FreeLists / lit-ideas / [lit-ideas] Re: It Doesn't Stay in Vegas

["Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andreas,

 

As Fukuyama described in his Section V, one of the dangers of Liberal
Democracy is that it will produce men with no chests.  These men aren't
weaklings - Fukuyama is being satirical here to jerk Levy's chain - a clever
bit of writing, I thought. The real "men with no chests" are grey
uninteresting unimaginative men.  Kojeve believed Liberal Democracy would
result in a situation where wars were ended, and we may be working slowly
toward that goal, but a pacifistic acceptance of whatever happens (as
continental Europe seems to be evincing at the present time) counters the
goal.  The present day enemies of Liberal Democracy still need to be fought.
Fukuyama didn't believe there would be men with no chests at the actual end.
That is he did not commit to this idea.  He merely thought it a danger.
Perhaps they'll look like the present day continental Europeans.  In any
case your take isn't justified because in the article both men praise
America for many things and America isn't a man with no chest.  America is
the preeminent example of Liberal Democracy today and it is a good thing -
regardless of the whining of the continental European men with no chests. 

 

Lawrence

 

-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andreas Ramos
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 10:53 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: It Doesn't Stay in Vegas

 

Ah, you're finally starting to understand ol' Francis. Democracy is a bad
thing. It produces 

weaklings.

 

yrs,

andreas

www.andreas.com

 

 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 5:39 PM

Subject: [lit-ideas] It Doesn't Stay in Vegas

 

 

>I subscribed to Francis Fukuyama's new journal, The American Interest, and

> just received my first copy.  I've read some of the articles and they are

> very good.  Unfortunately there were only teasers on the AI web site

> <http://www.the-american-interest.com/> www.the-american-interest.com
until

> I got to "It Doesn't Stay in Vegas," in which the peripatetic Frenchman,

> Bernard-Henri Levi" is described as duking "it out with Frances Fukuyama

> over American virtues and vices, neoconservatives, religion, the future of

> American muscular internationalism, and the role of intellectuals in a
free

> society."  The AI website provides this as a "free article" - a very good

> choice:  <http://www.the-american-interest.com/cms/bhl.cfm>

> http://www.the-american-interest.com/cms/bhl.cfm .

> 

> 

> 

> Here is an excerpt and Fukuyama at his best: "The End of History and the

> Last Man ended with ruminations about the possibility that modern
democracy

> would yield "men without chests", wedded to ever-increasing peace and

> prosperity. During the Clinton years, in our preoccupation with the NASDAQ

> and Monica Lewinsky, that seemed a fair conclusion. But on further

> reflection, it has seemed to me that America was not remotely in danger of

> becoming the home of the Hegelian last man. Now that the United States has

> launched two wars in the new millennium, it seems like an even less apt

> concern. The last man actually lives in Europe.

> 

> "This, it seems to me, is the essential paradox you deal with in American

> Vertigo: Americans have this incredible energy, they've created a faux

> paradise in the desert at home and now they want to make deserts bloom in

> the Middle East. But they go about it in a clumsy and self-defeating way,

> and they have neither the imperial bloody-mindedness nor the steady
judgment

> to see the project through. Maybe so. But if global leadership were left
up

> to Europeans, they would either acquiesce in whatever exists, or they
would

> make cynical deals to preserve their own narrow interests while talking

> about universal rights and justice."

> 

> Lawrence

> 

>