According to Time:
ZAMAN DAILY NEWSPAPER (2004071410372): Famous academic Francis Fukuyama, one of the founding fathers of the neo-conservative movement that underlies the policies of US President George W. Bush's administration, said on July 13 that he would not vote for the incumbent in the November 2 US Presidential election. In addition to distancing himself from the current administration, Fukuyama told TIME magazine that his old friend, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, should resign. In 1997, Fukuyama together with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb Bush, signed a declaration entitled 'The New American Century Project'. That declaration set the groundwork for the neo-conservative movement.
Fukuyama began to distance himself from the administration during the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The tension between the two came to a head prior to the invasion of Iraq. Fukuyama opposed the war. Fukuyama is still angry at the Bush administration since they refuse to admit to the mistakes they have made. Fukuyama had warned that after the war, Iraq would be dragged into an internal conflict and would export terror to the world.
Fukuyama said that because of those reasons he could not vote for Bush in the upcoming elections. He added that he has an important place among the right wing and could affect the outcome of the elections; however, he explained that he would not carry out any studies in that direction because he is not eager to fight with 'old friends'....
Well, we all choose what our primary loyalties are, I suppose.
Posted by DeLong at July 17, 2004 04:18 PM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this postZAMAN: "In his well-known work of political philosophy 'The End of History and the Last Man', Fukuyama argues that history is directional and that its endpoint is capitalist liberal democracy."
Fukuyama 0 - Soros 1
Posted by: ogmb on July 17, 2004 05:09 PMWhat's so great about Fukuyama? His most famous book was astoundingly wrong.
Oh, and btw, the neoconservative movement was not exactly founded in 1997.
Posted by: praktike on July 17, 2004 06:25 PMI hope he has some sway with his former buddies, but I doubt it. The power of mythology among that crowd is too great.
Posted by: Linkmeister on July 17, 2004 06:37 PM>Fukuyama opposed the war.
Ohmigod...Franky actually got something right!!
Didn't last too long, though:
>He added that he has an important place among the right wing and could affect the outcome of the elections
Dude would have been in for a real nasty awakening, wouldn't he?
Sounds like brilliance cracking into a million pieces -- the guy has completely flaked out,won't support them, won't fight them. Guess he just wants a job and can't bring himself to ask Kerry. And knows the answer anyway.
Posted by: paulo on July 17, 2004 06:58 PMThere goes the oriental vote.
Posted by: IXLNXS on July 17, 2004 08:09 PMOkay, here Fukuyama unloads with both barrels. Carnage ensues.
(via Laura Rozen)
Posted by: praktike on July 17, 2004 09:08 PMYes, the country may fall into disrepair and what I think is the leading lght of Western Civilization is in serious trouble, but I really don't want to do anything about it since it would cause me to be disinvited to some really nice parties. At this upcoming one I may even get to play my fiddle!
Posted by: Rob on July 18, 2004 06:35 AMWhy are we reading about this in a Turkish newspaper?
Posted by: Tom Marney on July 18, 2004 07:40 AMPraktike:
No link!
My only experience with Fukuyama is _Our Posthuman Future_, and I was unimpressed. He seemed to be reacting to a trend--the possibility of augmenting and ultimately transforming human intelligence--without making attempt to see the world from the perspective of its proponents (Hans Moravec for instance, though admittedly Fukuyama's focus is biotech rather than AI).
By starting with the unstated assumption that a posthuman future is a *bad* thing. Fukuyama doesn't leave much else open to discuss except how we're getting there and what to do about it. Since I start with the assumption that our human (postchimp) present could stand some improvement, I'm not interested in a discussion of how to preserve it in amber.
Fukuyama's prose style also left me with the impression that he takes himself way too seriously. Today's news story reinforces that impression.
On the other hand, the fact that Fukuyama cares about the future, posthuman or otherwise, suggests that at least he's not expecting the apocalypse any time soon. That puts him a notch ahead of what I fear is really the underlying assumption of American conservativism (e.g., the anti-environmentalist stance boils down to "Jesus is coming back soon, and boy will he be angry if we haven't utilized all the seed capital he gave us by then.")
