The “end-of-history illusion”: why we are condemned to never learn from the past

One of the most famous quotes regarding history belongs to George Santayana, who stated that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Given that historically generation after generation continues to step upon the same rake, this proposition actually appears as a prophecy more than anything else. Now, the essence here, of course, is not to simply be aware of various events from our past, but rather to actually use that knowledge in order to understand the trajectory of human development. And precisely this is the difficult part.

Perhaps the most characteristic case of an absolutely erroneous historical judgement in our modern era has to be Fukuyama’s idea of the “end of history”. Interestingly, there is a phenomenon called the “end-of-history illusion” within the field of individual psychology. According to psychologist Hal Hershfield, “although we recognise that we've evolved from who we once were to who we are now, we fail to see that we will continue to change in the future”. As the BBC article goes, “this bias is known as the ‘end-of-history illusion’ and it can have many unfortunate consequences for our personal and professional lives”. The major paradox here is that the same type of bias is in full swing when it comes to the historical progress of humanity, but hardly anyone seems to take notice of it. And, by the way, in this case it also has many unfortunate consequences.

Now, the same ideological feature that prevents us from overcoming Santayana’s prophecy - and from actually reading history correctly - is also, arguably, behind this end-of-history bias. And we may refer to this feature as the great liberal illusion. Namely, within our contemporary liberal era every individual appears to take for granted his or her social consciousness, or in other words - the contents of their mind. This liberal personality tends to assume that his political and social views are purely the result of his intellectual capabilities. As these views appear to him as logical and rational, they must be correct. For these stem from his intellect, and obviously everyone considers himself or herself to be among the smarter ones. Has anyone ever claimed, for instance, the following: “I know I’m wrong and yet I oppose abortion”?

So where is the illusion within all of this? Firstly, we find it in the notion that whichever age or era this individual would have lived in, he or she would still have held the very same political views. Whether we like it or not, every single one of us at a particular time in human history would have accepted human sacrifices, pagan gods, or the divine right of the kings. The fact that we no longer believe in all of this nonsense today has nothing to do with our intellectual prowess, but is rather the result of the greater stage of human economic development that we find ourselves in. And secondly, unless this development stops for whatever reason, the future generations will equally have very different social consciousness from ours today. However, our liberal illusion pushes us towards the assumption that we have now reached the final stage in our intellectual development. This bias of treating ourselves as the correct ones implies that the future societies will continue to hold the same beliefs and social norms as we have come to accept today.

Unfortunately, every generation is proved wrong time and time again. For it must be difficult to even entertain the idea that one’s social understanding might not correspond to the universal and final truth. Would it be an easy task, for instance, to prove to a conservative person today that absolute gender equality is an objective and inevitable development? And that he or she is wrong to defend any form of male supremacy? Here is an example regarding the issues that are raised by the modern-day Republicans in the US:

“Hawley’s comments sounded similar to those of Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, who went viral last month in a video calling on mothers to raise their sons to be ‘monsters.’ Today’s culture, Cawthorn said, is trying to ‘demasculate’ all young men ‘because they don’t want people who are going to stand up.’”

All these conservatives do here, however, is merely once again fulfill Santayana’s prophecy. For today’s Republicans are by no means original in sounding the civilizational alarm over changing social norms. For example, while coeducation is a self-evident phenomenon in our times, this has not always been the case. And there is hardly anything surprising in the fact that in the US “colleges and universities faced volatile opposition when women began attending classes with men.” It was feared back then that “the entrance of women into formerly all-male institutions would lower university standards and the university itself would become feminized.” Furthermore, “male logic was perceived to be in jeopardy, leaving the nation powerless and unable to influence the world's progress.” Such were the arguments by “the prophets of doom” of the early 20th century. But were they so different from the contemporary calls to turn the boys into monsters?

In any case, the social apocalypse never arrived. Also, for better or for worse, these social changes did not prevent the USA from becoming a global superpower in the second half of that century. All the fears regarding coeducation, as one could have expected, proved to be merely hot air. So how would the conservatives of today evaluate the claim made some 140 years ago by a certain Mary Ashton Livermore that “flirtations, early marriage, masculine women, effeminate men, and lower moral standards” constituted the “threat posed by coeducation”? And would they still propose the abolition of coeducation in our times? But most importantly, would they accept the historical lesson that the future generations will ridicule them in the same way that we ridicule the social fears of the past decades? Most likely not, for equally to their predecessors, they are completely sure to possess the ultimate historical truth. They likewise believe that our society has reached the end of history.

To return to the question of coeducation, 19th century society took the fact that women could get an education at all as the ultimate social achievement. After all, those were the days when even a Parliamentary Report in the UK could proclaim that “girls should be educated to be ‘decorative, modest, marriageable beings’.” And, to be sure, those Victorian era politicians would likewise not have been capable of imagining how ridiculous such a proposition would look in 2025. Here is some more description of how the end of history was conceived by our predecessors:

“A group of physicians and psychologists, writing between 1874 and 1903, warned of the dire physical consequences awaiting women who attended coeducational universities. In 1874 Dr. Edward Clark declared coeducation 'a crime before God and humanity.' He warned that American women would ruin their physical capabilities and American males would have to ‘import European women to be mothers of the race.’ [...] Stanley Hall firmly stated that the first danger to women was ‘over-brain work.’ The list of infirmities prophesied to women subjected to coeducation goes on and on - including uterine-based emotional disorders, constant illness, and menstrual irregularities. Their ‘proven’ lack of brain power was thought to render women unable to think abstractly, analytically and powerfully. The ‘womb doctors’ claimed that the uterus was a great power which dominated a woman's mental and physical life, resulting in a weak, submissive, and generally inferior person.”

We have come a long way since then in terms of women’s rights and gender equality. But not that much in terms of learning from history and sidestepping George Santayana’s prophecy. And as long as the “end-of-history illusion” shapes our perspective, the road of human history ahead of us will be as conflictual as it has been so far.

Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230619-how-the-end-of-history-illusion-shapes-your-life-choices
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/11/21/josh-hawley-madison-cawthorn-jd-vance-masculinity-523136
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25680560?seq=1
https://newn.cam.ac.uk/about/history-college/womens-education

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