![]() Indeed it sounded like a medieval nightmare. There was no better way to organize human affairs. Democracy and free markets ?€” the core values of Western civilization ?€” had proved victorious over all competing systems. Fukuyama argued that the historical process that had seen the rise of feudalism, monarchism, communism, fascism and various other isms had come to its conclusion. He called his thesis "The End of History," and although that sounded apocalyptic, he was attempting to deliver good news. It came from an obscure young Washington think tank dweller named Francis Fukuyama. Two theories ?€” dramatic, bombastic and immediately controversial ?€” emerged from the convoluted mass of academic jabber. Things were flying apart, breaking up, disintegrating. Then the unthinkable happened: One side gave up without anyone firing a shot.The theorists had to scramble in a suddenly unipolar (multipolar?) environment. The academics described this world as "bipolar." There was a method to the madness. The United States and the Soviet Union enforced their national security with a wonderfully acronymed strategy called Mutual Assured Destruction. The prospect of thermonuclear war had a way of clarifying the mind anyone seeking a framework for thinking about the destiny of humankind could start with, at one extreme,Īrmageddon. Every international skirmish could be explained as part of the epic struggle between democracy (or "the free world," as we put it) and the Marxist-Leninist dictatorship of the proletariat ("the godless Commies"). This illusion of comprehensibility was a fringe benefit of the Cold War. ![]() Not so many years ago, the world made a lot more sense.Īt the very least you could pretend to understand it.
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