End Of History

Basic Information

To quote The Other Wiki, "The end of history is a political and philosophical concept that supposes that a particular political, economic, or social system may develop that would constitute the end-point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and the final form of human government." Usually, this amounts to something more than "humanity will one day go extinct or transcend, and until then will exist under some form of society;" rather, it usually implies some of:

• There is a single, at least broadly knowable, endpoint.
• The endpoint is either already extant or imminent,
• If the endpoint is not imminent, it is at least inevitable,
• The endpoint is some kind of utopia or at least close to one; Orwell's "boot stamping on a human face forever" tends to be a minority position.

Sources

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia: End of history

Game and Story Use

• The end of history is not likely to be an especially exciting era to set a campaign in; by definition, the PC's aren't going to be doing anything society-shattering.
  • Trying to bring about or delay a particular end of history, though, could make an interesting campaign premise.
• A society that claims itself to be the end of history is committing the kind of hubris that's just asking for something to prove it wrong.
  • The much mocked Francis Fukuyama is often saddled with the role of having declared that this had occurred at the end of the Cold War. To be fair to the man, his essay had a "?" on the end of the statement, and more nuance to it … and he is far from the first to suggest radical stabilisation.