Word: fukuyama
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...decision to topple Saddam Hussein three years ago. William F. Buckley Jr., as close to a conservative icon as America has, recently wrote that "one can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed." George F. Will has been a moderate skeptic throughout. Neoconservative scholar Francis Fukuyama has just produced a book renouncing his previous support. The specter of Iraq teetering closer to civil war and disintegration has forced a reckoning...
...Fukuyama's sharpest insight here is how the miraculously peaceful end of the cold war lulled many of us into overconfidence about the inevitability of democratic change, and its ease. We got cocky. We should have known better. The second error was narcissism. America's power blinded many of us to the resentments that hegemony always provokes. Those resentments are often as deep among our global friends as among our enemies--and make alliances as hard as they are important. That is not to say we should never act unilaterally. Sometimes the right thing to do will spawn backlash...
...Remember what has happened in the past decade, when several trenchantly argued theses have rapidly become conventional wisdom. One thinks of Francis Fukuyama (history has ended with the triumph of liberal democracy), Bernard Lewis (the rage of the Islamic world is a consequence of its own failure), Robert Kagan (Europeans and Americans are fundamentally different). All these authors make their case brilliantly, but none of their arguments are uncontested by serious scholars in relevant fields. They are popular in part because they provide wonderful material for Op-Ed columns and sound bites...
It’s easy enough to dismiss Fukuyama as an out-of-touch academic. But as a member of the President’s Council of Bioethics, he has already made good on the chance to impose his curious worldview on scientists. This summer, he voted for a ban on research cloning and thereby blocked those who are trying to cure disease using this powerful tool. The scientific advances that could help save lives have already been subjugated to the narrow ideology of a political philosopher...
Scientists, who are often wary of dirtying their hands in political mud fights, must face up to the threat academics like Fukuyama pose to free inquiry and medical advances. And that’s where Student Pugwash comes in. The annual national Student Pugwash USA conference begins today in Washington and one of the topics on the agenda is scientific research and national security. It should be an eye-opening experience. According to Huang, two participants from Harvard are going to the conference. Next year, I hope more students—and more science concentrators—can go. Because...