Monday, July 28, 2025
015 - At History’s End (Part IV): Huntington vs. Fukuyama
In this episode, I conclude my deep dive through Fukuyama's "The End of History?" essay, briefly discuss the Nietzschean concept of the Last Man he alludes to, and introduce Samuel P. Huntington, beginning a deep dive into his essay, "The Clash of Civilizations?"
Duration: 00:15:25
Episode Transcript
Foreword
This is the fourth installment of “At History’s End,” a subseries exploring the contextual underpinnings of the disposition and psyche of contemporary American politics and culture. If you’re just now listening in, you may want to consider starting from part one.
Previously, I discussed Fukuyama’s comparison of the Chinese and Soviet approaches to liberalization in the 1980s, their near-term consequences, and the longer-term trajectories he anticipated.
In this episode, I would like to finish highlighting key points of interest from Fukuyama’s essay, “The End of History?” and begin to survey responses and competing theories by other contemporary thinkers.
Let’s begin.
Introduction
Good morning. You’re listening to the Reflections in Beige Podcast, hosted by Michael LeSane. The date is Monday, July 28th, 2025.
Ideology and Foreign Policy
Francis Fukuyama saw ideology not as a veneer over a raw and perpetual drive for power, but rather the very basis for the interest of a nation. In the 20th century, the ideological competitors to liberalism – Fascism and Communism – were both considered expansionist in nature.
Liberalism vs Imperialism
According to Fukuyama, there was neither a singular ideological motivation for the imperialism of 19th Century Europe, which varied from nation to nation, nor were the motivations of these nations purely ideological. But, so he suggested, these nations were unified by a belief in, quote:
End quote.
He considered the liberal societies of these nations illiberal with respect to this belief. He also considered the consequential territorial scramble that began in the late 19th Century as a major catalyst for the First World War.
Fukuyama identified Fascism, particularly as embodied by Nazi Germany, as an ideological outgrowth of European imperialism. Its catastrophic defeat in the Second World War, then, delegitimized not just Fascism in particular, but also what he referred to as “territorial aggrandizement.” So too did he believe that the war neutered the nationalist tendencies of Europe in the realm of foreign policy, and that post-historical societies would be more concerned with economics than geopolitics.
The role of defense and geopolitics in these postwar liberal nations was, he argued, to serve as a bulwark against the specter of global Communism and that in its absence, liberal nations would not devolve into armed competition.
The Last Man
Fukuyama concluded his essay with a somewhat melancholy projection for the human spirit in the post-historical world.
Quote:
End quote.
The nostalgia for history, he predicted, would still be an enduring source of conflict in the post-historical world, and perhaps even catalyze history to begin anew.
So a listener to this podcast, Ux2, adeptly pointed out, Fukuyama’s conception of the Last Man – which he briefly illustrated in the final paragraph – can be traced back to the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche.
Initially described in Nietzsche’s magnum opus, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” the last man – or letzter mensch – was described as an antithesis to his ideal of the superhuman, or Übermensch. These concepts were put forth as two possible outcomes for humans navigating the nihilism of modernity, deprived of meaning with the collapse of traditional religion and morality – or, in his words, “The death of God.”
Dr. Nicholas Low of Harvard University, citing Walter Kaufmann’s reading of Nietzsche, suggested that Übermensch, quote:
End quote.
To draw from a commentary on Nietzsche by Dr. Paul Katsafanas of Boston University, the last man can perhaps be most succinctly described as the embodiment of nihilism and the absence of higher values. The last man values comfort, convenience, and nonconfrontation. The last man lacks ideals to commit to. The last man avoids or ridicules commitment to challenges or struggles. The last man is, then, drawn to – and indeed resigned to – the path of least resistance.
As a major motif in American popular culture during the late 1980s and 1990s, including literature and film, the last man within this particular context – that is to say, American society in the wake of the Cold War – is something that I would like to circle back to later in this subseries.
