“The family comes, and the earth is forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes, and the sun goes, and hurries to its place where it rises. The wind goes to the south, and passes to the north, circles, spins on its move, and the wind comes to its circles. All rivers flow into the sea, but the sea is not overflowing: to the place where the rivers flow, they are returning to the rest. Labor can not be resettled with an eye, the ear will not be filled with, and what was done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

These words belong to the anonymous Jewish sage, probably the end of the third century BC, who wrote on behalf of King Solomon. The poetic virtues of the “ecclesiastes” are obvious, but now the content is more important for us. Before us is the oldest and for many centuries the most popular philosophy of history. It is not supported by any arguments except everyday experience, but the obviousness of these simple arguments and the authority of the Bible provided her with a long life. Nevertheless, at the junction of the 18th and 19th centuries, Ecclesiastes had serious rivals-at least in the field of theory, because from a literary point of view, prose, for example, Hegel, is difficult to call a step forward.

I would not want to give samples of this prose and go into the details of these theories - Hegel, Marx or Weber. It is enough to mention that they all doubted in the main of the biblical points: what was, then it will be. All of them were sure that it would be different than it was, but if so, then the task of a real historian was to predict the future.

Ten years ago, an article by the American sociologist Francis Fukuyama with a breathing name was published in National Interest magazine: "End of history?" The article immediately became a sensation - at the beginning of the national, and then the world. Ten years ago, the idols of communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and Russia one after another, the peoples found freedom and, in search of real ideals, turned to face to the west. Observing this process, at that time an employee of the US State Department made a logical, in his opinion, conclusion: from now on the future of all countries and peoples is the same, and his name is “liberal democracy”.

Even having lost many of the then illusions, one cannot be too strictly judged by the one who had them at that time. But why exactly the "end of the story", and what was the sensation of the thesis of Fukuyama? I feel that I still can not do without Hegel, at least in reasonable, homeopathic doses.

Hegel, like many at that time, was the theoretician of progress. The development of science and the first symptoms of the industrial revolution suggested that if it was bad yesterday, and today it would be better, then tomorrow it would be even better. This method of conclusion, from private to general, that is, withdrawing mandatory laws from accumulated experience, in formal logic is called induction.

With his laws, Hegel went, as they say, to the end. He argued that it would not just be better further, but that one day it would become very good - there is nowhere better, and that the progress, which he considered as the realization of a certain absolute spirit, inevitably reaches the highest point - full embodiment. After the battle of Yena in 1806, when the revolutionary army of Napoleon defeated the inert and bureaucratic Prussian kingdom, Hegel essentially proclaimed that the peak of the Spirit was reached. Napoleon’s defeat and the subsequent triumph of reaction in Europe also did not confuse the philosopher: he made a small amendment and proclaimed the Prussian kingdom itself the goal and crown of progress. The convenience of such a theory consists in its practical incontrovertibility - go, beat a person who always lies in the pocket of a spare ace.

Hegel's philosophy is the lot of cabinet scientists, but one of his followers imprinted on the whole history of our century. This, of course, is about Marx, who claimed that he turned the master’s teachings from head to toe. In fact, he simply adapted him for his needs and slightly remembered his sensation, pushing the top of progress into an indefinite future. The substitution of the absolute spirit with productive forces is important for revolutionary sailors and other gunshot activists, but from the point of view of logic, is just another term.

The ideological atmosphere of the century is paradoxical. On the one hand, all of us, the postmodernists involuntarily, left Nietzsche, this ecclesiastication of the new time, who taught to doubt all the good. On the other hand, the collapse of the greatest in the history of utopia did not discourage Hegel's heirs, and they continue to amaze our imagination with paintings of inevitable prosperity.

