The end of the Cold War, in which Fukuyama discerned the millennial triumph of democracy, appears in hindsight to have been the high-water mark for the prestige and legitimacy of this system. Once the external pressure applied by communism was removed, democratic countries lost their internal cohesion, and began the slow descent into negation. The failures of high modernism became painfully evident, when detached from the epic canvas of a life-and-death struggle. The industrial mode of organization, with its militaristic respect for rank, had placed democratic government at a great distance
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