In the final stages of the Cold War during the summer of 1989 Francis Fukuyama authored, the seminal article entitled “The End of History” which initially appeared in the summer 1989 issue of The National Interest. In the article, Fukuyama contended that the impending end of the “Cold War” as it had existed since the conclusion of hostilities during the Second World War on September 2, 1945 prefigured the completion of an evolutionary process in political thought and ideology. Fukuyama argued that the process would result in the eventual universalization of liberal democracy and its acknowledgment as the ultimate form of human governance.
What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. This is not to say that there will no longer be events to fill the pages of Foreign Affair's yearly summaries of international relations, for the victory of liberalism has occurred primarily in the realm of ideas or consciousness and is as yet incomplete in, the real or material world. (Fukuyama 2005)
Fukuyama advanced a Hegelian argument influenced by work of Alexandre Kojève and his student Alan Bloom emphasizing that a true understanding of history requires a thorough comprehension of the underlying historical processes originated in the realm of ideas (consciousness) and transcended the material world. Fukuyama and his antecedents maintained that the preëxisting universal consciousness, the realm of ideas, will eventually transform the material, particular world in such a way that it becomes a true representation of the universal consciousness capable of transcending and bridging areas of potential conflict.
As a counterpoint to balance the Hegelian and utopian aspects of Fukuyama’s article our professor, Dr. Col. Ronald L. Hatchett, UASF ret., required his students to read Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations.” Even though he was one of Fukuyama’s mentors, Huntington’s views are the antithesis of those espoused by Fukuyama. Huntington argued that in the post-Cold War era conflicts would occur along cultural fault lines, instead of political and economic ones that had occurred during and before the Cold War.
Civilization Identity will be increasingly important in the future, and the world will be shaped in large measure by the interactions among seven or eight major civilizations. These include Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilization. The most important conflicts of the future will occur along the cultural fault lines separating these civilizations from one another. (Huntington 1993).
The core of Huntington’s thesis rests upon a Hobbesian response to the arguments raised within Fukuyama’s “End of History.” Huntington identified six root causes for future clashes between the various cultural groups: One, difference between civilizations; Two, heightened interaction between differing civilizations; Three, economic and social changes that undermine local identity and inhibit the nation-state from fulfilling its role as definer of the national identity, and unifying force. The need to fill the void created by the inability of the state to serve as a unifying force mandated that religion assume this function previously held by the state. Four, Huntington asserts that cultural differences are more static and less likely to be subject to concessions, unlike political and economic differences to which, solutions are more easily negotiated. Five, economic regionalism; Last, the dual nature of the Western civilization, has resulted in an admiration of the power and influence possessed by the Western nations by Non-Western nations, while, simultaneously inciting what Huntington termed a “return to roots phenomenon”
The six root causes for conflict documented above provide an illustration of the influence of Thomas Hobbes that underpins the “Clash of Civilizations.” In chapter, thirteen of Leviathan Hobbes contended that the nature of humankind was predisposed to be quarrelsome. Hobbes believed that the conflict between humans originated from three sources competition, indifference, and greed.
So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name. (Hobbes 1995)
Huntington’s six sources of potential conflict readily reaffirm the Hobbesian contention humankind is in general a species of selfish beings, indifferent to the welfare of others, driven by the desire for self-preservation that is accomplished through the power accrued only through the achievement of economic and political capital, id: (Huntington 1993). In 2002, nine years after the original publication of the “Clash of Civilizations” and thirteen years after Fukuyama’s propositions regarding the “End of History” Stanley Hoffmann offered a critique of both models in an article entitled “The Clash of Globalizations.”
Hoffmann rejected both Fukuyama and Huntington’s models because both possessed deficiencies in their abilities to account for various phenomena. Hoffmann’s primary objection to the Fukuyamian paradigm revolves around Fukuyama’s failure to account for extremist nationalism and the development of future religious conflicts especially those inspired by radical religious fundamentalist groups especially in the predominantly Islamic countries.
His refutation of the Huntingtonian concept is founded upon both a semantic and a substantive argument. Semantically, Hoffmann contends that Huntington’s definition of what constitutes a civilization is ill-defined. Substantively, Hoffmann makes three points: First, he observed that the Huntingtonian model errs in the sense that it effectively minimizes intrastate conflicts, dismissing them as unimportant. Second, he believes that Huntington’s view grossly exaggerated role religion plays when considering the behavioral development of non-Western elites who are often more secular and Westernized than the lower classes of the populace. Hoffmann, third and final substantive point reflects the synthesis of his prior two points, he maintains that Huntington cannot establish a firm linkage between his concept of a civilization and the foreign policies of the nation-states comprising these civilizations.
