In 1992, political author and historian, Francis Fukuyama published a book, “The End of History And the Last Man“. He argued that Western Liberal Democracy and its political establishments had reached a pinnacle.
The U.S.S.R. had fallen, and with it, the threat of communism as an alternative or dominant force in the post-modern world was extinguished. Liberal Democracy was spreading and reforming governments all over the world. Social, economic and political freedom were the defining virtues of this new world order.
This was the “Last Man,” so to speak. No further evolution was needed.
But what Fukayama did not predict was that liberal democracy would continue to evolve. In the new world order, it was not enough to provide equal rights, education and economic opportunities to Men, women and people of all races and religious creed.
In this new world order, the innate differences between Men and women also needed to be reformed. The new system demanded a complete destruction of any gender differences between males and females. The “Last Man” himself needed to be eradicated in order to achieve a true egalitarian state.
Virtues once associated with Men, such as strength, virility, masculinity and leadership, were frowned upon in this new world order. Despite the genetic, biological and psychological differences between Men and women, liberal democracy demanded that the Last Man shed these traits.
Metrosexuality and homosexuality were seen as virtues because they sought to eliminate gender differences.
In time, an establishment to destroy the Last Man was formed. Beta males who secretly resented their alpha male counterparts and their achievements (both sexual and economic) were happy to oblige.
Dominated by mob mentality, feminists and beta males, liberal democracy spawned new laws and social policies that encourage lawsuits, divorce, single parenthood, and the criminal prosecution and social stigmatization of male behavior.
Rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence, and discrimination became loaded and politicized buzz words heaped upon the Last Man.
And how did we get here? I would argue that well-meaning “equality” and “protection” laws have gone beyond their fair limit and have become highly irrational, both in their development and enforcement.
But it is not solely a legal or political issue. I would also argue that such liberal democratic institutions that further the passage and enforcement of these new legal, and social-cultural reforms have willfully ignored the biological and psychological differences between the sexes.
In the logic of the new social order, if all Men would just behave like women, there would be no difference in economic opportunities, sexual struggle, discrimination, aggression, or abuse.
However, no amount of legal, social or cultural reform in the last century can remove billions of years of evolution that painstakingly constructed Man to be different than a woman.
If we are to follow the laws of nature, Men will always have more testosterone and be naturally stronger and more aggressive (all things being equal in nature).
In order to propagate humankind, Men are genetically and biologically programmed to make sexual advances on women. But in the new world order, biologically driven advances towards women will be construed and prosecuted as “sexual harassment”, “sexual assault”, “rape”, or “abuse” depending on which social or legal construct is deployed against the Last Man.
In this new world order, any casual remark, gesture, or aggression from the Last Man will find itself in the category of one or more of these laws and policies. The biological difference between Men and women also guarantees that Men will deemed the offenders in these categories.
Criminal prosecution and civil litigation have become the new norm; a means for domesticating and subjugating the Last Man. Meanwhile, female displays of anger, sexual aggression, promiscuity and even physical violence, will be tolerated and encouraged in the new social order. Should a Man display any of these traits, they will be deemed antisocial and illegal.
Post-modern liberal democracy has also encouraged legal constructs in family law that fail to account for the biological differences between Men and women. These constructs punish Men far more severely than women (using Community Property Laws, spousal support and no fault policies).
Gone are the days depicted in Mad Men. Don Draper, embodies the tragic demise of the Last Man. Divorced from his simple domestic wife, he finds himself in a new marriage of equals, in the midst of evolving feminist social and cultural norms.
His alpha male dominant characteristics are no longer desirable and he is punished for them. He is pushed out his partnership, and although he eventually returns, it is in a more tempered and docile form.
Draper no longer displays his flashes of brilliance, but at the same time he is no longer requested or expected to do so. Competent and intelligent women now fill the office and Draper often looks confused and out of sorts.
Moving now far beyond that to the present year, there is no vestige of the Don Draper in the new world order. The evolution of the Last Man is moving to completion. He now dutifully shares his office, his work, and promotions with his female co-workers, regardless of merit or economic justification.
Dating and relationships are discouraged in the workforce because of sexual harassment policies. Casual glances, comments or gestures towards women in the workforce are deemed inappropriate and trigger legal liability.
Meanwhile the mantra of equal pay, equal rights and sexual harassment free workplaces take on an absurd new meaning. Without regards to merit, talent or actual ability, the liberal democratic workforce demands that there be equality in all levels and positions in the workforce.
Liberal democracy dictates that the number of engineers, executives to soldiers on the field in battle consist equally of Men and women. Under duress of legal liability and social stigma, employers fear firing female workers (even for gross incompetence). Sex discrimination, unequal pay and sexual harassment lawsuits became tools in the arsenal of weapons against the Last Man.
Almost two hundred years ago, Alexis de Toqueville, a French political scientist, was dispatched to the United States to study its political institutions. In 1840, he wrote, “Democracy In America” in which he warned that American democracy would, while spreading equality and opportunity, could breed the worst kind of tyranny and mob rule.
Tocqueville worried that if despotism were to take root in a modern democracy, it would be a much more dangerous version than the oppression under the Roman emperors or tyrants of the past who could only exert a pernicious influence on a small group of people at a time.
In contrast, a despotism under a democracy could see “a multitude of men” (and women), uniformly alike, equal, and subject to the will of a powerful state which exerted an “immense protective power.”
Toqueville was more prescient than he could have known. The equality that came with liberal democracy spawned a new democratic despotism that has manifested itself in political and legal establishments under the banner of gender equality.
Despite over hundred years of political progress, the Civil Rights Act and Supreme Court reform in the area of gender equality, there is no room left for the Last Man.
In the new world order, politicians run on “gender quality” platforms that seek to emasculate Men and eliminate all gender differences. They take politically expedient positions on sexual harassment, domestic violence, and sexual assault to criminalize male behavior while leaving women completely blameless and untouched.
In the new world order the Last Man ceases to exist. Sexless, stripped of his masculinity, imprisoned, sued and ostracized by political and media establishments, the Last Man waits patiently for his end.