Thinking about the END OF HISTORY.

History will never be lost, only the sense of it will be lost. Keep the sense of it, You keep history.
can this be done?

Sure. Just rewrite it every few hundred years… always fresh… always a reason to fight over it… eternal fresh carnage.

No reason to let it go to waste.

If the sense of history will be lost, then it will make no sense to have history at all, because there will be no one who knows anything about both the sense of history and the history itself. There will be no historian, no one who knows what history and ist sense is, probably even no one with a sense for the meaning of the past for both the present and the future.

If history will totally become also a part of a modern ideology like any other cultural phenomeneon, then it will be merely part of a religious system, although a modern one, and no longer be its own system - provided that some other historical existentials will also be lost -, so the ideological (modern religious) system and its language (media) will be able then to “sweep” history under the ideological (modern religious) “carpet” and afterwards nnihilate it. That will be done, if the chance will be there - certainly. We have been seing this bad development because it has been becoming more and more obvious. Interestingly it has been having a correlation with the modern development of the machines and all the other modern developments. Thus: amongst others the machines are strongly involved in that process.

It seems to me to have any certainty about the end of history, one must have great certainty about the variables for change and contact. IOW it would presume things like the standard model in physics is, say, 95 percent complete and we can from this and standard models in chem and bio, determine likely possible changes and encounters and, well, potential modes of life. Personally I think current science covers a much smaller % than its utterly loyal adherents have decided (intuitively!). So to me there is something more hypothetical than is stressed in the thread. If these standard models are correct and we generally extrapolate from them correctly and with good strong intuition, then the end of history is or will come [enter date or process step].

Yes, and with the utmost probability those standard models are correct.

I don’t know how one determines this. Not empirically in any case. But actually there has been growing evidence that constants and laws are more local in time and space than previously thought. IOW the ontology/notion of natural law is being called into question. (which does not mean it is all just chaos, hardly) But my point was more focused on the completeness than the accuracy, though I have serious questions about the latter also. (which again does not mean I think all those experiments just ran a weird anomalous streak and mislead us.)

Oh, Jimmy, you’re such a pessimistic creature. :mrgreen:

Humanity has often let humanity down - at first - but then it’s also come to its own defenses with great courage and solidarity.

We just can’t really know about the end of history.

As Vollgraff put it, as long as there is a drive for society, there is a self-preservation instinct in people.

Yeah, no man has ever fallen from a high mountain, because his great spirit and courage prevents his fall.
Man never gets so lustfully drunk that his will to survive doesn’t prevent any car wreck.
[size=85]…ummhuh.[/size]

What are the signs of the end of history for you?

When I can sort through the news and see only deja vues.

In today’s paradigm of eternal deciet, documented, hard to change, history is strongly disliked (shades of Nineteen Eighty-Four).

… the new socialist America (and entire West actually, if not the world).

That is partly why they favor people living for only 30 years, so they can’t ever get old enough to realize that what they are seeing is merely a rerun. They hate long term memory of any sort.

Yeah.

Do you also know Orwell’s book “Animal Farm”?

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” :wink:

I’ve been intrigued by the End of History debate quite a bit so I thought I’d give it a go. I read through the first 6 and last two pages of this thread so hopefully I didn’t happen to miss the post which says exactly what I’m about to say.

The way I’ve understood the End of History debate is that the primary assertion was that society has been created to provide humanity comfort, well-being, an easy and happy life. The French Revolution had asserted some of the cornerstone ideologies, so to speak, of what that happy life would be like (Liberté, égalité, fraternité), there are more attributes to it, you can throw in notions of socialism and even communism depending how you want to spin it, but ultimately the idea is that everyone will be equal and free of necessity and compulsion, the government aiding and maintaining this state of affairs. The End of History is not something that is meant to have already occured, but that, barring a few stags and detours along the way, humanity is supposed to be moving towards these ideals.

