Professor Fukuyama and the neo-cons

[johan neeskens]

I saw a highly interesting interview with this man on Dutch telly last night, sharing his views about how the neo-cons misinterpreted his books The End of History and the Last Man, the international bestseller that led the world to call him Fukuyama the court philosopher of global capitalism. I'm interested to know what your views on this man are as I'm not sure. He's best mates with Wolfowitz on the on the one hand and on the other he's against the war on terror, notably. What is he about? How large is his influence?

[Real Ray]

Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post has taken him to task recently-I suspect he speaks for a certain block of the neocons:

It was, as the hero tells it, his Road to Damascus moment. There he is, in a hall of 1,500 people he has long considered to be his allies, hearing the speaker treat the Iraq war, nearing the end of its first year, as "a virtually unqualified success." He gasps as the audience enthusiastically applauds. Aghast to discover himself in a sea of comrades so deluded by ideology as to have lost touch with reality, he decides he can no longer be one of them.

And thus did Francis Fukuyama become the world's most celebrated ex-neoconservative, a well-timed metamorphosis that has brought him a piece of the fame that he once enjoyed 15 years ago as the man who declared, a mite prematurely, that history had ended.

A very nice story. It appears in the preface to Fukuyama's post-neocon coming out, "America at the Crossroads." On Sunday it was repeated on the front page of the New York Times Book Review in Paul Berman's review.

I happen to know something about this story, as I was the speaker whose 2004 Irving Kristol lecture to the American Enterprise Institute Fukuyama has now brought to prominence. I can therefore testify that Fukuyama's claim that I attributed "virtually unqualified success" to the war is a fabrication.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/27/AR2006032701298_pf.html

[johan neeskens]

So he's an opportunist? Or is there more to him?

[Real Ray]

Don't know about that-I haven't read his books or followed his other writings. He was on C-Span recently for one of their "In Depth" programs where they talk for 3 hours about a writer's work. He came of as a, "well, I guess you really didn't understand what I wrote," type. And he tried to minimize the influence of the neo-cons by claiming that they really didn't have the influence on policy that the press has given them.

Maybe others who know his work better can judge his sincerity/honesty with regards to his position now on the war and neo-conservatism.

[YankHibee]

Fukuyama keeps changing his mind about what he believes. After he changes, he is probably changing his mind about what he used to believe as well, so as to sound like less of an ass. Run a search on his name, there have been quite a few threads both here and in Archer's forum over the last couple months.

[Rostam]

He simply got into something that he didn't belong to, in the first place, and now he is trying to swim his way out. I have only read his last book: America at Crossroads. Like to know more about his own thinking.

btw, Fukuyama is an American born, unlike what the name suggests :) how did this thread end up in "International News"!!