Cricket World Cup upset victory: "Nothing more American than this"; Ambassador Fick on the tech race between the US & China; Fukuyama on his 'End of History' critics
Lakshya Jain on America’s upset victory over Pakistan in the recent Cricket World Cup:
@usacricket team is the idea (and ideals) of America in action. It has players who were born in 6 different countries but now call this amazing land their home. This is what led me to stay back and build almost all of my professional career. This country is also what enables me to do my work in Global South. Go Team USA. Someday my seven-year old will play for you, hopefully.
Amb. Nate Fick, Linkedin & Washington Post Live: In response to David Ignatius’ question about whether the US or China is winning the tech race, the US Ambassador for Cyberspace & Digital Policy, responded:
Which country in the world is the largest, most popular destination for entrepreneurs who want to build businesses in these spaces? Which country in the world is the destination of the largest amount of venture capital and private equity investment in these areas? It's the United States.
Francis Fukuyama, American Purpose: “Boredom at the End of History”
What is striking about contemporary democratic backsliding is that few of those people expressing discontent with liberal democracy are able to articulate a clear vision of an alternative social system that is systemically superior. It is true that contemporary liberal democracies have failed to make good on their underlying promise of equal treatment under law. This includes the United States, the oldest such regime. But few people question the underlying principles coming out of the French and American revolutions of a political order based on the twin principles of freedom and equality, or of the equality of freedom. There are indeed alternatives premised on privileging one subgroup of people over others, based on religion or ethnicity or nationality. But these are hardly systems that will appeal to anyone other than the privileged group in question.
But if there is no higher alternative than liberal democracy, why are so many people around the world living under such regimes so discontented today? I predicted the emergence of such discontent in my 1992 book, which many of my critics had not bothered to read all the way to the end.
The last five chapters were about the “last man,” a contemptuous phrase from Friedrich Nietzsche describing the kind of person who emerges at the end of history. The “last man” is a creature without pride or striving to be something better, content with petty pleasures and material well-being….Certain human beings, in other words, do not want to be last men; they want to struggle to have their dignity recognized, or to have the dignity of other mistreated or marginalized people acknowledged. If they are privileged to be living in an established, wealthy liberal democracy like the United States, they will turn against their own institutions.
Struggle for struggle’s sake is what happens when we are at the end of history, when the world is actually in pretty good shape, and there are no great causes worthy of risking one’s life. In the “old age of mankind,” all the possible alternatives to liberal democracy have been tried, and none has turned out to be particularly inspiring.