Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Fukuyama: not what I meant

Pat Lang dumps on Fukuyama's NY Times rigamarole. Always fun to dump on Fukuyama.

So, it Wasn't the End of History?
"The End of History," in other words, presented a kind of Marxist argument for the existence of a long-term process of social evolution, but one that terminates in liberal democracy rather than communism. In the formulation of the scholar Ken Jowitt, the neoconservative position articulated by people like Kristol and Kagan was, by contrast, Leninist; they believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support." Fukuyama

Apparently, this is not exactly right. I mean the part about "no longer support." Fukuyama's solution for the mess that he and his pseudo-conservative Jacobin friends have gotten us all in is that the US should have much the same policy with regard to "friendly autocrats" but should be careful not to do anything that might further break up the China (dishes). In other words, he has no solution for the mess that he and his pals made but is frightened by the result of their sophomoric meddling with the deepest forces in human nature and Middle Eastern history. Ah, I forgot. History has no meaning for them because like all good little Utopians, the past is dead and only the future matters. Lang

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