I will shed light on the vision of the American thinker Francis Fukuyama and his article (The Pandemic and Political Order).. and what concerns me in it is the reading of its intellectual dimensions..
1- Francis Fukuyama, who caused a stir in the minds of some intellectuals and some promoters of Western secularism at the beginning of the decade of the nineties of the past century with his theory (The End of History and the Last Man), returns in an article of his to speak about the world scene during and after the corona pandemic.
2- It is well known that Fukuyama is not one of the independent thinkers, because of his professional connection with the American planning side; for this reason some have considered that his theory carries no innocent or objective sentiment, but rather took a proselytizing direction toward what world politics and the future orientation ought to be.
Should his vision, then, be viewed from this angle?
3- Perhaps; or at the very least, the nature of thinking in Western corridors can be identified through what he puts forward. We have listened to many Western intellectuals and thinkers, and even amateurs, interpreting the reality of the corona pandemic, and consequently the nature of their outlook on the future.
4- There are those who went to extremes in fanciful conceptions, considering the pandemic a meticulous plan that enjoyed an even more meticulous execution before nations entirely robbed of their will, and consequently predetermined, inevitable endings. Some accused a particular party of seeking gains or creating a gap for new beginnings, and some attributed the matter to human errors and negligence.
5- Fukuyama may be more realistic than the dreamers, yet he too remains not innocent in his new proposal. Moreover, in one way or another he has refuted his earlier theory, heralding the erosion of liberalism, and has moved toward changing the criteria he relied on in heralding the last man.
6- The new values to which Fukuyama attributed the success of states in confronting the epidemic, and thus in presenting a successful example, are the triad (state capacity, social trust, leadership), casting aside the factor of liberal democracy after it had been the fundamental value in formulating his theory.
7- We cannot discuss everything in Fukuyama's new thesis, but we point to three dimensions. The first: (the factor of changing values), and this is what destroys confidence in the intellectual foundations, for values must be among the constants against which every variable is measured.
8- The second: his attributing the success of some states to (trust) between the state and society, while ignoring (the awareness of society itself). It seems that this non-objective tendency is out of spite, as part of his opposition to President (Trump).
The third: Fukuyama's view appeared far from certainty and full of grim possibilities for the future.
9- In conclusion, we ought to ask: Does Fukuyama's new view express the intellectual corridors in the United States? And can the nature of the new world orientation consequently be predicted?
Perhaps so. But we trust in (the divine laws) and in the factor of (societal will) in shaping futures.
Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi
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