Posted by: Paul Callahan on July 18, 2004 10:04 AMFukuyama has an interesting opinion piece in the Australian, pointing out a seeming contradiction in neocon ideology: if they don't believe in social engineering in the US, why do they believe in it for Iraq?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9981001%5E7583,00.html
June 29, 2004
OF all of the different views that have now come to be associated with neo-conservatives, the strangest one to me was the confidence that the US could transform Iraq into a Western-style democracy and go on from there to democratise the broader Middle East.
It struck me as strange precisely because these same neo-conservatives had spent much of the past generation warning about the dangers of ambitious social engineering and how social planners could never control behaviour or deal with unanticipated consequences.
If the US cannot eliminate poverty or raise test scores in Washington, DC, how in the world does it expect to bring democracy to a part of the world that has stubbornly resisted it and is virulently anti-American to boot?
The point here is not who is right, but rather that the prudential case was not nearly as open-and-shut as many neo-conservatives believed. They talk as if their (that is, the Bush administration's) judgment had been vindicated at every turn, and that any questioning of their judgment could only be the result of base or dishonest motives. If only this were true. The fact that Washington's judgment was flawed has created an enormous legitimacy problem for the US, one that will hurt American interests for a long time to come.
Posted by: standa on July 18, 2004 10:21 AMFukuyama argued that Western liberal democracies were the most advanced form of civilization possible. He never argued that other cultures would recognize this in the near future, or that war would cease as a result.
The problem with Fukuyama's thesis isn't that it's wrong, but that it's irrefutable: anything that might go contrary to his theory can be explained away as the footdragging of cultures who haven't seen the Hegelian writing on the wall.
Posted by: son volt on July 18, 2004 01:52 PMFukuyama's 'end of history' thesis was about the end of ideological struggle, or the end of struggle between two competing models, in the Hegelian sense. I've heard him say it. And he was right about this: the only struggle have going today is between market capitalism and jihadist destructionism, hardly a struggle at all except in a handlful of failing countries. He never meant to predict nirvana.
Fuluyama, I bet, would reject this characterization of him as father of neoconservatism. I read him as an academic who some times found his way into policy circles (his stint at State/Policy Planning) but had no taste for real life politics.
I think the guy had a lot of terrific ideas. I preferred "Trust"--in which he eloquently explains why Russia can't have a democracy with limited government--to his other stuff. Read the book.
Posted by: Jim Harris on July 19, 2004 08:54 AMNot just a Turkish newspaper, but one who's name, Zaman, means "Time".
Posted by: Dave L on July 19, 2004 09:22 AMMy problem with Fukuyama is simple: he misreads Hegel. A lot. It's been a long time since I read him, but his almost willful misunderstanding of Hegel's "master and slave" dialectic made me wonder if he ever actually read Hegel, or just Kojeve's incomprehensible (and ultimately hollow) rendering of the German master.
I do applaud Fukuyama for trying to restore the conservative content to Hegel's radical framework, but his essentially Nietzschean/Heideggerian viewpoint -- "The end of History? What shall Humanity do without its Grand Narratives? Shall it be Subsumed 'neath the Murk of Mediocrity?" -- is repugnant to me.
Posted by: Watchful Babbler on July 20, 2004 03:58 PM4632 You can buy viagra from this site :http://www.ed.greatnow.com
Posted by: Viagra on August 8, 2004 03:43 AM4975 Why is Texas holdem so darn popular all the sudden?
http://www.texas-holdem.greatnow.com
4604 ok you can play online poker at this address : http://www.play-online-poker.greatnow.com
Posted by: online poker on August 10, 2004 02:12 PM8166 Get your online poker fix at http://www.onlinepoker-dot.com
Posted by: poker on August 15, 2004 11:21 PM3785 black jack is hot hot hot! get your blackjack at http://www.blackjack-dot.com
Posted by: play blackjack on August 16, 2004 11:00 PM