The debate does not only center around this “final state” being the “End”, but also the idea that, if all of our wants are taken care if, there is nothing really left for us to do, nothing to rebel against, no more great deeds to accomplish. There will be daily events, but no real “history” so to speak, and I’m pretty sure this is meant in the sense of monumental history, there will be no great figures to stand above the rest, because everyone is equal (presupposing that equality has been acheived).

I find it difficult to really pick a side on what I believe. I think it is possible that an End of History could be reached in this sense, if there were genetically designed test tube babies as well as many other special circumstances… but maybe in the end I don’t think it is likely. It doesn’t really seem like it is human nature to stay satisfied even under the best of circumstances (though again, I get to thinking, couldn’t some kind of soma or other synthetic be produced to keep us satisfied?)… it is difficult to say, though still I think that we define ourselves as a species by accomplishments. Even though I’m not terribly fascinated by it personally, even if a state of bliss and equality and all that was reached, part of that bliss might be achieved by venturing into space, for example, and we can never know what we might encounter there.

What I really think is important about this debate that doesn’t really have to do with picking a side or not, but can amount to the same thing, is contemplating on how we as humans (at least some of us) can be very much satisfied and appeased. Society has become intricately structured, and for the main (in the west at least) a life plan has been set out for us (ie. grow up playing a little, learn how to function in school, get a job, enjoy certain designated liesure activities, make a family, and so on)…

Some people do not follow the expected life plan, true, but then it is frequently the case that their lives do not possess monumental historicality. Even a lot of recent inventions that are monumental, internet and computers, for example, though they impact our lives greatly and have certain benefits, have in a lot of ways sunken us deeper into the intricately structured fabric of society… Many people spend a lot less time out of doors, even taking physical action in general… also computers have done much to increase social/governmental efficiency and controls.

There are certain aspects of this issue that are not new. I don’t think people always just went out and took destiny into their hands. Human society has always been quite structured and had many social rules and customs (both if you were nobility or a peasant, though the life of a peasant was significantly more limited).

It seems to me like the philosophical school existentialism never really caught on, and was never really progressed by many thinkers beyond the mid-twentieth century… Maybe it’s because the idea of being able to do whatever you feel and make it your meaning seemed so vague to hold any weight? But I think there could have been potential there to really revolutionize the way we interact as a species, breaking down roles and customs, if we could keep our historical heritage and our humanity as a way to communicate, perhaps putting more of a focus on that issue as well, how we can communicate (share meaning, and about what?) when customs are broken down, as well as tying in more pragmatism and making existentialism a pragmatic philosophy of praxis, as well as our relation to existence…

Anyway, now I’m just rambling.

As I said: if there will not come up a new culture, which is not global, then the history will probably end. The globalists will bring the last historical epoch - the globalistic epoch - to its end.

I don’t see why a globalist trend necessitates the end of history. You mean because it would encompass the larger swathe of culture and how we are conditioned and how we our engagement with society is designated? Isn’t that what the trends you were speaking of being synthesized (capitalism/communism) are on smaller scales? They are ways of life in which conventional rules guide conduct.

I think there is a problem in the thinking of the End of History debate because there is a demand, which I read in the exerpt you posted from Fukuyama, and I noticed it repeated in Gregory B. Smith, and probably in others. It is embodied in this passage:

There is a demand here to look at history in a very particular way, which actually negates the importance of monumental history rather than denies its possibility. While it may be true that we do not have to care for every crackpot scheme concocted by individuals across the world, I see in that passage an ideological pressure being put on individuals which seeks to deny them power and possibility, which I feel is unphilosophical, because regardless how slight such a possibility is, that doesn’t negate it entirely.

This issue is brought up in a different manner by Laurence Lampert while providing an interpretation of Nietzsche in his book Nietzsche and Modern Times

In this passage, far from saying that it would be impossible for an individual to carve out his/her own place in history, the belief in that possibility is a danger to the “master builder”, which needs individuals to see themselves as stones in a greater ediface, whether it be a capitalist, communist, or globalist society.

