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cism over the past century generally has undermined the possibility that
reductive sociology can function as a predictive science of history.
On the other hand, Fukuyama is maintaining, more modestly, that
these causal factors condition, but do not determine, historical out–
comes. There is general agreement that knowledge of any complex his–
torical period like the 1960s can be enriched by statistical evidence and
data about societal institutions. Yet the historical narrative reflects con–
tingent and chance events which may be more significant for the deter–
mination of actual historical outcomes. Thus, the sixties would have
evolved differently in many ways had it not been for the chance result
of Oswald's assassination of Kennedy, especially since it occurred barely
three weeks after Kennedy's decision
to
overthrow the government of
Ngo Dinh Diem in Southern Vietnam. This decision, which American–
ized the war in Vietnam, left his successor
to
confront a newly changed
and unanticipated overseas war without any strategic plan. For Presi–
dent Johnson, the development of an effective war strategy represented
an impediment to his own ambitious domestic priorities. Consequently,
the most prominent and frequently noted feature of the history of the
1960s, that is, a continuing state of war with unremitting casualty lists
combined with an unprecedented agenda of legislative social change in
domestic affairs, largely was the product of contingent factors that were
not determined by the deep structures of American society.
Further, Fukuyama's attempt to uncover the causal factor thar explains
"the same phenomena in different countries," such as student sit-ins in
Korea, France, and the United States, may ignore an ambiguity in the cri–
teria for what constitutes the same phenomenon.
It
may be conceded that
student riots in Paris, Berkeley, or Seoul reflect similar underlying struc–
tural factors of postindustrial affluence, weakness of authority, and inher–
ited ideological traditions of the Left. Yet the American student protest
was linked to the Vietnam War, with the result that it strengthened Con–
gressional opposition to the war in a way that has no parallel in France
or Korea. Thus, American student protest was different, as deIllonstrated
by the pattern of its consequences in subsequent presidential actions and
in actually affecting the outcome of the war in Vietnam and the Cambo–
dian genocide. Similarly, an increase in out-of-wedlock births in both Swe–
den and the United States may reflect the erosion of religious tradition in
both countries. Yet the phenomena are not the same if measured bv the
absence of a father for the child.
If
history without sociology is shallow,
as Fukuyama implicitly contends, then sociology without history does not
cope with the actual surface reality of what is taking place.
