And yet, it evidently is not just hardship which produces extreme decision-making, or extreme politics. One of the things which surprised researchers in the early 2000s, as the world raced to learn about Al Qaeda, was the discovery that the majority of Osama bin Laden’s followers were middle class, well-educated men. This contradicted the stereotypical assumption that terrorists were the victims of a downtrodden upbringing.
Francis Fukuyama’s 1989 essay, The End of History?, propelled him to fame by identifying liberal democracy’s inexorable success, just as Communism collapsed. He doubled down on the theory in a book, The End of History and the Last Man in 1992.
In truth, though, he never argued that conflict or debate had ended. Whether he oversold his thesis in its title, or his critics misrepresent his case, is a separate argument.
“If men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle.
How acutely that describes much of the right and left in the Western world in 2025.
The Americans appear to be trying to sacrifice their imperial power just because they got bored of it making them so comfortable.
square CLIVE MARTIN
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Read MoreWe see it in the falling approval rates for democracy among young people; we see it in the outright denial of the successful progress of anti-racism in the last 60 years; and we even see it in the rise of edgelords like Kneecap, the Northern Irish rap group.
What could be a surer product of the safety and comfort born of the Northern Irish peace process than the appearance of a terrorist fancy dress novelty act chanting “Ooh-ahh, up the Ra”?
In a sense, we are lucky to live in an age in which idle buffoons have the luxury, the security and the calories to pull on silly tricolour balaclavas, or silly Maga hats. Few generations in human history have been so free of hunger or danger, or to be so indulged.
Kneecap have escalated to cheering on Hamas and Hezbollah, and allegedly inciting fans to “murder your local MP”. Maga are down in the gutter, denouncing Ukrainians for fighting to stay alive. Each is a walking, talking warning that if you stand for nothing, you will easily fall for anything.
Mark Wallace is chief executive of Total Politics Group
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