Somewhere in the past three posts Fukuyama was mentioned.

I too read End of History – about ten years ago. I took notes as was my habit back then. But they are gone now. [My reading notes - including a lot of popular math and physics - were stored in leather CD carriers that were stolen. I have often wondered about the look on their faces when the music cases that weren’t were opened up.]

What I recall is that Fukuyama stumbled over Nietzsche. Who doesn’t? “The old curmudgeon” was acknowledged, but in Fukuyama’s thesis, the individuals’ will to power would be tamed by the greater personal freedoms under liberal democracy. In other words, more of a judgment call than a rigorous philosophical proof.

Which is fine. But I also recall reading Fukuyama’s post 9-11 WSJ essay in which he defended his thesis, but stumbled again when addressing the subject of Islamic terrorism and the future of liberal democracy within the context of the Islamic religion. The way I recall the op-ed was that his explanation was not.

I have always thought it relates to the issue of “rational players.” Putin is a player in the Nietzsche mold. He will never fit within the evolutionary scheme developed by Fukuyama. Neither will the Islamists.

Theories derive from pattern recognition – identifying order out of the chaos. History, like electricity which is driven by impurities within the substrate, is at least, if not more so, driven by the exceptions, the outliers, that and those which fall outside the patterns.

All of which is a little – or a lot – ethereal. But it is the reason that I remember – without my notes! – for not putting much credence in the “theory”. What validity can be identified is of too narrow a range of applicability to be of much use.