"Blame the Screens"

"Moving online created a parallel universe that bore some relationship to the physically experienced world, but in other cases could exist completely orthogonally to it. While previously 'truth' was imperfectly certified by institutions like scientific journals, traditional media with standards of journalist accountability, courts and legal discovery, educational institutions and research organizations, the standard for truth began to gravitate instead to the number of likes and shares a particular post got. The large tech platforms pursuing their own commercial self-interest created an ecosystem that rewarded sensationalism and disruptive content, and their recommendation algorithms, again acting in the interest of profit-maximization, guided people to sources that never would have been taken seriously in earlier times. Moreover, the speed with which memes and low-quality content could travel increased dramatically, as well as the reach of any particular piece of information. Previously, a major newspaper or magazine could reach perhaps a million readers, usually in a single geographic area; today, an individual influencer can reach hundreds of millions of followers without regard to geography."

Francis Fukuyama at Persuasion argues that "is the one factor that stands above the others as the chief explanation of our current problems."

The Return of History

"I think that there was excess state regulation and state interference in economies that had developed by the 1970s. And so, you had politicians like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher that tried to roll back some of that regulation. They were supported in this by very prominent economists, like Milton Friedman. The problem was that [they] went too far and attempted to undermine all forms of state activity, even necessary ones, for example, of regulating the financial system. And as a result, we ended up with a globalization that increased inequality and led to substantial instability in the global financial system. And this, of course, provoked a populist backlash that you see both on the left and the right, which partially explains why we are where we are today."

In a 2022 El Pais article, Sergio C. Fanjul interviews Francis Fukuyama.

"Those Words Feel Even More True Today"

"Fukuyama's pining for past ideological struggles suggests that the Last Man would eventually get bored with technocracy, consumerism, and the stultifying constraints of middle management—and seek new monsters to fight. America's flirtation with an authoritarian leader who promises he alone will fix the nation's problems and restore the country's past glory is a manifestation of this phenomenon. The greatest challenges to liberal democracy would not come from new ideological competitors but rather from complacency. 'Democracies survive and succeed only because people are willing to fight for the rule of law, human rights, and political accountability,' Fukuyama wrote in 2014."

Michael A. Cohen at The New Republic revisits Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History?"