–> Thursday 28 May, 7pm, @ Verdurin, London <–
It’s been five years since The End of the End of History was published (and seven since we started putting it together), so Alex Hochuli, Philip Cunliffe and George Hoare will reflect on the half-decade that was, while contributing editor Lee Jones and friend of the pod Nina Power will provide responses.
Come join us on Thursday 28 May, 7pm, @ Verdurin, London
Details here, get your tickets now. Bungacast subscribers use the code: SILVIO
It is obvious today that the “end of history”, postulated by Francis Fukuyama in 1992, is over. Liberal democracy as the final form of human organisation? Pah! The arc of history tending towards justice? Pah!
Will the end of twentieth-century modernity be the start of something new? The building blocks of the past – political parties, ideologies, and institutions – are decaying around us, and nothing new emerges to take their place.
Yet history now has new protagonists: states, corporations, and oligarchs, often acting in synthesis. What if history’s back but not as we wanted it? The stakes are high: the sunset of the US hegemony is in sight and even Fukuyama now agrees on the impending primacy of the “Chinese model”. Yet even such geopolitical shifts aren’t leading to the creation of a new hegemony – disorder is the order of the day.
They say that “nothing ever happens”. Pah! Something ever happens.
Alex will talk about global culture war as the dead-end of a revivified politics. Making struggle symbolic and geopolitical removes it from the reach of citizens.
George will argue that politics and history exist only in zombified forms. And when you look closely, the zombies are far more frightening than those from horror films...
Phil will explain that the end of the end of history is the end of American empire, with no replacement. But that there is a world of political opportunity for those willing to take advantage of the absence of global hegemony.
See you soon!