There Is No ‘International Law’
22nd May 2024
Many ancient cultures believed that history was circular: Native American cultures often believed that reality itself was circular; Hinduism thinks similarly. The Judeo-Christian West thought differently: that God exists outside of time, but that he guides mankind forward, step by stumbling step, toward an eschatological culmination.
This means that the West has thought, more than any other culture, about progress.
It also means that the West tends to mistake movement in time for progress, and way stations in history as endpoints. Thus, World War I was labeled “the war to end all wars” … until World War II. In the aftermath of the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama suggested the possibility of an “end of history” … until history reasserted itself along the lines of Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations.