The End of History?

For today's reading, I read some of the opening chapter of my "Global Communication" as well as an article by Francis Fukuyama entitled "The End of History?"

The two readings complemented each other well, as the first was a short look into the current post 9/11 world of communication, and the latter showed pre 9/11 (post USSR) look into the strides of liberalism and ideologies of evolving nations.


Both articles talked about a sort of "Wall Street Journal" school of thought. "Global Comm" (GC) refers to this as a 'Washington to Wall Street' notion, and Fukuyama also subscribes to the school of deterministic materialism that drives nations. I personally agree with the writers and feel that material gain is taking over any other ideals. The example of having wealth and risk instead of poverty and security further highlights this point. Fukuyama even says that political liberalism is following economic liberalism. While he uses many different current and former governments to show this trend, it can clearly be seen that the push to become and world economic power has trumped former plans for nuclear or "Cold War Era" advancements.

In terms of the "end of history," Fukuyama looked to the end of the French Revolution around 1806 as a time when theoretical truth was absolute. Since then he feels conflicts and wars have only furthered the ideas and ideologies, not created anything new. One portion of the article I found interesting was the mention of two contradictions in liberal societies that may not be fully solvable. One was religion, and the other is nationalism as seen in this passage:

"The vast majority of the world's nationalist movements do not have a political program beyond the negative desire of independence from some other group or people, and do not offer anything like a comprehensive agenda for socio-economic organization."

I found it intriguing since the article was written long before 9/11, when a wave of nationalism captivated America and was a substantial factor in the passing of many bills in Washington including the decision to send troops overseas. Overall this article was a pretty good read, although it was a bit long and complicated at some points. This is only the beginning of my international communication training so I hope to use this article as a stepping stone to further my learning. A copy of the article is available at http://www.wesjones.com/eoh.htm.



Also, in the news today on many sites is an article on Russian Vladimir Putin in which he blames the US for the Georgian conflict. He claims that U.S. provoked the Georgians to take back a Russian separatist piece of land and ultimately sparked the entire dispute for political gain during the presidential season. I don't know if he has any facts (he hasn't presented any) but the White House called him "not rational" on this story, and I think I'll have to agree with them. If I hear any other groundbreaking news on the subject I'll let you know.

Blog #1

Hello everyone, I'm Bryan and this is my news blog. Here I'll be discussing many topics from both my International Communications class at Ithaca College, but also current news, events, and ideas on a regular basis. I'm a journalism major and hope you can take something out of what I have to say.

Well I think that's about it for introductions, stay tuned for commentary, rants, and a semester of blogging.