Critically evaluate the claim that we live in the End of History

This is a very good essay question, which is also great for developing the critical thinking of students early on in their higher education. There are a few things that need to be disentangled first, before the question could be answered. Firstly, the concept of the End of History is a reference to the philosopher Alexander Kojève, who coined out the term in his reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Kojève argued that the End of History is the telos of historical progress, the point in history in which society will have no Slaves nor Masters and people will be free of oppression. The claim that we live in the End of History could be traced back to 1989, when after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism the political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote his prominent essay The End of History and the Last Man. In his essay, Fukuyama argued that with the defeat of communism history and the global world has reached the point in that we now live in a post-ideological era. The triumph of Liberal democratic capitalism suggested that the mode of politics is the indisputable and best possible mode of human government which ought to be spread around the globe. Having briefly unraveled what the essay question is asking us — we can now start thinking of how to answer it. Obviously, this is a question which could be approached from many angles and this is why it is good for facilitating critical thinking at early stages of higher education. Fukuyama’s claims have been criticised by many contemporary scholars. For example, more radical left theorists have argued that liberal democratic capitalist societies are not free of oppression. On the contrary, they are inherently structurally violent and oppressive and should not be considered as the last possible mode of human government. Others have seen the rise of religious fundamentalism since the 2000s as an indicator that perhaps Fukuyama was wrong and we do not live in a post-ideological era. What do you think? Do you think that the rise of the far-right populist and anti-liberal parties in the West is the final of the series of contemporary empirical evidence that Fukuyama was wrong?