But it is not necessarily the case that liberal democracy is the political system best suited to resolving social conflicts per se. A democracy's ability to peacefully resolve conflicts is greatest when those conflicts arise between socalled "interest groups" that share a larger, pre-existing consensus on the basic values or rules of the game, and when the conflicts are primarily economic in nature. But there are other kinds of non-economic conflicts that are far more intractable, having to do with issues like inherited social status and nationality, that democracy is not particularly good at resolving.He does start off with the bold assertion that liberal-capitalist-democracy is the end point of history, but uses the rest of his chapters to back off from this assertion into a more tepid series of observations. He does not support liberal-capitalist-democracy from a moral grounding, but instead notes its ability to survive and continue to reproduce itself after repeated economic crises, and its ability to outlast other alternatives from the far-right (fascism), and the far-left (communism). Its status as part of the end of history is taken from Hegel, interpreted by Kojeve and a bit of Kant. Fukuyama draws on these to say that the overall 'meaning' of history itself, or at least the general trend of it, leads to the continued spread of liberal-capitalist-democracy, and its percieved effectiveness in allowing the individual to act and express according to their own personal liberties in a universal, if homogeneous, state. Despite this, it is still easy to pick apart his argument. The greatest possible drawback is that the historical conditions which led to the spread of liberal-capitalist-democracy might not necessarily continue into the 21st century and beyond. A chief example among these is the economic catastrophe of 2007, and how many have perceived this international system has being unable to meet the needs of its citizens. Others might point to the resurgence of radical political ideologies from both the left and right. I won't speak too much on either of these in the United States, but instead the more credible threat might be the internal dissolution of the middle class due to the economic crisis, as well as a flawed emphasis in policy - focusing instead only on aiding financial capital, and cutting social services to the middle and lower classes is an incomplete method of addressing recovery. Others might point to an 'endpoint of history' like that of the Russian or Chinese models. I can't speak about Russia that well, but there are multiple domestic issues in the Chinese social and economic system which are a major impedance to any path as a 'global superpower' on par with the US. Still the biggest contention of the book is imposing a study of teleology onto history. That is, whether human history has any grand trends or purposes behind it. That question is a bit harder to answer, on the grounds that any correct prediction beyond an extrapolation of trends in the short scale and under limited circumstances is exceptionally difficult to accomplish. I might offer as a mere suggestion instead that the only constant in human history is chaos.....and mayhem “Both Hegel and Marx believed that the evolution of human societies was not open-ended, but would end when mankind had achieved a form of society that satisfied its deepest and most fundamental longings. Both thinkers thus posited an "end of history": for Hegel this was the liberal state, while for Marx it was a communist society. This did not mean that the natural cycle of birth, life, and death would end, that important events would no longer happen, or that newspapers reporting them would cease to be published. It meant, rather, that there would be no further progress in the development of underlying principles and institutions, because all of the really big questions had been settled.”It was the slave's continuing desire for recognition that was the motor which propelled history forward, not the idle complacency and unchanging self-identity of the master” ― Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man 16 likes like “For Hegel, freedom was not just a psychological phenomenon, but the essence of what was distinctively human. In this sense, freedom and nature are diametrically opposed. Freedom does not mean the freedom to live in nature o r according to nature; rather, freedom begins only where nature ends. Human freedom emerges only when man is able to transcend his natural, animal existence, and to create a new self for himself The emblematic starting point for this process of self-creation is the struggle to the death for pure prestige.

it's complicated...The effect of education 


on political attitudes is complicated,

for democratic society. 

The self-professed aim 

of modern education

is to "liberate" people

 from prejudices and traditional forms

of authority.

 Educated people 

are said not to obey authority

blindly, but rather

 learn to think for themselves. 

Even if this

doesn't happen on a mass basis, 

people can be taught to see their

own self-interest more clearly,

 and over a longer time horizon.

Education also makes people 

demand more of themselves and for

themselves; in other words, they

 acquire a certain sense of dignity

which they want to have 

respected by their fellow citizens 

and by the state.

 In a traditional peasant society, 

it is possible for a local

landlord 

(or, for that matter,

 a communist or a republican 

yes we can commissar) 

to recruit

peasants to kill other peasants 

and dispossess them of their land.

They do so not because 

it is in their interest,

 but because they are

used to obeying authority.

 Urban professionals in developed countries,

 on the other hand,

 can be recruited to a lot of nutty

causes like liquid ISLAMIC STATE

 diets and marathon running,

 but they tend not

to volunteer for private armies 

or death squads simply because

someone in a uniform 

tells them to do so THEY HAVE MORE

FATE IN INTERNET AND SMS....

except in the islamic state of affaires .......

wtf - Murder, Mayhem, and Meditation 




To truly esteem oneself means 

that one must be capable of feeling 

shame or self-disgust when one does 


not live up to a certain standard