barnhart wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 8:08 am
We seem to be in an age where the democratic system has crystalized and no longer produces candidates that a majority really wants. Reasonable and moderate candidates are cast aside in favor of the confrontational, extreme or otherwise questionable.
This is a really interesting observation and it might be fun to explore why it is that we’ve gotten here in a sociological sense. We can point to election tinkering (primaries, ranked-choice voting vs. first-past-the-post, etc.) and while those are definitely contributing factors. I think the more interesting question is: “how is that our culture has decided that actors, celebrities and fairly unserious people are perfectly acceptable candidates?” “How is that politics has just become another form of entertainment?”
Maybe it's part of a cycle where the enemies without don't feel as threatening so the national aggression turns inward like an auto immune disease. The enemy is no longer the French, British, Indians, Germans, Russians, Muslims ect but ourselves, the facists and liberals next door, or maybe one county or one state away. Francis Fukayama was mocked for his essay in the late 90's calling the collapse of Soviet Union the "end of history," but I am warming up to his premise. The absence of an external enemy turns the fight inward.
His "ultimate nightmare", he said in March 2022, is a world in which China supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Russia supports a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. If that were to happen, and be successful, Fukuyama said, "then you would really be living in a world that was being dominated by these non-democratic powers. If the United States and the rest of the West couldn't stop that from happening, then that really is the end of the end of history."
Following the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2016, Fukuyama feared for the future of liberal democracy in the face of resurgent populism,[16][17][18] and the rise of a "post-fact world",[19] saying that "twenty five years ago, I didn't have a sense or a theory about how democracies can go backward. And I think they clearly can." He warned that America's political rot was infecting the world order to the point where it "could be as big as the Soviet collapse". Fukuyama also highlighted Russia's interference in the Brexit referendum and 2016 U.S. elections.
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The old woodcutter spoke again. “It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge?"
This is a really interesting observation and it might be fun to explore why it is that we’ve gotten here in a sociological sense. We can point to election tinkering (primaries, ranked-choice voting vs. first-past-the-post, etc.) and while those are definitely contributing factors. I think the more interesting question is: “how is that our culture has decided that actors, celebrities and fairly unserious people are perfectly acceptable candidates?” “How is that politics has just become another form of entertainment?”
Maybe it's part of a cycle where the enemies without don't feel as threatening so the national aggression turns inward like an auto immune disease. The enemy is no longer the French, British, Indians, Germans, Russians, Muslims ect but ourselves, the facists and liberals next door, or maybe one county or one state away. Francis Fukayama was mocked for his essay in the late 90's calling the collapse of Soviet Union the "end of history," but I am warming up to his premise. The absence of an external enemy turns the fight inward.
His "ultimate nightmare", he said in March 2022, is a world in which China supports Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Russia supports a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. If that were to happen, and be successful, Fukuyama said, "then you would really be living in a world that was being dominated by these non-democratic powers. If the United States and the rest of the West couldn't stop that from happening, then that really is the end of the end of history."
Following the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2016, Fukuyama feared for the future of liberal democracy in the face of resurgent populism,[16][17][18] and the rise of a "post-fact world",[19] saying that "twenty five years ago, I didn't have a sense or a theory about how democracies can go backward. And I think they clearly can." He warned that America's political rot was infecting the world order to the point where it "could be as big as the Soviet collapse". Fukuyama also highlighted Russia's interference in the Brexit referendum and 2016 U.S. elections.
Democratic hegemony has only existed for a short time, so how would their demise be the "end of history"
The whole "end of history" theory is absurd on its face.
Unless you change human nature we will still have greed, hatred, ambition, and every other kind of sin. And they will all be reflected in every institution formed by people. Meaning that conflict, and thus history will continue. Weapons and strategies may change over time. But history will continue.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Josh wrote: ↑Sun Oct 30, 2022 2:33 pm
I checked my history books and it seems Russian, Chinese, and Persian kingdoms were in there and have been for thousands of yeargs.
Globalist empires, on the other hand, seem to have a short life, whether the Roman empire, British, the USSR, or the present-day American Empire.
When was the last time that Russia, China, or Persia had kings?
Both the Chinese and Russian royal dynasties ended over 100 years ago. And both were actually empires not kingdoms. The last dynastic Chinese ruler was overthrown in 1912 and was the Emperor of the Qing dynasty, not a "king". Likewise, Tsar Nicolas II was "Emperor of Imperial Russia" not "King of the Russians"
The Shaw's imperial dynasty lasted a whole 50 years and it also fancied itself an empire not a kingdom. His official title was "Shaw of the Imperial State of Iran.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." .... Fukuyama draws upon the philosophies and ideologies of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, who define human history as a linear progression, from one socioeconomic epoch to another.
This is a reference to history as conceived by Hegel and/or Marx, which includes Progressivism as well.
If this means events in real world history will finally prove beyond doubt these ideologies were frauds from the start, that's a good thing, of course.
However, I'm not expecting those who've been pushing this fraud to just go quietly into that dark night.
There's still way too many people with a vested interest in perpetuating this nonsense.
Falco Underhill wrote: ↑Sun Oct 30, 2022 7:15 pm
The article defines history as ...
the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." .... Fukuyama draws upon the philosophies and ideologies of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, who define human history as a linear progression, from one socioeconomic epoch to another.
This is a reference to history as conceived by Hegel and/or Marx, which includes Progressivism as well.
If this means events in real world history will finally prove beyond doubt these ideologies were frauds from the start, that's a good thing, of course.
However, I'm not expecting those who've been pushing this fraud to just go quietly into that dark night.
There's still way too many vested interests in perpetuating this nonsense.
I don't think it means that democracy is a fraud. It simply means that Fukuyama was wrong in his faith in the inevitability of democracy and that democratic institutions are more fragile than he apparently thought.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Falco Underhill wrote: ↑Sun Oct 30, 2022 7:15 pm
The article defines history as ...
the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." .... Fukuyama draws upon the philosophies and ideologies of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, who define human history as a linear progression, from one socioeconomic epoch to another.
This is a reference to history as conceived by Hegel and/or Marx, which includes Progressivism as well.
If this means events in real world history will finally prove beyond doubt these ideologies were frauds from the start, that's a good thing, of course.
However, I'm not expecting those who've been pushing this fraud to just go quietly into that dark night.
There's still way too many vested interests in perpetuating this nonsense.
I don't think it means that democracy is a fraud. It simply means that Fukuyama was wrong in his faith in the inevitability of democracy and that democratic institutions are more fragile than he apparently thought.
Democracy is certainly a fraud. A select, elite group rules over us, and punishes people who vote for the “wrong” leader.
Falco Underhill wrote: ↑Sun Oct 30, 2022 7:15 pm
The article defines history as ...
the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." .... Fukuyama draws upon the philosophies and ideologies of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx, who define human history as a linear progression, from one socioeconomic epoch to another.
This is a reference to history as conceived by Hegel and/or Marx, which includes Progressivism as well.
If this means events in real world history will finally prove beyond doubt these ideologies were frauds from the start, that's a good thing, of course.
However, I'm not expecting those who've been pushing this fraud to just go quietly into that dark night.
There's still way too many vested interests in perpetuating this nonsense.
I don't think it means that democracy is a fraud. It simply means that Fukuyama was wrong in his faith in the inevitability of democracy and that democratic institutions are more fragile than he apparently thought.
I was referring to the historicist ideologies of Hegel and Marx (which includes Progressivism, in my view) as fraudulent, not democracy per se.
