The subject of “The end of history” is a bit confusing to me because I have a hard time grasping exactly what is being meant by the term. The Christian’s Heaven or Hell scenario was their version of an “End of development” that would cast humanity into either an eternal hellish state or an eternal heavenly state. Their problem was that they couldn’t figure out what Heaven actually looked like, so couldn’t aim their efforts precisely. Prior to that, Moses foresaw an end to the world as they knew it and didn’t speculate as to what would follow it. The Jewish tradition became the Christian’s view plus an “Abyss” of being simply totally forgotten.
It is often attempted, with moderate success, to erase all knowledge of prior history so as to establish a new age founded on new premises (usually rewriting history so as to hide the old). Does that count as an “end of history”?
The world is definitely a stage with us as the players and though there are many exciting and mundane episodes with notable climaxes, the story is never ending.
What do you do when “it is all figured out”?
You just pretend that it isn’t and use what you know to inspire others to keep trying to figure it out while you use their efforts to further your own interests; higher technology, more power to dictate more inspiration to get more - unwise, but certainly human. Nothing is really new, merely more of it, rearranged a bit, new paint, new people, but same ole same ole theme.
Humanity is being reshaped like a statue being crushed up so as to form new clay to be used to form the new bigger statue… of the same old thing.
So what does “End of History” really mean? My guess is that it means that old ways of doing things have reached their climax and it is merely time to realize new ways of doing the same ole things (rather than the much wiser way of realizing that the old things were never right to begin with).
I don’t consider Hegal and Marx to have been wise, merely clever; “Fallen Fellows” sticking their fingers in the pie of Man just like a medical doctor who has decided what medicines to distribute throughout the world to cure all diseases, without truly verifying it. Man is cursed with God-wannabes, the lust to be a Goddictator (Nietzsche’s Ubermensch).
I, a bit like Hegal, can tell you where it ends up and why, but not when or how it gets there… or even what kind of species remains. Who is to be in the real Heaven? It is looking very suspiciously like it isn’t going to be human (as we were discussing on the other thread). Would that constitute an “End of History”, the end of humanity?