FRANCIS FUKUYAMA- “The End of History?”
Most of the critiques of Fukuyama's article come from people who have never fully read the article. Many
criticized Fukuyama's use of the phrase “the end of history,”
believing it to be a foolish and naïve claim, thinking “This guy
is stupid, how can history end?” But, Fukuyama literally writes in
his essay that history will continue, that day to day existence
is not ending and that there will continue to be conflict. Fukuyama bases his idea of history as a thing with a beginning, middle, and end on the work of Hegel. He wrote about the end of history in terms of the evolution of the victorious
ideology, as a political progression. Understanding the context in which Fukuyama's article was written is crucial. It was written at the end of the twentieth century, when the sole ideological victor between liberal democracy, communism, and fascism, was liberal democracy. He
argued that although Western liberalism's realization was still in
process in the material world, the idea of it had triumphed, as
evidenced by the spread of Western consumerist culture and the
gradual movement towards democratic and liberal reforms in countries
that previously espoused alternate ideologies.