A SINGLE HISTORY?

Perhaps the most striking feature of Fukuyama's afterword to the second paperback edition of The End of History and the Last Man is its conception of a single history of mankind – at once universal and multiple. The question: "What binds the multiplicity of peoples and cultures into a single history?" is indeed a key theme in intellectual history, and was answered by Hegel and later thinkers in evolutionary terms, with European societies representing the future of all others who were not fated simply to die out. I'm not sure I understand what Fukuyama means when he asks whether western values and institutions have "a universal significance" and when he opposes this to the notion of "the temporary success of a presently hegemonic culture". Clearly these values and institutions have a universal significance if by this he means that they have spread globally – whether consensually or not. But this doesn't exclude "universal significance" being seen as the product of a forceful, hegemonising culture. The assertion that with the defeat of communism, capitalist democracy is now the only imaginable future for humanity doesn't prove that nothing else can emerge. Since nothing is permanent, it is quite possible that this hegemonic political culture will mutate into other, equally hegemonic ones (that is, if we still have a planet fit for humans in the next century).

A discussão em volta do novo texto de Fukuyama (já publicado na Formiga Bargante) está a ficar bem "quente".

Para aceder ao texto completo do excerto acima publicado, utilize este LINK.