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Fukuyama un-recognized

I have also read (see Joe’s post below) the two reviews of Fukuyama’s latest book, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy. I have also read the book. Here is the short of it: Both reviews are better than the book. The book is thin gruel, and so was The End of History. But, the latter book--the only thing Fukuyama will ever be remembered for, if anything; and he should know a lot about "recognition", if he knows anything--was interesting because it was fun and kind of silly and made you think. It was Hegel (with a splash of Nietzsche) made recognizable. So people played with it, knowing that the fellow couldn’t actually mean it. I guessed that he either did mean it; or, he was just playing, that is, he was being an intellectual, as Nietzsche might put it. If the first, he was a fool; if the second, he was a lightweight. So I never thought too much about it. I always knew that Fukuyama was not standing on solid ground, and people like that (see the conversation on Linker below?) always end up moving; not "growing" or learning or becoming deeper, just moving. You know, like the guy who was a Lutheran, then a Unitarian, then a Hindu, then a Catholic. We have all known guys like that, and then, well, we forget about them, save for those very few quite lucid moments when they had (probably by chance) an insight. Perhaps Fukuyama had such a moment. I don’t remember, and there is no reason to do an archeology of his soul.

Discussions - 4 Comments

A bit tough. But based on the evidence of the new book alone, I’d have to say you’re basically right, sir.

A reviewer of his End of History book, who probably forgot more about Kojève and Hegel than Fukuyama ever knew, simply observed the book was a "period piece," indicative of the mood of an era, not unlike Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West.

Bling, Bling. He got paid. Stop Playa Hatin’.

Please never use the words "bling" or "playa" again.

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