Lets Start with this quote. What Fukuyama describes and assumes is that the world is divided into two parts. The unchallenged liberal democracies of the west, and the rest of the world - inferior in ideology. If we assume this argument we must then assume and construct in juxtaposition liberalism vs the rest of the world - the rest of the world ideologies - whatever they might be for we cannot limit or attempt to define them because there are too many that we know of and that we do not know of and we could not do so objectively without running into problems. So what our world looks like is something like this:
If we talk about globalization, and the Rest moving into the West then what we are essentially talking about, including immigrants and migrants, is the third world crossing not only geographical boundaries but also ideological ones when they move. This crossing of an ideological border is the essential part that we must pay special attention to. Here I mean ideology in its broadest sense; and invisible and institutionalized frame work which guides individuals choices and and lives.
Because we already said that we cannot not possibly know all of other ideologies that might exist outside of liberalism means that we cannot analyze them properly which means we must concentrate on liberalism. This is where the above quote comes in. What Weber is saying about Fukuyama's arguments is that liberalism at its most basic level can be reduced to its promise to the individuals of unbound freedom. In other words liberalism promises everything to the individual without actually being able to satisfy them. Having realized this individuals attempt to over come this problem with economic consumption - however they obviously cannot. Thus, we are then stuck in an endless cycle of deference through economic consumption.
So what does this mean for immigrants? and why does this mean they can never truly assimilate? Given the above quote it becomes very simple. Immigrants cannot assimilate into their host countries because ultimately they cannot shed their past experiences with their home ideologies and adopt the new ones of liberalism. They are able to try and do their best, but they cannot completely erase their minds of past ideologies and adopt liberal policies of endless deterrence. For what it means then to fit into the western world is not so much cultural or historical differences but ideological ones. If one adopts this or is active in this policy of eternal deterrence then one is ideologically liberal and western. This can be best seen with 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants - who are much more westernized then their parents could ever be. But this present us with a problem.
Immigrants who come to western world from third world countries find them selves in trouble because they cannot get used to and adopt to this liberal system. What this means is that they ultimately don't belong to the liberal system even thought they try and find themselves in it. What we have then is something like this:
Individuals immigrate from "Rest of the world" to "liberalism" crossing the first juxtaposition which divides them. However after their failure to adopt and assimilate into liberal society they are then found in the realm of liberalism, but never at its center. In this way this creates a second point of tensions. Some immigrants after going through this experience might feel that they do not belong and wish to go home however here too we find a similar problem. Immigrants that have experienced liberal ideology cannot assimilate back into their home country because they have come in contact with liberal system which have in turn altered their own ideology. They are no longer the pure version of themselves prior to their migration. As a result we now have the same group of migrants not quite belonging to their home country any more either and something which looks like this:
This is where it gets interesting, because we have a group of people, who do not have a fixed identity and ultimately cannot identify with either home or host country. This group then - contrary to our graph so far - doe not exist in the realm of liberalism of the Rest, but instead in a third realm in between then 2nd and 3rd point of tensions. Because it does not fit in either it must exist between them. And because it does not belong to either this group experiences true exile - the inability to find a fixed point on either side. This group exists between two world belong to neither. This is why - if one extends Fukuyama's theory into the Diasporic realm - immigrants and diasporas cannot assimilate into society. This is why diasporas make up strong origin myths and why current multicultural policies cannot accommodate for differences in ideologies.
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