OxBlog

# Posted 2:42 PM by Patrick Belton

TAYLOR OWEN, also a warm friend of this blog, rounds up blogosphere response to Francis Fukuyama's NYT magazine piece (wherein he writes 'Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support.') To my mind, one of the more interesting points Fukuyama raises is a fundamental tension between principles I have never yet heard neoconservatives grapple with explicitly:

The skeptical stance toward ambitious social engineering — which in earlier years had been applied mostly to domestic policies like affirmative action, busing and welfare — suggested a cautious approach toward remaking the world and an awareness that ambitious initiatives always have unanticipated consequences. The belief in the potential moral uses of American power, on the other hand, implied that American activism could reshape the structure of global politics.

Yet lest you think Taylor is the only excellent Canadian blogger at Oxford, Milan Ilnyckyj is always worth reading as well. And staying within the Oxford BlogCommonwealth, see also Dr Red Mist, who this week looks at the history of humanitarian war aims in the Iraq conflict, and for his advocacy against genocide in Darfur. ('At least when I gasp out my last corpulent breath, there won't be a quiet voice saying 'you did fuck* all.' Use that middle-class guilt and come along if you can.')

* Here at least it's after the watershed.

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