The 8th session of the Youth Salon series hosted by the Institute of Area Studies, Peking University (PKUIAS) was held on November 22, 2024 under the theme “Fukuyama, Trump, and the Uses of Classical Studies.” The lecture featured presentations by Chen Siyi, associate professor of Philosophy at Peking University, and Zhang Yongle, associate professor of Law and deputy director of PKUIAS, with moderation by Duan Demin, associate professor of School of Government at Peking University.

Zhang Yongle pointed out that Francis Fukuyama’s decades-long critique of Donald Trump had, to some extent, drawn upon classical studies. He traced the origins of Fukuyama’s critiques and the formulation of the “end of history” thesis. In his 1989 essay “The End of History?”, Fukuyama, influenced by Alexandre Kojève’s Hegelian interpretation as mediated by Allan Bloom, reinterpreted Plato’s tripartite soul (reason–thymos–desire) from The Republic. He framed thymos as the drive for “recognition”, arguing that the struggle for recognition propelled historical progress. Fukuyama claimed that liberal democracy satisfied individuals’ mutual need for recognition, thereby heralding the “end of history.” In 1992, Fukuyama expanded this essay into The End of History and the Last Man, where he addressed the question of leadership suited to the “end of history”: ideal leaders, he argued, should avoid radical egalitarianism and excessive megalothymia (‘desire for superiority’). The book twice referenced Trump: in Chapter 27, citing Tocqueville, Fukuyama argued that in egalitarian societies, excessive freedom and its resultant inequalities became glaring, with Trump serving as an example of unchecked liberty that risked alienation in such contexts. In Chapter 31, Fukuyama discussed how to satisfy megalothymia in the “end of history,” contending that figures like Trump, the mountaineer Reinhold Messner, and George H.W. Bush, despite their achievements in business, conquering nature, and politics, engaged in endeavors insufficiently “serious” to alleviate post-historical ennui. To combat this boredom, Fukuyama warned, people might paradoxically rebel against the very systems enabling their prosperity. He thus proposed that sustaining the “end of history” required tempering both isothymia (‘desire for equality’) and megalothymia.

Chen Siyi followed by tracing the conceptual history of thymos, elucidating how Fukuyama leveraged this notion to advance his “end of history” thesis. While disagreeing with Fukuyama’s conclusions, Chen Siyi acknowledged that Fukuyama’s use of thymos had accurately outlined key dynamics in Western political and intellectual history, identifying genuine problems. However, he criticized Fukuyama’s conceptual gaps: his interpretation of thymos leaped directly from Plato to Hegel, bypassing Rousseau, whose critique of bourgeois pseudo equality aligned with Hegel’s ideals. Fukuyama also ignored Christianity’s role in shaping thymos, or, as Fukuyama himself admitted, this is an Anglo-American tradition, a capitalist tradition from Hobbes to Locke. Chen Siyi concluded by analyzing US partisan struggles through the lens of two forms of thymos, framing them as the inheritors of “two Romes”: one emphasizing passion and candor, the other morality and subtlety. In this sense, Fukuyama had indeed pinpointed critical issues.

Zhang Yongle then continued to unpack Fukuyama’s intellectual trajectory. In his 2011 work The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, Fukuyama’s methodology shifted subtly, from political philosophy grounded in human nature to historical sociology and political science, adopting a more empirical approach influenced by Samuel P. Huntington. The book’s central thesis posited that sound political order required three elements: a strong state, the rule of law, and an accountable government, with Denmark exemplifying their synthesis. European nations, Fukuyama argued, had progressed toward “getting to Denmark” at varying paces. In his 2014 sequel, Political Order and Political Decay, Fukuyama clarified that liberal democracy represented a balanced integration of these three elements, empirically asserting that such balance became urgent only under conditions of high economic growth and state-led modernization. In a 2016 commentary on China’s Belt and Road initiative, Fukuyama even invoked the “China model” to provoke US introspection, urging Americans to reflect on their domestic and international struggles to advance infrastructure projects.

Zhang Yongle next reviewed Fukuyama’s critiques of US politics and Trump around the 2016 election, contrasting them with his earlier “end of history” stance. In 2016, Fukuyama coined the term “vetocracy” to criticize America’s gridlocked governance through his tripartite framework (state, rule of law, accountable government), arguing that institutional paralysis had stalled US state-building. He initially hoped a Democratic administration would address this, but Trump’s election forced him to reinterpret his framework. By 2018, in Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, Fukuyama shifted his focus, contending that partisan deadlock had fueled public demand for a strongman leader, a dynamic he used to explain Trump’s rise. In the book, Fukuyama acknowledged two intellectual shifts: recognizing the difficulty of modern state-building and the potential decay of liberal democracies. He maintained that while the “end of history” provided a baseline of equality, it failed to address radical egalitarian demands. Figures like Trump, he argued, harnessed the isothymia among the marginalized, merging it with their own megalothymia to mobilize support. In later analyses, Fukuyama identified neoliberalism’s wealth disparities and identity politics of so-called “woke liberalism” as key enablers of Trump’s appeal.

Zhang Yongle concluded with a critique: Fukuyama’s analysis of the politics and identity politics framed such phenomena as intermediary mechanisms of change rather than drivers of systemic evolution. Thus, his analysis of the “politics of recognition” was flawed. He summarized that while Fukuyama’s focus on thymos enriched political economy’s perspective by illuminating intermediary processes, understanding the true dynamics required prioritizing political economy itself.

Chen Siyi, addressing the interplay of capital and thymos, argued that the two were inseparably entangled, resisting causal hierarchy. Drawing parallels to Plato’s Republic, where thymos and desire are always intertwined, Chen Siyi noted that it is precisely in this way that human society has achieved progress. The significance of political economy, he contended, lay in embodying the fusion of the political (thymos) and the economic (desire). Both speakers agreed on this point.

Duan Demin, reflecting on political economy, noted that some post-Marxist scholars had turned to Freudian theories to analyze identity politics, diluting political economy’s focus and evading class issues. During the Q&A session, the speakers and audience members discussed comparisons between Trump and Elon Musk, the US bipartisan system, and whether a concept analogous to thymos existed in Chinese political discourse.