Francis Fukuyama is a direct spiritual descendant of Hegel. This is how he himself describes the history of his famous article:

"At that time, I worked as a researcher in the field of Soviet politics at Rand Corporation; ... in 1988 I read Gorbachev’s speech in which he said that the essence of socialism was a competition. I immediately called my friend, political theorist, and said:“ If this is true, we came to the end of history. ”He realized well, he immediately understood what I mean. The basis of the lecture on the triumph of the West, which I read at the University of Chicago next winter, and then the articles presented in National Interest. "

The content of this article can be stateed in a few words. At the same time, I, of course, simplify and omit all detailed and erudite argumentation.

With the collapse of communist utopia in the world, only one system of social structure remained, promising the well -being and protection of human personal freedom - capitalism. Unlike communism, capitalism proved these qualities in practice. The ideology of modern developed capitalism, known as "liberal democracy", no more rivals. And since this is obvious to all reasonable people who care about their own and social benefits, the triumph of the market is inevitable. Such a celebration will be the end of history in the Hegelian sense, the disappearance of internal conflicts in society. Fukuyama refers to his conclusions with disarming seriousness, and at the end of the article is sad in advance about heroic times that will forever remain in the past.

"The end of the story will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, willingness to risk life for the sake of a purely abstract goal, the universal ideological struggle, which aroused the audacity, courage, imagination and idealism, will replace the economic calculation, endless unraveling of technical problems, the environmental care and the satisfaction of the sophisticated consumer demand. There will be neither art nor philosophy in the post -historical period, nor philosophy, nor philosophy, nor philosophy, nor philosophy, nor philosophy. But only endless curators in the Museum of Humanity of Humanity. "

No, you did not misheard. These words were indeed printed in an authoritative socio-political journal, without a shadow of subjunctive mood. But even more amazing, from my point of view, that instead of laughing and oblivion, they brought the author world fame.

It passed ten years, but the worries about the environment have not yet replaced the more pressing ones, and very few of us think about ourselves as museum rangers. We telegrapically list the events: Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Genocide in Rwanda, permanent bloody crisis in the Balkans, Civil Wars in the Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Colombia, Afghanistan, Ethiopian-Eritrean war, conflict in Kashmir against the background of the acquisition of the official status of nuclear nuclear powers, economic crisis in Asia. You can continue, but easier to mention the most important. Russia, which served as one of the main trump cards in the deck, still cannot opt for liberal democracy, and its route has not yet cleared up to prosperity. In China, the existence of a dynamic market sector does not lead to the liberalization of the regime - the skeptic would say that, on the contrary, mentioning the rattling with a weapon towards Taiwan and mass repressions regarding the Falungun sect. Unfortunately, all this, unfortunately, is quite predictable according to the methodology of ecclesiastes, but it does not fit into the framework of optimistic forecasts of the end of history.

In the tenth of the publication of the famous thesis, the same National Interest magazine printed a new article by Francis Fukuyama called "Revaluation". I saw this title on the cover not without pleasant surprise. There is practically no precedent for a prominent representative of social sciences to abandon the theory on which his world reputation is based. Usually, as is well known from Marxism, everything that contradicts theory, dialectically inevitably confirms it. Recall at least a spare ace of Hegel.

This is how Fukuyama himself sets out the sum of his doubts:

"In my opinion, nothing of what happened in world politics and the global economy has been canceled by my conclusion that liberal democracy and the economy -oriented economy are the only real choice for modern societies. The most serious events of this period were the economic crisis in Asia and the obvious failure with market reforms in Russia. But although these events are replete with political lessons, they are finally The score is corrected by political efforts, and do not quit a systematic call to liberal world order.

On the other hand, the argument that I used to prove that the history is unpertured, progressive, and that it is culminated in a modern liberal state, fundamentally mistaken. ”

Firstly, we find here a subjunctive inclination, which was almost completely absent in the original divination. Secondly, the author recognizes the fallacy, if not the thesis, then the argument. These backstage steps are great courage and great risk.

But personally, such repentance is not enough for me.

