The End of History?

The aim of this blog is to share interesting things that I am confronted with - things that make/made me think, be it finance-related or not. This time it is someting not-at-all finance-related, maye this is the reason why it is so interesting...

Today I heard a lecture of the reknown sociologist and philosopher Peter Gross on the philosophy of history. He pointed out that the western world was trapped in its self-perception, based on the belief that history

1) has a beginning and an end,
2) that there has been evolution in history and
3) that the current "western" model of society is the best-developed model so far.

It was the first time I really thought about this topic, but I realized that those three statements were true for me. So far, I would have always automatically answered all of them with yes. But are they really true? Is today's music, for example, on a higher level of development than was Ludwig van Beethoven's? Or is our democracy more advanced than was the one in Anient Greece? Interesing things to think about, don't you think?

Some scholars neither agree on those widely-spread beliefs. When talking about the first point for example, you should get to know e.g. Oswald Spengler's famous work "The Decline of the West", which was published as early as 1918.

It would lead too far to point out all works dealing with this topic, but what was also interesting to hear is that today, there are two academic opinions on the future development of the world.

1) All civilizations will converge and a Global State will be installed - This state is referred to as "The End of History" (see. e.g. "Cosmopolis Now" from Sybille Tönnies)

2) Civilizations will not converge, but will start to fight for world domination. This leads to the "Clash of Civilizations" described by Samuel Huntington.

As I do not prefer any of these theories, there are fortunately also some scholars (and most "normal people", I suppose) who think that there is still an option somewhere in between...