"[I]n the last couple of chapters of The End of History and the Last Man... I said that there is this side of the human personality that the Greeks called thymos. It’s the pridefulness..."

"... and the desire for respect that sometimes conflicts with your rational pursuit of self-interest. One of the problems in a liberal society is that it doesn’t give you a source of striving for higher ends if you simply have peace and prosperity. And I think that you can see this both on the left and the right today, where, in the United States we're having a lot of disputes over mask wearing and vaccination mandates. And protesters are wearing stars of David, saying that their requirement to get vaccinated and to wear masks is like Hitler's treatment of the Jews. And I think that's a perfect example of complacency. You're living in a liberal society. The government is not asking very much of you, but even the slightest imposition on your individual freedom, you compare it to the worst tyrannies of previous ages. You can only do that in a society that's really forgotten what real tyranny is like. And I think that one of the things that has happened with Putin's invasion of Ukraine is to remind people what real tyranny looks like...."

From "Francis Fukuyama on Ukraine, liberalism and identity politics/‘Vladimir Putin is going to be remembered as one of the fathers of the Ukrainian nation’" (Spectator). Fukuyama is promoting his new book "Liberalism and Its Discontents."

Fukuyama also says this about Ukraine, declaring that "Vladimir Putin is going to be remembered as one of the fathers of the Ukrainian nation when this is all over with":

"We think of ourselves as people with an inner self hidden inside that is denigrated, ignored, not listened to."

"A great deal of modern politics is about the demand of that inner self to be uncovered, publicly claimed, and recognized by the political system. A lot of these recognition struggles flow out of the social movements that began to emerge in the 1960s involving African-Americans, women, the LGBT community, Native Americans, and the disabled. These groups found a home on the left, triggering a reaction on the right. They say: What about us? Aren’t we deserving of recognition? Haven’t the elites ignored us, downplayed our struggles? That’s the basis of today’s populism.... [I]n the ’60s and ’70s... identity came to the forefront. People felt unfulfilled. They felt they had these true selves that weren’t being recognized. In the absence of a common cultural framework previously set by religion, people were at a loss.... Social media is perfectly made for identity politics. It allows you to close yourself off in an identity group, get affirmation of everything you say, and not have to argue with people who think differently...."

From "What Follows the End of History? Identity Politics," an interview with the author of "The End of History Francis Fukuyama in The Chronicle of Higher Education.