I see this pre-naming “crackpot” in Fukuyama, and Lampert’s assertion that Nietzsche “ridicules long before its promulgation the existentialist faith that we are free to create ourselves” itself part of an ideology with a political purpose. We might become part of a globalist society, we might become very controlled and discouraged, labelled “crackpots” (and in other regards relevant to discussions being carried on a few posts earlier, “conspiracy theorists”) but I don’t think it negates the potentiality of historical occurence taking place again.

A globalist trend necessitates the end of history of a culture (in this case: the Western culture) via civilisation of that culture, and the last epoch or phase with history in this sense is always globalistic. In the case of the Western (Occidental) culture it even refers to the whole globe because the Westerners have discovered and captured the whole planet Earth - and even more of the solar system. I don’t see another culture which will be able to be born “soon”. So this time it is possible that there will be no culture anymore, which means there will be only cosmic developments and evolution but no history. That trend is cognoscible.

So, not the globalist trend itself necessitates the end of history, but the “life” of a culture, and the globalism is merely a phase of a culture, a globalistic phase of a culture, the last historical phase of a culture.

I guess we will just have to see. I can see that a lot of people are dissatisfied with the way our society is set up, the culture now prevailent and the life course established and maintained by convention. It is not to say that a new culture will necessarily follow, but I definitely wouldn’t rule out the possibility.

In your last post you use the broad term of culture, western culture, when we are talking about liberal democracy, which is perhaps (at least currently seen as) the west’s penultimate representative form.

I happen to be one who holds an antipathy towards life in liberal democracies. It is not that I am averse to rights or other such safeguards for freedom, it is just that I do not find life lived through the institutions particularly fulfilling. This feeling may not be shared, at least by those willing to act on their sentiments. It is worth noting something again from Fukuyama’s text:

Many people might see the “End of History” as a very good thing, and be actively striving to bring it about. And many others are apathetic or unconscious of the role they play in holding up the dominant structures. I don’t really think the “End of History” is something you can argue for or against in the sense that by constructing the more logical or rhetorically alluring turn of phrase you can win history onto your side. The result of the “End of History” is something that will come about by the actions we do or do not take. There is nothing inevitable about it, but there is a strong momentum that is leading in that direction, and I think it is not unreasonable to say that there are also powerful interests that look forward to an “End of History” in this sense, because the deck is already stacked in their favor and they would like to keep it that way, and they have the resources which they are using to make sure their positions are rested on a solid and stable foundation. I do not subscribe wholly to the view of an elite working culture behind the scenes, but I also think it would be folly to deny that figures like Rupert Murdoch are not exerting influence to keep the consciousness of the general population at a certain level and pointed in a certain direction.

I suppose the question is, as history unfolds, what role will we take in its development?

Why the penultimate representative form?

B.t.w.: I do not only use “the broad term of culture, Western culture”, when I am “talking about liberal democracy”, but also because the “liberal democracy” is merely one of the (last) Western forms of governement.

All “liberal democracies” content an antagonism, a contradiction, similiar to all “liberal equalities” or all “capitalistic socialisms”. And liberality without democracy or democracy without liberality are one of the worst forms of society or government because they serve the purpose of exploitation and are not of long duration.

I agree.

And Marx reversed this statement, although he used Hegel’s dialectic.

Not only and perahps not mostly.

My mistake on the word penultimate.

I wrote that you seemed to use the term Western culture broadly when referring to liberal democracy because you said that the End of History would be the end of a history of culture, and while I understood that you did mean other things, it seemed to me that what is understood by western culture has been partly taken from other cultures either in its origins or throughout its development… so it seemed like what was most under focus was the spread of liberal democracy.

So we agree there is antagonism, but then it seems like you think that when I infer there might be a change in the system it would be to take away liberty, which I did not say and made clear below. I did not propose in my last post what form the government could take instead. What I did say was:

So the question would be, if the institutions were dramatically changed and some done away with, would it still be what is called liberal democracy (keeping in mind that we live in republics no? Perhaps it would…

I’m not sure exactly what you meant here.