Huntington vs. Fukuyama
However, I’d like to take some time to touch down on contemporary thinkers as well as responses to Fukuyama’s thesis. With respect to these responses, the first to come to mind is Dr. Samuel P. Huntington.
Huntington was a a Professor at Harvard University and the director of Harvard’s Center for International Affairs, as well as Francis Fukuyama’s doctoral advisor. He served as the coordinator of security planning for the National Security Council during the Carter administration, and co-founded Foreign Policy magazine. A long-time friend and colleague of diplomat, political scientist, and fellow Harvard professor Zbigniew Brzezinski, he was also a member of and contributing writer for the Trilateral Commission.
In the summer of 1993, building on a lecture given at the American Enterprise Institute the previous year, Huntington published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, an international relations and foreign policy publication by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Quote:
End quote.
Tracing the evolution of conflict between human societies from those among principalities during the Peace of Westphalia in the 17th Century, to those among nation-states beginning in the 18th Century, Huntington argued that the nature of conflict became ideological as a result of the Russian Revolution and reactions to it in the early 20th Century – the major contenders being Communism, Fascism and National Socialism, and Liberal Democracy. He also noted that by the time of the Cold War, neither of the two superpowers pitted against each other resembled a classical nation state, and that both defined themselves in ideological terms.
Huntington saw the Cold War, like the World Wars, wars among nations, and wars among principalities that preceded it, as tantamount to civil war within Western Civilization. With the Cold War drawing to a close, he argued, the focus of international politics would shift to relations between civilizations – or that is to say, between Western Civilization and non-Western civilizations.
In his words, quote:
End quote.
As the world globalizes, a consequence is the increasing interactions between peoples of different civilizations. Highlighted examples of this include migration from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe, as well as international investments from Japan into the United States. This results, Huntington argued, in the cognizance of differences between civilizations and the commonalities within civilizations, and in turn, elevates civilizational consciousness among peoples and historical animosities with respect to others.
Another consequence of globalization and modernization discussed by Huntington is the undermining of localism and the nation state as a source of identity for peoples. He attributed the rise of religious fundamentalist movements – both Abrahamic and Dharmic – as a global trend filling the void and providing a basis for transnational and civilizational identity and unity, noting that young, educated, and professional demographics were actively involved in such movements.
Identities rooted in culture or religion are far less mutable than those rooted in political alignments or economic status. With respect to this, Huntington suggested that while politics and economic standing could be found in flux in the former Soviet Union, ethnic identity remained static. Furthermore, in war-torn regions like the Balkans or East Africa during the 1990s, this ethnic identity could be a matter of life or death.
Quote:
End quote.
Another manifestation of civilizational divide highlighted was that of intraregional trade, which was on an uptrend throughout the 1980s according to Huntington’s analysis. The European Community and NAFTA were cited as examples of regional economic blocks with civilizational commonalities. A counterpoint discussed was Japan, which exists as a unique civilization of its own, which faced more negative reactions to investments in America than Canada or European countries, and which Huntington projected would develop deeper trade relationships with other East Asian countries.
Bilderberg vs. Japan
To go off on a potentially unnecessary tangent, with respect to certain hostility in the West to Japanese institutional and commercial interests, I cannot help but think back to the circumstances of the Trilateral Commission’s founding.
The Bilderberg Meetings, beginning during the 1950s, have been a forum for dialogue and cooperation between North America and Europe – but during the 1970s, this regional exclusivity proved to be a bit of a source of friction.
Following years of unsuccessful attempts by David Rockefeller to convince organizers of the Bilderberg Conference to accept Japanese participants, Rockefeller, Brzezinski, and several other colleagues – soon joined by future president Jimmy Carter – took steps to form a trilateral organization for international cooperation encompassing North America, Europe, and Japan. Such was, in a nutshell, how the Trilateral Commission came to be.
But I digress.
