Super fun stuff! I had one for a future history thing I'm working on called Cosmicism. Basically, society is divided between the Precariat (whose unifying characteristic is instability in consistent quality of life) and Kyriarchy (which is not a specific class or group but rather the web of connections that destabilizes the Precariat, and whoever profits off of it based on local context). Because climate shifts and resource scarcity (among other factors) expand the Precariat class by destabilizing existing societies it is the desire of Cosmicism to spread to encompass the entire human race, where the second stage goal becomes two-fold. First, because it considers itself a stabilizing force the entirety of human cultural history must be studied and preserved to serve as part of a universal human toolkit/monument to the human endeavor. Second, Cosmicism strives to expand human society beyond the Earth, both to extract resources (preserving the Earth's environment) and to prevent the total extinction of the human race in the event of a catastrophe.
While fundamentally a big government ideology (and categorically convinced of individual insignificance on a historical scale), Cosmicism is actually a fairly libertarian ideology, on the basis that anything that doesn't threaten the cultural history/technical progress of the human race, or public order, or long term species survivability more generally is allowed. Human insignificance ironically makes most personal stuff far beneath concern for the state, and makes the cult of personality "Great Man" style of politics verboten.
Styling itself the "Fourth Position" Cosmicism expands on the Marxist conception of history by swapping Liberalism for Capitalism and including Fascism as a reaction against Marxism. The current age is retroactively described as Nihilist, blending cynical distortions of the preceding stages in a terrible world destroying post-modern death spiral. Despite the fact that Cosmicism is a conscious reaction against it Nihilism is not considered an ideology in the Cosmicist conception of history.
Cosmicist historiography is divided into two different core concepts. The Four Positions are arranged in a chain called the Leviathan, made up of a series of stages where each next link reacts against all the preceding links. The length of each stage is different and leaves stronger or weaker traces in each subsequent stage.
- The first (and chronologically longest) is Feudalism, using an intentionally imprecise definition to cover every hierarchical society between the formation of settled states and the Enlightenment. Feudalism is characterized by mercantilism.
- A desire for liberty would give rise to Liberalism during the Enlightenment, which is characterized by general government non-intervention in ordinary human affairs (in theory at least). Liberalism and Socialism rely on different approaches to capitalism.
- A desire for equality gave rise to Socialism, which sought to use different degrees of government intervention to improve human affairs.
- A desire for fraternity would lead to Fascism, as conceptions of state and nation would be used to focus government intervention toward (or against) specific groups to strengthen social cohesion.
- Nihilism would congeal from the remains of the first three positions, relying on distorted history and a retrocultural impulse to try to shape social and governmental affairs. Because it is not grounded in reality Nihilism represents terminal decline, producing a fear of the future.
Cosmicism divides the future history into three stages of social complexity. The Leviathan is wholly contained in the Volksgeist stage of seperate states competing for dominance across history. A desire for
eternity (a stable long-term flowering of human potential) ushers in the creation of Cosmicism and the Zeitgeist, a revolutionary wave. The ultimate success of the Zeitgeist would result in the Weltgeist, a united global humanity reaching out eagerly into the solar system.
The Fourth Position views the left-right political spectrum as reductionist, and relies on a complex political spectrum with four different axes. Progressive/Conservative governs social attitudes, Authoritarian/Libertarian deals with levels of personal freedom, Gradual/Radical deals with the pace of Cosmicist reform, and finally Populist/Elite relates where the mechanism for implementing this reform comes from. Rather than reduce figures and nations to points on a line this has the effect of creating a descriptive shape instead.
Theoretically at the conclusion of the Weltgeist stage a desire for expansion beyond the Solar System and a drive to achieve
infinity would produce a Fifth Position capable of absorbing and surpassing Cosmicism in the creation of a constantly transforming human diaspora, not unlike the Scattering in Dune.