions in which wealth contracts. The reasons that this happens are complex, but they are pretty much unavoidable. I believe that cultures work in much the same fashion. Social coinage can increase, creating increasingly stable and unified societies which for lack of a better term I'll call 'cosmopolitian'. Production of social capital goods can decrease, resulting in social instability, anarchy, and eventually disollution.
Fukayama's claims that we were reaching an end of history remind me of other popular claims about the '90's, for example that the economy had been fixed in such a way that there would never be a recession again. Otherwise respectable economists got on television and predicted that the stock market would reach 100,000 by 2010. Anyone that suggested such obvious things that a stock market couldn't keep growing at nearly double rate of the economy was ridiculed. People that predicted a coming collapse were accused of fearmongering. We'd seen it all before in the '20's, and the result was pretty much inevitable if anything is inevitable.
Actually, I'm pretty certain Fukayama wasn't the first person to claim that history had ended. During the Pax Romana, I'm pretty sure that they felt that the 'Eternal Glory' of Rome was pretty much inevitable as well. I bet they had thier future history all mapped out too.
Back to my theory of history, it's my opinion that Dark Ages occur as a result of a rapid exapansion of material technology, leading to a situation in which the old social technologies are unable to cope. Further advance of the material technology becomes impossible until the social technology is reformed or just catches up. The result is a social and technological collapse, or at least that's the obvious result. The more important result is that society is free to evolve new social structures capable of handling the new technologies. The interesting thing about the Dark Ages is that while overall learning and literacy rates decreased drastically, technology paradoxically became more important than ever. By the time Europe comes out of the Dark Ages, certainly no latter than the 12th century, its practical engineering ability is exceeding Rome. It's making greater and more widespread use of mechanical power than Rome ever did, and its building buildings with greater subtlety and greater understanding of what it is doing than Rome could manage. Roman Europe's social machine couldn't handle the waterwheel. Fuedal Europe couldn't exist without it. I see the Dark Ages not only as a time of practical innovation in what we normally think of as technology, but more importantly as a time of innovation in social technology. You come out of the Dark Ages and into the High Middle Ages not just with pulleys, block and tackle, stirrups, hay, gothic cathedrals, and waterwheels in every village, but also with St. Augustine, the Magna Carta, and political theories about the universal rights of man.
Or in short, social technology is technology in every way shape or form. Anyone that plays Civilization shouldn't find that insight surprising, but I think it is an important insight nonetheless. What we are seeing in the West today is nothing less than the failure of our social technology to keep up with the changing world. Heck, what we are seeing in the Islamic world is a failure of THIER social technology to keep up with the changing world, but don't assume from that they are inevitably the losers in this contest. It may turn out that dark ages social technology is better suited for the next century than we would like especially if we imagine that history has ended. Those of you who think that Islam is just going to collapse on itself, I hope you realize that even if you are right, Islam has a record of successfully governing crappy societies for centuries with no apparant sign of internal collapse. I hope you are prepared to deal with that time frame.
The barbarians are at the gate just called. They'd like to inform us that history doesn't always turn out the way you think it will, and they want to know what if anything we are going to do about it.
I'm very flattered that you took the time to read and to think and to link.
And thank you for the kind words as well.
celebrim - ping me offlist (don;t have your email)
A.L.
#14 A minor point in an otherwise great post - you wrote:
"but also with St. Augustine, the Magna Carta, and political theories about the universal rights of man."
Don't you mean Thomas Aquinas?