Huntington on East Asia
Before I conclude this episode, I’d like to dedicate a bit of time to Huntington’s discussion about East Asia.
He observed that the common culture facilitated rapid expansion of economic relationships among Chinese countries and Asian countries with significant Chinese communities, including the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, predicting an East Asian economic bloc revolving around China.
In the wake of the Cold War, he argued, cultural ties overcome ideological divisions, bringing even the People’s Republic of China, a Communist state, and the Republic of China, a Liberal Democratic state, closer together.
Though Japan economically dominated the region with a nominal GDP approximately ten times that of the People’s Republic of China in the early 1990s, Huntington – quoting American economist Murray Weidenbaum – suggested that the Sinosphere, if you will, was quickly becoming a new economic powerhouse.
Quote:
End quote.
Conclusion
My coverage of key points of interest and potential food for thought among Huntington’s ideas conveyed within his essay, “The Clash of Civilizations?”, will continue over the next episode, or several, of this subseries.
Outro
Let that be all for today.
Thank you for listening and sharing, and have a good day.
This is the fourth installment of “At History’s End,” a subseries exploring the contextual underpinnings of the disposition and psyche of contemporary American politics and culture. If you’re just now listening in, you may want to consider starting from part one.
Previously, I discussed Fukuyama’s comparison of the Chinese and Soviet approaches to liberalization in the 1980s, their near-term consequences, and the longer-term trajectories he anticipated.
In this episode, I would like to finish highlighting key points of interest from Fukuyama’s essay, “The End of History?” and begin to survey responses and competing theories by other contemporary thinkers.
Let’s begin.
Introduction
Good morning. You’re listening to the Reflections in Beige Podcast, hosted by Michael LeSane. The date is Monday, July 28th, 2025.
Ideology and Foreign Policy
Francis Fukuyama saw ideology not as a veneer over a raw and perpetual drive for power, but rather the very basis for the interest of a nation. In the 20th century, the ideological competitors to liberalism – Fascism and Communism – were both considered expansionist in nature.
Liberalism vs Imperialism
According to Fukuyama, there was neither a singular ideological motivation for the imperialism of 19th Century Europe, which varied from nation to nation, nor were the motivations of these nations purely ideological. But, so he suggested, these nations were unified by a belief in, quote:
“The acceptability of higher civilizations ruling lower ones - including, incidentally, the United States with regard to the Philippines.”
End quote.
He considered the liberal societies of these nations illiberal with respect to this belief. He also considered the consequential territorial scramble that began in the late 19th Century as a major catalyst for the First World War.
Fukuyama identified Fascism, particularly as embodied by Nazi Germany, as an ideological outgrowth of European imperialism. Its catastrophic defeat in the Second World War, then, delegitimized not just Fascism in particular, but also what he referred to as “territorial aggrandizement.” So too did he believe that the war neutered the nationalist tendencies of Europe in the realm of foreign policy, and that post-historical societies would be more concerned with economics than geopolitics.
The role of defense and geopolitics in these postwar liberal nations was, he argued, to serve as a bulwark against the specter of global Communism and that in its absence, liberal nations would not devolve into armed competition.
The Last Man
Fukuyama concluded his essay with a somewhat melancholy projection for the human spirit in the post-historical world.
Quote:
“The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one's life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands. In the post-historical period there will be neither art nor philosophy, just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history.”
End quote.
The nostalgia for history, he predicted, would still be an enduring source of conflict in the post-historical world, and perhaps even catalyze history to begin anew.
So a listener to this podcast, Ux2, adeptly pointed out, Fukuyama’s conception of the Last Man – which he briefly illustrated in the final paragraph – can be traced back to the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche.
Initially described in Nietzsche’s magnum opus, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” the last man – or letzter mensch – was described as an antithesis to his ideal of the superhuman, or Übermensch. These concepts were put forth as two possible outcomes for humans navigating the nihilism of modernity, deprived of meaning with the collapse of traditional religion and morality – or, in his words, “The death of God.”
