[lit-ideas] Re: Liberal Democracy as an inevitability
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 23:25:54 -0700
You have captured Fukuyama's point in your last paragraph, and that is why
he abandoned the Neocons. Fukuyama argued with Hegel and Kojeve that after
the Battle of Jena in 1806 there was no viable competitor to Liberal
Democracy. Since then the nations have been in the process of perfecting
their Liberal Democracy on their own. Some of the Neocons, Krauthammer for
example, argued that we should do what we could to hasten the process; which
if we actually engaged in that attempt for its own sake would be something
like what Lenin did with Marx's theories. Fukuyama very much disapproves of
doing that.
Islam as we know of it today wouldn't fit Fukuyama's paradigm. The working
out of Liberal Democracy since 1806 had to do with obtaining more and more
freedom. It is this ultimate perfect freedom that will be the perfection of
the end of history. There is nothing comparable in Islam.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 10:58 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Liberal Democracy as an inevitability
I thought the point was pretty clear, if all states
were Islamic states then they would "reciprocally
recognize one another's legitimacy" and would then
have much less occasion to go to war against another.
History does support that thesis because traditionally
Muslim states seldom went to war against one another.
Saddam Hussein did go to war against Iran and Kuwait,
but Saddam's regime was secular nationalist not
Islamic, as I believe you are aware.
Of course, I am not advocating a global Islamic
caliphate, I am making a point that the plans to
impose a single political system on the whole world
are hegemonic.
O.K.
--- Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Omar,
>
>
>
> You can't be saying the Islamic States as they exist
> in the Middle East
> "have much less incentive for war," because history
> doesn't support that
> thesis. The Islamists, Nationalists, Pan Arabists,
> Baathists, Socialists,
> secularists, etc have found ample incentives for war
> in modern history.
> Liberal Democracies emphasize pluralism: you can
> believe what you like and
> we won't fight over it. But that hasn't been the
> case in the Middle East.
> So what do you mean?
>
>
>
> Lawrence
>
Other related posts:
