Are terrorists rebelling against history’s “last men”?

– The case for the last part of Francis Fukuyama’s thesis

The shocking momentum of extremist outfits like ISIS and Boko Haram feeds an almost existential anxiety among many. What is going on? Are we witnessing a real threat to liberal democracy? Even to civilization as we know it? When I have tried to explain the violent outbursts of our time, for which frustrated young men are largely responsible, I have often pointed out dread of the boundlessness of globalization, a fear-mixed disdain for the blurred borders between categories like nation, culture and gender. There might be a likewise philosophical but slightly different and elegant explanation in a 23 year old book.

Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 article “The End of History” and his subsequent book three years later with an addition in the title, “… and the Last Man”, got enormous attention. His thesis, ambitiously substantiated, was that liberal capitalist democracy was winning around the world. Many were impressed, but as the years went by the conclusions drawn by this American political scientist received loads of criticism.

Today some say that it is hard to imagine Fukuyama being more wrong. They take Russian expansionism, the seemingly successful authoritarian capitalism in China, Muslim fundamentalism and the growth of xenophobia in Europe as unequivocal evidence that liberal democracy is not only retreating but challenged as idea. Opponents that are themselves liberal even give Fukuyama’s “determinism” the blame for liberals being too lazy to defend what they believe in.

I have always believed that Francis Fukuyama’s analysis was incredibly spot-on for its time, and when I read some of the critics I wonder if they have read the book, or even the article, and, if they have, how they can so shallowly interpret what he wrote.

I see “The End of History” as a description of a historic direction, not as a political pamphlet. If it turns out that a majority of the people in the world eventually resent living in some kind of liberal democracy, then he will have been proven wrong, of course. But that certainly remains to see.

Fukuyama never said that everything was settled in 1989. He saw that there was a strong general tendency towards liberal democracy and market economy, and he also saw that in a number of countries and regions the case looked a bit less clear. That was true then, and it is still true, not because the concept of liberal capitalist democracy has not been challenged, because it has, many times, but mainly because there are no credible alternatives. Which would those be? Putin’s nationalist Russia? Pseudo-Communist China? The Caliphate?

The number of electoral democracies has not ceased to increase; on the contrary, it reached an all-time high of 125 last year. The waves of demonstrations for more freedom did not cease after 1990, and they did not cease after 2011. Francis Fukuyama recently pointed out a small but striking sign of the allure that democracy continues to exert: Why would countries like Russia or Iran even bother to arrange sham referendums and fake elections if the authoritarian model stood out as a truly enticing alternative?

Concerning Russia, the question arises whether the Russians (still) support Putin because they sincerely prefer a society under his authoritarian rule to a Western style society or because they realize that the other option is out of reach. Or that they simply have not been given a sincere chance to compare.

The case for China as a viable alternative could be strong, considering its material success, but then one must bear in mind that the Chinese thoroughly embraced one important part of liberal capitalist democracy, namely the capitalist part. Whether the billion-plus Chinese will indefinitely accept being ruled over their heads regardless of the level of prosperity is up to anyone to assess. Fukuyama bets that 50 years from now it is more likely that China will resemble the USA than vice versa. I am not inclined to bet against. In fact, the Chinese, who have never experienced true democracy, are freer today than ever. They cannot organize politically, but the scope for certain types of opposition is nonetheless bigger than it used to be. Protest demonstrations against environmental hazards and corruption are already common.

***

Now, in my view Fukuyama’s book has become topical again lately — or rather the last part of his analysis, the one about “the last man”. By “last men” he refers to the inhabitants of the world that arises when liberal democracy has taken over; people who might become complacent, self-absorbed and void of pride and fiery strivings — as opposed to the constantly fighting “first men” in early history.

The arrival at the “end of history” not only entails the danger of complacency and boredom, but also of the opposite: An urge to “return to being first men engaged in bloody and pointless prestige battles, only this time with modern weapons.” … “the absence of regular and constructive outlets of megalothymia may simply lead to its later resurgence in an extreme and pathological form”.

Fukuyama thus foresees that scores of (young) men at this stage may long for a sense of pride and a just cause to fight for (I choose not to consider Fukuyama’s use of “men” instead of the more neutral synonym “humans” a coincidence). Or just any cause:

“… the virtues and ambitions called forth by war are unlikely to find expression in liberal democracies.” … “One suspects that some people will not be satisfied until they prove themselves by that very act that constituted their humanness at the beginning of history: they will want to risk their lives in a violent battle, and thereby prove beyond any shadow of a doubt to themselves and to their fellows that they are free. They will deliberately seek discomfort and sacrifice, because the pain will be the only way they have of proving definitely that they can think well of themselves, that they remain human beings.”

He continues:

“… supposing that the world has become ‘filled up’, so to speak, with liberal democracies, such as there exist no tyranny and oppression worthy of the name against which to struggle? Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy.”

In 1992 Fukuyama found a few examples of this kind of regression to “first men” in modern history, such as the French student revolts of 1968 and the left-wing extremism in West Germany and Italy in the 1970s. But the clearest example was further back in time: The sentiment before the outbreak of World War I, when many Europeans “simply wanted war because they were fed up with the dullness and lack of community in civilian life” after a century without a continent-wide war. There were pro-war demonstrations in several capitals. It was a kind of rebellion against middle-class civilization with its lack of challenge.

I have always thought that it should be possible to satisfy the instinct Fukuyama calls megalothymia, a compulsion to be superior to others, by other means than physical violence, such as sports. In “The End of History” he doubts this: “How long megalothymia will be satisfied with metaphorical wars and symbolic victories is an open question”. However, there is one recent development in the field of symbolic violence that Fukuyama hardly could have foreseen in 1992, namely the formidable development of computer games with a vast variety of war and crime themes. Many of us sometimes express our contempt for the brutal schemes and coarse language of those games, but as substitutes for actual killing and maiming they are not that bad.

***

Obviously a majority of today’s terrorists could not possibly claim that they live in parts of the world that are characterized by peace and prosperity. But they undoubtedly lack regular and constructive outlets for that longing for battle, because the states they live in, be it Pakistan, Nigeria or even Iraq, no longer start wars against other nations. Vladimir Putin has waged territorial wars three times this century, which conceivably means that young Russian men with a megalothymia-like urge can find an outlet for this in the army. Perhaps the same goes for the USA, which has had hundreds of thousands of soldiers on foreign soil since the turn of the century. The most powerful terrorist organization today, ISIS, is increasingly brainwashing and attracting young men and women from Europe. The many hundreds of fighters that are recruited from these liberal democracies may be precisely the kind of re-created “first men engaged in bloody and pointless prestige battles” that Fukuyama talks about. To some extent that could also apply to the drug gangs that have mushroomed (but now seem to have stopped growing) in Latin America.

Is it possible that Fukuyama’s idea about a future uprising against “last men” has already begun to be expressed? I think it merits considering, because it makes some sense out of something that is perceived as a chaotic backfire affecting the entire civilized world. This possibility helps abate the worst of the unease you might feel.

For a more universal understanding there is always the fear theory I mentioned initially. Fear of crumbling mental, cultural and physical borders fits very well for most terror attacks today, whether they are driven by jihadism, right-wing extremism or xenophobia, and that actually means that it fits well for most armed conflict.

The most important thing for the vast majority of us who are not engaged in these acts of hatred is not to respond by showing fear but by showing resolve to stand against this evil storm until it calms down. Showing fear would be exactly the kind of reaction ISIS and other extremists want, and a reaction that likely would enhance recruitment to the extremist groups.