Week 6: Globalization
Are we at the end of history?
Learning aims:
Understanding what
the myth ‘it is the end
of history’ implies
Understand dialectics
and Fukuyama’s
conception of history
Critically engage with
how Fukuyama’s
myth makes (neo)
liberal expressions of
globalization virtually
unchallenged
Explore the internal
contradictions of
liberalism
Last week: Gender
Myth: ‘Gender is a variable’
Key concepts: Gender & ‘placing’ feminism in
IR
IR’s attempts to place gender are doomed to
fail because gender is not a discrete
relationship which can be added to IR
Globalization Flashcard
Key thinkers:
Francis
Fukuyama
Key
concepts:
Liberalism
Dialectic
History
Myth: It is the end
of history
The Hegelian dialectic (figure 6.1)
History
End of history
Thesis
Synthesis =
Antithesis
New thesis
Synthesis =
New thesis
Antithesis
Antithesis
Synthesis = Idea
that expresses
final, rational
form of state
and society
Hegelian and Marxist understandings of
history
Hegelian and Marxist understandings of history (table 6.2)
Hegel
Marx
Understanding of
history
Dialectic
Dialectic
Nature of dialectic
Idealist
Materialist
What clashes in
dialectic
Ideologies
Economic classes
Ideological challengers to liberalism (table 6.3)
Fascism
Critique of liberalism
Why challenge fails
Political weakness, materialism,
anomie, and lack of community
of West = fundamental
contradictions in liberal society
Destroyed as a living ideology both
materially and ideologically by World
War II
Communism Liberal contradiction between
capital and labor/owner and
workers cannot be resolved
• State commitment to communism
in China and the Soviet Union only
rhetorical
• Bourgeois consumerism embraced
internationally
• No state offers genuine communist
alternative to liberalism
Religion
Liberal consumerism means core Offers no universalizable political
liberalism is hollow, meaningless alternative to liberalism
Nationalism
Offers no generalizable critique
of liberalism. Only critical of
some particular expressions of
liberalism through specific nonrepresentative governments
Because it has no generalizable
critique of liberalism, nationalism is
not necessarily incompatible with
liberal ideology
Living in the ‘end of history’ and the
internal contradictions of liberalism
Aim: Allow students to critically reflect on the myth that we are living in the
‘end of history’ by evaluating liberalism’s internal contradictions
• In smaller groups, reflect on the central claim that Fukuyama makes and
what it implies (5 min.)
– How could Fukuyama ‘know’ that we are at the end of history?
– Fukuyama claimed that liberalism’s ‘theoretical truth is absolute and
could not be improved upon’. How could he claim this?
• Having established Fukuyama’s central claims, CRITICALLY EVALUATE the
validity of the claim by thinking about liberalism’s internal contradictions (5
min.)
– What are liberalism’s internal contradictions?
– Are they unresolvable?
– Are identifying these internal contradictions a useful way to challenge
liberalism (and Fukuyama’s myth) or is it better to consider the
alternatives?
The dialectic struggle in The Truman Show
(Figure 6.2)
History
(ideological world)
Post-history
(de-ideologized world)
Christof’s totalitarian
governance (thesis)
Truman’s growing
consciousness of his
repression/control by
Cristof (antithesis)
Truman’s triumph =
triumph of liberalism
(synthesis)
What is typical and deviant in the historical
world of the television program “The Truman
Show”? (table 6.4)
Typical
Deviant
Truman is unaware of
his ideological
struggle with Christof
because his desires
are contained within
the utopian world of
Seahaven
Compelled by
unfulfilled desires,
Truman becomes
ideologically aware
and frees himself
from Christof and
from Seahaven
What is typical and deviant in the posthistorical world of the film The Truman Show?
(table 6.5)
Typical
Deviant
“The Truman Show” is the
space in which its viewers
consume history as a history
of ideology (by watching the
ideological struggle between
Truman and Cristof and by
owning a piece of that history
through the purchase of
goods from “The Truman
Show”
There is no space for
viewers to safely project
their desires for history and
ideology because “The
Truman Show” goes off the
air permanently
The Truman Show and liberalism
Aim: To reflect on and explore the relationship between The Truman Show
and liberalism
• In GROUPS of 4-5 discuss the following questions (7 min.)
– What does The Truman Show tell us about liberalism’s relationship
between satisfaction and consumption?
– If our desires can never be fulfilled in liberalism and our encounter
with liberalism’s “empty core” cannot be indefinitely postponed,
what does this mean for Fukuyama’s myth ‘it is the end of history’?
– What does all this mean for international relations in an ‘era of
globalization?
• Then reflect on the following questions (7 min.)
– How are historical and post-historical spaces related in ‘The Truman
Show’?
– How does the film illustrate the process of endless substitution,
displacement and deferral of desire at the ‘empty core’ of liberalism?
Next week: Neomarxism
Truth
Ontology
Film:
Memento
Desire
Is Empire the new
world order?