Amitav Acharya writes an interesting piece in today’s Tribune. This subject is one that interests me greatly, as can be seen be seen from previous postings about Fukuyama. The book mentioned in Acharya’s article, the Clash of Civilizations by Sam Huntington, I actually bought for my uncle last Christmas, but have recently borrowed from him for my own reading. I am currently half way through it so I cannot really comment on the book as a whole.
As for the Acharya article, I do largely agree with his sentiments. His criticism of Fukuyama is well placed and well thought out. The book mentioned at the end of the article also sound interesting, one I will have to look at in the future.
Comments
One response to “Fukuyama under attack: Amitav Acharya”
Acharya does mention extremely valuable points on how the actualization of the principles of liberal democracy are retreating. But, from a Modernist perspective, we could still look upon Fukuyama’s claim valid in his expression of it. We must look back upon Fukuyama’s refernce to Hegel’s first claim that history had ended in 1806 with the fall of the Prussian empire by Napoleon, and the incorporation of Equality and Liberty as values of the state. Eventhough these values were not to be actualized or achieved for hundreds of years, and are still yet to be fully actualized, Kojeve, in his interpretation a century and a half later on Hegel still supported Hegel’s end of History claim as valid. He based this claim upon his view that the principles of democracy could not be improved upon.
Fukuyama mentions htis in his End of History article and it is my belief that although democratic implementation of liberty has taken a quite a hit in recent events, the principles of democracy still stand above any other.
This is not to say that actualization of liberty is not important or even that these losses of libertied are excusable, but the distinction must be made. We are still at Fukuyama’s End of History because the evolution of Ideologies have not changed, and liberal democracy is still an ideology to aspire to achieve.