Dr. Nicholas Low of Harvard University, citing Walter Kaufmann’s reading of Nietzsche, suggested that Übermensch, quote:
“...signified an ideal of self-creation and self-mastery, an individualistic and personalized ideal shorn of any explicit political, metaphysical, or Darwinist connotations.”
End quote.
To draw from a commentary on Nietzsche by Dr. Paul Katsafanas of Boston University, the last man can perhaps be most succinctly described as the embodiment of nihilism and the absence of higher values. The last man values comfort, convenience, and nonconfrontation. The last man lacks ideals to commit to. The last man avoids or ridicules commitment to challenges or struggles. The last man is, then, drawn to – and indeed resigned to – the path of least resistance.
As a major motif in American popular culture during the late 1980s and 1990s, including literature and film, the last man within this particular context – that is to say, American society in the wake of the Cold War – is something that I would like to circle back to later in this subseries.
Huntington vs. Fukuyama
However, I’d like to take some time to touch down on contemporary thinkers as well as responses to Fukuyama’s thesis. With respect to these responses, the first to come to mind is Dr. Samuel P. Huntington.
Huntington was a a Professor at Harvard University and the director of Harvard’s Center for International Affairs, as well as Francis Fukuyama’s doctoral advisor. He served as the coordinator of security planning for the National Security Council during the Carter administration, and co-founded Foreign Policy magazine. A long-time friend and colleague of diplomat, political scientist, and fellow Harvard professor Zbigniew Brzezinski, he was also a member of and contributing writer for the Trilateral Commission.
In the summer of 1993, building on a lecture given at the American Enterprise Institute the previous year, Huntington published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, an international relations and foreign policy publication by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Quote:
World politics is entering a new phase, and intellectuals have not hesitated to proliferate visions of what it will be – the end of history, the return of traditional rivalries between nation states, and the decline of the nation state from the conflicting pulls of tribalism and globalism, among others. Each of these visions catches aspects of the emerging reality. Yet they all miss a crucial, indeed a central, aspect of what global politics is likely to be in the coming years.
It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.
It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.
End quote.
Tracing the evolution of conflict between human societies from those among principalities during the Peace of Westphalia in the 17th Century, to those among nation-states beginning in the 18th Century, Huntington argued that the nature of conflict became ideological as a result of the Russian Revolution and reactions to it in the early 20th Century – the major contenders being Communism, Fascism and National Socialism, and Liberal Democracy. He also noted that by the time of the Cold War, neither of the two superpowers pitted against each other resembled a classical nation state, and that both defined themselves in ideological terms.
Huntington saw the Cold War, like the World Wars, wars among nations, and wars among principalities that preceded it, as tantamount to civil war within Western Civilization. With the Cold War drawing to a close, he argued, the focus of international politics would shift to relations between civilizations – or that is to say, between Western Civilization and non-Western civilizations.
In his words, quote:
In the politics of civilizations, the people and governments of non-Western civilizations no longer remain the objects of history as targets of Western colonialism but join the West as movers and shapers of history.
End quote.
As the world globalizes, a consequence is the increasing interactions between peoples of different civilizations. Highlighted examples of this include migration from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe, as well as international investments from Japan into the United States. This results, Huntington argued, in the cognizance of differences between civilizations and the commonalities within civilizations, and in turn, elevates civilizational consciousness among peoples and historical animosities with respect to others.
Another consequence of globalization and modernization discussed by Huntington is the undermining of localism and the nation state as a source of identity for peoples. He attributed the rise of religious fundamentalist movements – both Abrahamic and Dharmic – as a global trend filling the void and providing a basis for transnational and civilizational identity and unity, noting that young, educated, and professional demographics were actively involved in such movements.
Identities rooted in culture or religion are far less mutable than those rooted in political alignments or economic status. With respect to this, Huntington suggested that while politics and economic standing could be found in flux in the former Soviet Union, ethnic identity remained static. Furthermore, in war-torn regions like the Balkans or East Africa during the 1990s, this ethnic identity could be a matter of life or death.
