Fukuyama: Identity and Resentment

In The End of History Fukuyama established the failure of communism after the fall of the Berlin Wall as "The end of history" the end of political ideas. The free market and liberal democracy had won the battle of the century. Since then the market became globalized and democracy spread to more and more countries, in many cases being more of a problem than a solution.

Despite this, progressives continued to reproach the market and liberal democracy without taking into consideration that their proposals had failed in the previous century, thus proposing the same paradigmatic alternative: Socialism. Fukuyama became aware of these reproaches and in 1995 he published Trust: The Social Virtues & The Creation Of Prosperity, which exposed and disseminated the progressive thinking of the time.

In Fukuyama's last published work in 2018, Identity: demand for dignity and policies of resentment (2018), it is established how diverse individual interests are seriously jeopardizing the classic concept of citizenship, "we are all free and equal before the law", due to "the rhetoric of difference" that becomes increasingly present and common in leftist and nationalist populist discourses.

"The politics of identity in modern liberal democracies is one of the main threats they face. According to Fukuyama, the left of the 20th century advocated for the interests and rights of workers, social protection and economic redistribution has recently concentrated on promoting the interests of a wide variety of groups perceived as marginalized, giving rise to the politics of resentment that has far more emotional weight than the pursuit of economic advantage. If in the past the focus of leftist leaders was on inequality and economic injustices, in the present the new left uses political resources to legitimize itself with the marginalized masses, giving way to a merely resentful society.

One concept that Fukuyama mentions several times during his book is Thymos, which is the basis of value judgments. According to Fukuyama human beings not only want things that are external to themselves such as food, drink, Lamborghini or the next chute; they also crave positive judgments about their value. Thymos, "the third part of the soul, together with desire and reason, is the basis of today's identity politics, nationalism and Islam being very characteristic examples".

Fukuyama asserts that the preferences or utility that human beings motivate is misinterpreted by economists who pass unnoticed recognition of equal dignity and recognition as superior. He exemplifies with feminism, that for him it has not been established by working class women but by trained professional women who seek to approach the top of the social hierarchy based on their individual interests and not on a collective interest such as that which is made to be believed.

In classical liberalism, the state recognized its citizens by granting them individual rights, but did not consider itself responsible for each person feeling better about themselves, however, the therapeutic or rather paternalistic role of developed liberal democracies resulted in a complete twist plot with respect to the characteristics and functions of the state. For this paternalistic model, the happiness of the individual depends on his or her self-esteem and this is a by-product of public recognition. Therefore, the state must intervene in the processes of socialization in order for its individuals to obtain such happiness.

According to Fukuyama, individuals -contemporaries- do not seek the recognition of their individuality, but the recognition of their similarity with other people.
While trust is based on cooperating with others on the basis of informal norms and shared values, identity is only shared internally in limited groups, which leads to societies being divided into smaller and smaller and more selfish groups, all enhanced by the social networks that act as the stage for identity groups.

Can identity resentment be cured? The Fukuyama solution lies in the proliferation of identities, such as broader and more inclusive national identities that take into account the de facto diversity of liberal democratic societies. "The ultimate function of national identity is to make liberal democracy itself possible" is precisely the greatest challenge of our society today.

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_{Posted from my blog with SteemPress : Here}