The Darkness at the End of History

The fate of sophisticated arguments that become best-selling books seems to be a descent into caricature and cliché. Not simply the nuances, but even the substance and significance of the argument are overwhelmed by its reduction to catch-phrases and soundbites that circulate widely yet convey little of the author’s ideas. This is probably an inevitable consequence of the interaction between intellectual and public culture, but it is nonetheless a rather depressing reality. Few books demonstrate this dynamic as graphically as The End of History and the Last Man. The book has been portrayed as an uncritical paean to liberal democracy; a piece of post-Cold War triumphalism; an ethnocentric condescension, and much more. Most commonly of all, it has been cast as a deeply ideological piece of naivete: “who, at the close of the twentieth century could seriously believe that history has ended? Look, everywhere it is back!” has become a throwaway line for innumerable commentators congratulating themselves at putting so misconceived a piece of hubris firmly in its place. And yet in the face of all this, one is tempted to ask, “who indeed?” Certainly not the author of The End of History and the Last Man. In fact, despite the sunny optimism of which it is often accused, perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is its darkness. It is this sense of pessimism and foreboding, I would like to suggest, that is particularly relevant today and that gives the book continuing and disturbing relevance. Although The End of History is famous, its core argument is so frequently misconstrued that it bears restating. Following Alexandre Kojève’s interpretation of Hegel, Fukuyama presents history as a meaningful process driven by the struggle for recognition. The willingness to overcome the natural fear of death in a quintessentially human quest and desire for recognition marks the start of truly “human” history. In its progressive, optimistic mode, history then becomes the story of a