Quote:
In conflicts between civilizations, the question is "What are you?" That is a given that cannot be changed. And as we know, from Bosnia to the Caucasus to the Sudan, the wrong answer to that question can mean a bullet in the head.
End quote.
Another manifestation of civilizational divide highlighted was that of intraregional trade, which was on an uptrend throughout the 1980s according to Huntington’s analysis. The European Community and NAFTA were cited as examples of regional economic blocks with civilizational commonalities. A counterpoint discussed was Japan, which exists as a unique civilization of its own, which faced more negative reactions to investments in America than Canada or European countries, and which Huntington projected would develop deeper trade relationships with other East Asian countries.
Bilderberg vs. Japan
To go off on a potentially unnecessary tangent, with respect to certain hostility in the West to Japanese institutional and commercial interests, I cannot help but think back to the circumstances of the Trilateral Commission’s founding.
The Bilderberg Meetings, beginning during the 1950s, have been a forum for dialogue and cooperation between North America and Europe – but during the 1970s, this regional exclusivity proved to be a bit of a source of friction.
Following years of unsuccessful attempts by David Rockefeller to convince organizers of the Bilderberg Conference to accept Japanese participants, Rockefeller, Brzezinski, and several other colleagues – soon joined by future president Jimmy Carter – took steps to form a trilateral organization for international cooperation encompassing North America, Europe, and Japan. Such was, in a nutshell, how the Trilateral Commission came to be.
But I digress.
Huntington on East Asia
Before I conclude this episode, I’d like to dedicate a bit of time to Huntington’s discussion about East Asia.
He observed that the common culture facilitated rapid expansion of economic relationships among Chinese countries and Asian countries with significant Chinese communities, including the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, predicting an East Asian economic bloc revolving around China.
In the wake of the Cold War, he argued, cultural ties overcome ideological divisions, bringing even the People’s Republic of China, a Communist state, and the Republic of China, a Liberal Democratic state, closer together.
Though Japan economically dominated the region with a nominal GDP approximately ten times that of the People’s Republic of China in the early 1990s, Huntington – quoting American economist Murray Weidenbaum – suggested that the Sinosphere, if you will, was quickly becoming a new economic powerhouse.
Quote:
This strategic area contains substantial amounts of technology and manufacturing capability (Taiwan), outstanding entrepreneurial, marketing and services acumen (Hong Kong), a fine communications network (Singapore), a tremendous pool of financial capital (all three), and very large endowments of land, resources and labor (mainland China)… From Guangzhou to Singapore, from Kuala Lumpur to Manila, this influential network – often based on extensions of the traditional clans – has been described as the backbone of the East Asian economy.
End quote.
Conclusion
My coverage of key points of interest and potential food for thought among Huntington’s ideas conveyed within his essay, “The Clash of Civilizations?”, will continue over the next episode, or several, of this subseries.
Outro
Let that be all for today.
Thank you for listening and sharing, and have a good day.
Episode Sources
- “The End of History?” by Francis Fukuyama, The National Interest (1989).
- “Fugitive Pleasure and the Meaningful Life: Nietzsche on Nihilism and Higher Values” by Paul Katsafanas, Boston University (2015).
- “Dreaming of Superhumans: New Reactionary Nietzschean Fantasies” by Nicholas E. Low, Harvard University (2024).
- “Friedrich Nietzsche” by Dale Wilkerson, University of Texas Rio Grande, on Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, University of Tennessee at Martin.
- “Last Man” on Wikipedia.
- “Samuel P. Huntington” on Wikipedia.
- “The Clash of Civilizations?” by Samuel P. Huntington, Foreign Affairs (1993).
- “Memoirs” by David Rockefeller (2002).
- “About Bilderberg Meetings” on BilderbergMeetings.org.