In 1989 the American political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously announced the soon-coming conclusion of history in his essay titled \u201cThe End of History?\u201d, and this idea picked-up steam with his 1992 book \u201cThe End of History and the Last Man.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the \u2018end of history\u2019, Fukuyama meant that due to the increasing ubiquity of liberal democracy and the rapid failure of other types of regimes (like Soviet communism) humankind was apparently evolving into its final form of government. Fukuyama believed that this \u2018end of history\u2019 would be a sad time for many because groups would start to lose their ideological identity that provided a driving purpose as political diversity in the world became more homogenized. However, there was a popular idea that the book suggested, if not promised, a wonderful utopian society that must not be far behind, if the end of ideological struggle was near.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Case in point: In 1999 I read Thomas Friedman\u2019s The Lexus and the Olive Tree<\/em>, that proposed the \u201cGolden Arches Theory of Conflict Preservation\u201d in which it was noted that \u201cno two countries that both have a McDonalds have ever fought a war with one another.\u201d [2]<\/a> Friedman built on Fukuyama\u2019s idea of the end of history and hypothesized how a market economy and liberal democracy were working together to bring about peace in our time.<\/p>\n Go, capitalism!!! (I guess)<\/p>\n Fast forward 30+ years and history apparently didn\u2019t get the memo that it was supposed to be over (nor evidently were countries with McDonald\u2019s, like Russia and Ukraine, told that there was a rule against them fighting one another). Fukuyama later clarified that his statement about what he meant<\/u><\/em> by the end of history was widely misunderstood. As NYT book reviewer Anand Giridharadas humorously put it, \u201cwhen history continued, Fukuyama said it depends on what the meaning of the word \u201cend\u201d is.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n Recently another of Fukuyama\u2019s books has addressed an important cultural moment, but this time the implications are clearly more dystopian than utopian. In Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment<\/em><\/strong>,<\/em> he identifies a major flaw within the feature of liberal democracy, and it\u2019s a flaw that\u2014depending on the response\u2014could speed us to the actual <\/em>end of the world, as we know it.<\/p>\n The issue is identity politics\u2014political movements or activity generated by or connected to certain social identities like race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and more. And this is why the world didn\u2019t end with homogenization. To be fair, Fukuyama points out that he pointed this out in his essay (and furthermore points out that the title of his essay ended with a question mark). That question mark was there because of an obscure word: Thymos.<\/p>\n Thymos is the part of the human soul that craves recognition of dignity, and where The End of History?<\/em> raised the issue that \u201ccontemporary liberal democracies had not fully solved the problems of thymos\u201d[4]<\/a> Identity <\/em>deals with Thymos, and its iterations, much more comprehensively. Where Thymos can be a force for positive social change, and Isothymia, which is the demand for people to be respected on an equal basis with other people, can be commendable, megalothymia which is the desire to be recognized as superior, gets us into trouble.<\/p>\n Fukuyama writes: \u201cContemporary identity politics is driven by the quest for equal recognition by groups that have been marginalized by their societies. But that desire for equal recognition can easily slide over into a demand for recognition of the group\u2019s superiority. This is a large part of the story of nationalism and national identity, as well as certain forms of extremist religious politics today.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n Identity politics, in other words, has produced conditions that are ripe to usher in the end of the world (at least as we\u2019ve known it).<\/p>\n All of this has me questioning the church\u2019s role in this unique\u2014perhaps last\u2014season of history. What would it look like for Christians to embrace a countercultural ethos to the identity politics we see common today?<\/p>\n As the demand for dignity, and respect, and even superiority increases in groups all over the planet, and as the level of offense increases when those groups are not respected or deferred to, what would it say to the world if the Church leaned into<\/em> laying down our lives, not taking up offense, and not demanding our rights?<\/p>\n What if not just leaders but all Christians learned to live in line with Walker\u2019s undefended approach, knowing that only God offers unconditional love and acceptance; and what if we found our identity and worth fully in Jesus, not in how the rest of the world viewed or even treated us?<\/p>\n What if our identity was, in fact, so integrated into the suffering servant Christ that the world took notice of a people not demanding recognition, but a group who was differentiated from the power-politics of the world?<\/p>\n If it is the end of the world as we know it, maybe if Christians were radically secure in who we were and in knowing Who we belonged to, we could be the one group not afraid of losing it all because we\u2019ve already surrendered it all to the soon-coming King.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man<\/em> (New York: Free Press, 1992).<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization <\/em>(New York: Picador, 1999).<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> NYT Book Review: What Is Identity? <\/em>Anand Giridharadas, Aug. 27, 2018.<\/p>\n