Iron and Blood

If you believe that history is personality driven then the history of Germany from Bismarck to today is largely dependent on the leadership of Bismarck.  If you believe (as I do) that history is a mix of personality and events then the history of Germany is STILL dependent on his leadership.  He was a powerful dynamic man.

Otto von Bismarck quotes

Otto von Bismarck

Anyone who likes sausage and respects the law shouldn’t watch either one being made

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, and before an election.

There is a providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood

And Yet It Moves!

Galileo Galilei allegedly muttered these words when he was forced to recant his theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun.  In order to avoid excommunication and probable execution as a result of Heresy, Galileo was forced to recant his theory in a Church trial in 1633.  Even after recanting, he was still under house arrest and of course his future writing came under intense scrutiny of the Church.  Six years after the trial he went blind.  Three years after that, he died.

Did he die a broken man?  You bet.  Was he later vindicated?  You bet, and of course.

At the end of his trial did he mutter, “And yet it moves!”  Are you kidding me?  They would have burnt him on the spot.  There is no proof he ever said it.  His first biographer makes no mention of it.

But it sounds good doesn’t it?  It’s something that you would have wished for him to say.  This broken man would therefore be able to grasp at least a shred of his formal dignity by this parting thumb of the nose.  But sorry folks, he didn’t say it.  It’s just another of the lies told you by your high school history teacher.

Hope I didn’t burst any bubbles.  I take that back.  I hope I did.  *shrug*

c.e.s.

Astro Seneca

(Astrazeneca).

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (also known as just Seneca or Seneca the Younger) son of Merck the Apothecary, tutor to Emperor Nero and Roman Statesman.

First Roman to visit outer space.

Come on!  You can’t tell me that I’m the first person to make that connection!?

G

The End of History and the Last Man

The End of History and the Last Man

This will begin a series of essays and commentaries on The End of History and the Last Man[1] by noted political scientist Francis Fukuyama.  Continuance of the series will depend on popularity of them in this blog.  Popularity will be judged on post views and comments left.  No small percentage will be given to comments given.  It is my hope that this will stimulate interest in the subject and conversation on what has been presented here.  Footnotes are provided for appropriate citation and may be followed by clicking on the footnote number within the text.  This first post will be by way of introduction to the topic and the man.

 Francis Fukuyama is a Bernard L. Schwartz professor of international political economy at John Hopkins University and is a member of the President’s Council for Bioethics.  He has twice served on the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. Department of State.  In 1981-82 he was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Egyptian-Israeli talks on Palestinian autonomy.  It is also noteworthy and will be mentioned later, that he was a student of political scientist Samuel P. Huntington.

In The End of History, Fukuyama argues that the evolution of political ideology has come to an end with the widespread acceptance of Liberal Democracy.  He notes with importance that a shared definition of “history” is prerequisite to the most basic understanding of his thesis.  The end of history is not the end of time, nor is it the end to events of greater and/or lesser political importance.

Rather, he argues that “liberal democracy constitutes the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution and the final form of human government, and as such constitutes the end of history[2].”

Hegel and Marx both viewed history in a similar light and posited that there would come a point in which mankind’s longings for political satisfaction would be met.  For Marx it was the communist state.  For Hegel it was the liberal democratic state.  We may relapse into authoritarian forms of government but the inexorable trend toward liberal democracy is just that, inexorable and will eventually ideologically overwhelm all other philosophies of government.  The reasons he gives for this advance are dependent on two variables;

• Economics, and
• The ’struggle for recognition.”

We. In the west, have become extremely pessimistic about the possibilities presented by this belief.  Our pessimism is based on the horrors and atrocities we witnessed in the 20^th century.  And no less, perhaps, by the upsurge in international terrorism most poignantly demonstrated in the September 11^th attacks on the World Trade Center in NYC and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.  However the lessons we should have taken from these tragic events is that, fundamentally there are glaring contradictions and weaknesses in seemingly strong dictatorship, be they of the Left or the Right.

Much commentary and criticism comes from Fukuyama’s acquaintaincship with Samuel Huntington, in light of Huntington’s own work, The Clash of Civilizations and the remaking of the world Order.  Huntington speaks of a much different theory that Fukuyama presents.  Huntington postulates that far from being the end of history, what we see emerging in the political world order is conflicting cultures and ideologies clashing along geographic “fault lines.”

In the following essays here in the Aerie, we will concentrate on Fukuyama’s end of history hypothesis, that liberal democracy is not only here to stay, but that it encapsulates the pinnacle of human desire for government.

c.e.s.

The two links here for Samuel Huntington will take you to two separate locations.

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[1] Frances Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).  Second paperback edition.

[2] Ibid.  xi