Two models made a great deal of noise in the 1990s. The first one -- Francis Fukuyama's "End of History" thesis -- was not vindicated by events. To be sure, his argument predicted the end of ideological conflicts, not history itself, and the triumph of political and economic liberalism. That point is correct in a narrow sense: the "secular religions" that fought each other so bloodily in the last century are now dead. But Fukuyama failed to note that nationalism remains very much alive. Moreover, he ignored the explosive potential of religious wars that has extended to a large part of the Islamic world.
Fukuyama's academic mentor, the political scientist Samuel Huntington, provided a few years later a gloomier account that saw a very different world. Huntington predicted that violence resulting from international anarchy and the absence of common values and institutions would erupt among civilizations rather than among states or ideologies. But Huntington's conception of what constitutes a civilization was hazy. He failed to take into account sufficiently conflicts within each so-called civilization, and he overestimated the importance of religion in the behavior of non-Western elites, who are often secularized and Westernized. Hence he could not clearly define the link between a civilization and the foreign policies of its member states. (Hoffmann 2002)
As an alternative Hoffmann recommended a neoclassical realistic approach founded on the work of Hans Morgenthau and Raymond Aron but with modifications that can account for terrorism by non-state actors and the challenges posed by the political, cultural, and economic globalization especially in the aftermath of the destruction wrought on September 11, 2001. He urged caution and restraint in the development and use of a new framework.
For all these tensions, it is still possible that the American war on terrorism will be contained by prudence, and that other governments will give priority to the many internal problems created by interstate rivalries and the flaws of globalization. But the world risks being squeezed between a new Scylla and Charybdis. The Charybdis is universal intervention, unilaterally decided by American leaders who are convinced that they have found a global mission provided by a colossal threat. Presentable as an epic contest between good and evil, this struggle offers the best way of rallying the population and overcoming domestic divisions. The Scylla is resignation to universal chaos in the form of new attacks by future bin Ladens, fresh humanitarian disasters, or regional wars that risk escalation. Only through wise judgment can the path between them be charted. (Hoffmann 2002).
John Ralston Saul’s article entitled “The Collapse of Globalism: And the rebirth of nationalism” extends Hoffmann’s views on the subject of the relationship between globalization and terrorism to include market fundamentalism. Saul argued that globalism as an idea appeared in a fog much in the same way that God appeared to Moses in a cloud, that ultimately resulted in the formation of Crucifixion Theory of Economics.
Saul maintained that fundamentalist economists advocating Crucifixion Theory hold to the belief that in order to achieve `economic salvation’ a state must be willing to sacrifice the socio-economic well-being of individual to resurrect the state.
…Globalization had shoved ethics to the side from the very beginning and insisted upon a curious sort of moral righteousness that included maximum trade, unrestrained self-interest, and governments alone respecting their debts. These notions were curiously paired with something often called family values, as well as an Old Testament view of good and evil. It somehow followed that if countries were in financial trouble, they were moral transgressors. They had to discipline themselves. Wear hair shirts. Embrace denial and fasting. This was the crucifixion theory of economics: you had to be killed economically and socially in order to be reborn clean and healthy. (Saul 2004)Having read Fukuyama, Huntington, Hoffmann and Saul I find that I concur with Hoffmann’s assessment of both Fukuyama and Huntington’s model. Moreover, I would argue that the need for a more flexible model not tied to the Crucifixion Model was demonstrated as early as 1995-1996 with the bombings of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, and the Khobar Towers.
Works Cited
Fukuyama, Yoshihiro Francis. "The End of History? (1989)." This is Robert L. Stevenson's home page. Edited by Robert L. Stevenson. Robert L. Stevenson. January 13, 2005. http://www.unc.edu/home/rlstev/Text/Fukuyama%20End%20of%20History.pdf (accessed August 13, 2010).
Hobbes, Thomas. "The Leviathan (1660)." Great Voyages: the History of Western Philosophy from 1492-1776, Winter 1997. Edited by Bill Uzgalis and Joy Hughes. Jon Dorbolo, et al. October 1995. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-c.html#CHAPTERXIII (accessed August 13, 2010).
Hoffmann, Irving. "The Clash of Globalizations." Foreign Affairs 81, no. 4 (Jun/Jul 2002): 104-115.
Huntington, Samuel Phillips. "The Clash of Civilizations." Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 22-49.
Saul, John Ralston. "The Collapse of Globalism: And the rebirth of nationalism." Harper's Magazine 308, no. 1846 (March 2004): 33-43.
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