Publishing the anniversary article by Francis Fukuyama, the National Interest magazine accompanies it with the reviews of venerable critics, and some of them are very merciless. We can also recall that the publication of the "end of the story" was met by the real canonade of skepticism - it seemed that all serious magazines had no more important lesson than to refute the new theory. For me, they could refute Nostradamus with the same zeal. There is no better way to create a person with a serious scientist than to accept the conditions of the dispute he proposed.

Why do I take the courage to be so sharply judging Fukuyama - and even Hegel, whose name is unconditionally inscribed in philosophical litvari? I am guided by the principle that Karl Popper formulated one of the largest philosophers of the twentieth century: there is no authority in science. This means that the truth of the scientific theory does not depend on any extent on the fame of its author, but only on the severity of evidence. Einstein, for example, rejected the quantum theory and hypothesis of a large explosion from which the Universe arose all his life, but Einstein was wrong. Francis Fukuyama, like his teacher Hegel, does not play according to the rules, and this is easy to show, without putting into action neither encyclopedic knowledge nor the track record.

Fukuyama and all other predictors of the future use the induction method, that is, they are concluded by analogy. But induction has long been rejected by modern science as an instrument of evidence and exiled from logic to psychology. Ecclesiastes saw that the sun rises every day, and believed that it would always ascend. But such reasoning cannot be considered evidence. Today, when we know why the sun rises, you can build more reasonable forecasts.

Induction is a good help in everyday life, but as an instrument of knowledge, it brought humanity for its history a lot of troubles. It is rather a relic of animal consciousness: it is suitable for searching for pressing food, but does not work at all in the field of abstract thinking. Her absurdity is well illustrated in the parable of Bertrand Russell about the philosophizing cow. Seeing that the farmer brings her food every day, takes care of her health and indulges her in every way, the cow comes to the inductive conclusion that everything will be the same and even better. But one fine day, the farmer takes the cow to the massacre.

In history, these conclusions are easily reinforced with a simple example. At the beginning of the century, Western civilization reached unprecedented material well -being and integration. World public opinion was inclined to believe that progress was provided in the future. But on June 28, 1914, shots in Sarayev thundered, and events began to take shape at all in favor of progress.

In the book “The Poverty of Historicalism”, Karl Popper convincingly proved the futility of all historical and philosophical attempts to predict the future. There are only a hundred pages in this book, but the evidence itself easily fits into a couple of sentences. Social forecasts, even the most conscientious, are built only taking into account existing factors. But they are not able to take into account the factors that will accidentally arise in the very near future and will sharply affect the process: the murder of the Erzduz, the telegram of Zimmermann, etc. The modern mathematical theory of chaos teaches that a wave of butterfly wings in Japan can cause a storm in America. That is why, by the way, weather forecasters are not able to make meaningful forecasts for a period of more than a month. But weather forecasters, unlike Fukuyama, Hegel and Nostradamus, are engaged in science.

Sociology, which exists in dozens of options and known by different names, has always claimed the scientific and mandatory of its conclusions. But she cannot, but rather does not want to learn from the exact sciences a simple principle: if it is undoubtedly proved that the problem does not have a solution, it is no longer necessary to take on it. For a long time, patent bureaus has not been considering the projects of the eternal engine, even the most sophisticated ones, because the eternal engine is impossible in the framework of proven physical laws. The scientific works of Hegel, Marx, and now there is no need to refute Nanovo every time, for Fukuyami, because this is an expedition to a guaranteed dead end.

The occurrence of utopia Fukuyama in the United States is not quite an accident. It is only surprising that she took the form of Hegelianism completely inorganic for this country. Optimism has always been one of the main rods of the American worldview, and this is quite explained by the history of the country: the equality of chances in the struggle for luck, the visual examples of this good luck, and in the end, is simply a psychological type of immigrant - a person who put his life on the map. The two largest tragedies in the history of the country, civil war and great depression, occupy a relatively small piece of this story. Most of the theorists of American utopianism and triumphism, and there were many of them, were not widely fame abroad. The case of Francis Fukuyama, it seems to me, received world publicity precisely because people who would be more reasonable to refrain too much. If a dozen Nobel laureates finds to criticize the inventor of self -propelled galoshes, you can vouch that his name will supplant their own from the pages of magazines.

