[lit-ideas] Re: Fukuyama and the end of history
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 09:14:55 -0700
Andreas,
After I read The End of History I was so struck by it that I looked for
comments and reviews. I recall a criticism or an elaboration that described
Fukuyama as not so much a Hegelian as a Kojevean. Kojeve, the argument
went, was a Hegelian that transformed Hegel into something that was no
longer utterly Hegel, and Fukuyama used Kojeve's interpretations rather than
his own. It was Kojeve who argued that Marx was wrong when he turned Hegel
on his head. Marx said Hegel's process was right but he was wrong about
Liberal-Democracy being the end of history. Kojeve argued that it was time
to give Hegel his due and admit that he was right when he argued that
Capitalism, aka Liberal-Democracy, was the end of history.
It's interesting that you think Fukuyama should have mentioned "Bultmann,
Bonheoffer, Brunner ,etc." I heard Fukuyama on C-Span two or three times
over the years and my impression is that he's an atheist. I believe he does
believe in the perfectibility of human nature as C. Mott Woolley says. I
had forgotten that because it isn't quite presented as something Fukuyama
believes. I wanted to argue with Woolley, but when I checked Fukuyama again
he presents Hegel's idea about human nature and I can't see that he
disapproves of it i.e., "that in his most essential characteristics man was
undetermined and therefore free to create his own nature." [TEOH page 63]
I don't think Bultmann, Bonheoffer or Brunner would have argued that man's
human nature was perfectible. In a Postmillennial eschatology, the
improvement of human nature couldn't be ruled out if it were a work of the
Holy Spirit, but that man can improve his own nature through the creation of
just the right Social Structures was the argument of Rousseau which I found
utterly unconvincing. I keep wanting to read adaptable (which would make
sense) in lieu of improvable which doesn't make sense.
I bought Fukuyama's The Great Disruption, Human nature and the
Reconstitution of Social Order, 1999. No doubt this would answer this
question if I were to read it.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andreas Ramos
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 8:28 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Fukuyama and the end of history
Fukuyama's book is absolutely fascinating. Many thanks to Lawrence for
getting me to read
it.
Fukuyama does something that I never thought would ever happen: he bases US
global policy
on... Hegel. The necons are Hegelians. A major reason why his book has been
so
misunderstood: there's many very long chapters that discuss Hegel. Hardly
anyone in the USA
can understand that. The language philosophers don't know this stuff.
Fukuyama's idea is based on an analysis of the formation of the self in
Hegel's
Phenomenology of Spirit. To me, that's easy reading, because, by
coincidence, that was the
subject of my graduate thesis at the Universitaet Heidelberg.
Fukuyama is an 19th century thinker. His ideas are taken entirely from 1806;
he writes in
reaction to the Enlightenment. He uses Hegel to understand the world. He
discusses Nietzsche
and Marx. But he stops somewhere around the 1870s. There is only a single
mention of
Heidegger. Absolutely zero about Bultmann, Bonhoeffer, Brunner ,etc.
Fukuyama seems to be
totally ignorant of them.
These are some of the reasons why his book is so misunderstood.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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