The End of His Story

The End of His Story is a story by Douglas Kern today in TCS Daily responding (negatively) to Fukuyama's recent "After Neoconservatism" piece in the New York Times.

In his 1989 magnum opus, The End of History and the Last Man, Fukuyama argued that liberalism was the final ideology, to which reasonable people could find no superior alternative; history would henceforth consist of individuals and nations struggling to endure the burdens that liberalism places on the human soul. By contrast, neoconservative foreign policy assumes that history is not at an end; that irrationalism and depravity can win anywhere, and may perhaps win everywhere. Neoconservatism demands that righteous nations resist the depredations of evil regimes, by force if necessary and prudent, in order to accelerate the growth of freedom and international security. No disembodied force of History will do our work for us; the world's future is not a straight line pointed at a certain outcome, but rather a jagged and irregular line – the line between good and evil that runs through every human heart. You might think that the events of the last seventeen years would convince nearly anyone that the human heart still has the last word over History. But Fukuyama will not surrender his cherished beliefs without a fight.

Fukuyama seems to discern an organic growth within humanity toward freedom. That growth is not linear, but it is persistent with many setbacks. The Neocons reject any sense of predetermined inclination or direction toward freedom and believe it must (by force if necessary) be created and defended. Fukuyama's perspective seems to have the danger of tolerating more tyranny than we ought. The Neocon perspective seems to me to run the danger of becoming a tyrant while pursuing the cause of freedom.

I expect Fukuyama's new book on my doorstep this week. I will be curious to see what he says for myself.