In Russia, however, the name and ideas of Fukuyama did not gain very wide fame. I think that the matter here is not only in isolation or bias to American forecasts. It is easy to notice that these specific ideas are completely contrary to all the modern experience of Russians, against the background of which the poverty of the argumentation of Fukuyama is strictly obvious. True, in the current, revised form, this doctrine no longer affirms the mathematical inevitability of the upcoming happiness. Liberal democracy is now represented only as “the only real choice for modern societies”, and the word “real” here must be understood in Gegelian as “reasonable”. But the one who has lived all his life in the Soviet Union, and now lives in Russia, does not need to suggest that in addition to a reasonable choice, there is an endless number of unreasonable ones, and that real states and people do not always choose the best.

The history of Russia is generally much more cloudy and more tragic than the history of America, and the Russians have learned many lessons from it that they are ready to teach any optimist. The easiest way to do this is the mouth of the hero of Dostoevsky:

"... What can be expected from a person as a creature gifted with such strange qualities? Yes, crumble it with all earthly benefits, drown in happiness with your head, so that only the bubbles jump up on the surface of happiness, like on the water; give him such economic contentment, so that he has nothing to do, except sleeping, eating gingerbread and bother about the dissenting of a worldwide history, so it is for you. And here, and here, from one ingratitude, from one Pasquil will take an abomination.

So says a man from the underground about the curator of the museum of the end of history. These words send us back to Ecclesiast. Maybe Fukuyama knows Hegel better, but Dostoevsky knows the person better.

Человек из подполья бунтует и сознательно отвергает выбор, который Фукуяме кажется разумным и безальтернативным, он видит в нем посягательство на свою свободу, пусть даже свободу быть дураком. С другой стороны, Виктор Степанович Черномырдин пришел вовсе не из подполья, и вполне можно верить, что он хотел как лучше. Но вышло как всегда. Видимо, выбор, который казался ему разумным, не обязательно им был. И такие в меру добросовестные политики, как он, составляют большинство в реально существующих правительствах. Им-то рано или поздно приходится отвечать за свои действия, но блистательные теоретики свободны от этого бремени. Если не верите, почитайте славословия Гегелю в любой современной энциклопедии.

Народы, в том числе и русский, как правило слабее в социальной теории, чем ученые личности, но они неизмеримо богаче опытом. Несостоятельность индукции и футурологии они постигли задолго до Карла Поппера и отразили не в трактатах, а в формулах повседневной мудрости: "еще не вечер" или "цыплят по осени считают".

Отличие Фрэнсиса Фукуямы от Гегеля или от Маркса гораздо меньше, чем может показаться, даже несмотря на его половинчатое покаяние. Либеральная демократия в том виде, в каком он ее провозвестил, почти так же фиктивна, как абсолютный дух или коммунизм. Ее наступление в результате единого акта выбора возможно только в мире, который целиком сконструирован в голове теоретика.

В том мире, где мы живем, этот абстрактный выбор нам не предоставлен. Реальный выбор мы делаем каждый день своей сознательной жизни, и это как правило не строительство хрустального дворца, а починка амбара. Нельзя утереть слезы всем страждущим, но можно улучшить закон о социальном обеспечении и проследить за его исполнением. Вместо того, чтобы одним ударом разбивать цепи всем угнетенным, надо усовершенствовать тарифную сетку на своем предприятии. Бессмысленно наводить блеск на будущее, но можно попытаться поправить сегодняшний день. Постоянно помнить, что твоя свобода - это часть свободы каждого, а твое материальное благосостояние - продукт общественного труда.

Настоящая либеральная демократия - это не идеология, а трудный опыт, не пункт назначения, а прокладка маршрута. Правило Черномырдина учит, что риск сбиться с пути остается всегда, и эта простая мудрость стоит больше, чем все труды социологов.