Confessions of a Realist Mind

Goethe in Faust, explores mankind's existential with the following lines:

Two souls, alas, dwell within my breast, and their
Division tears my life in two.
One loves the world, it clutches her, it binds
Itself to her, clinging with furious lust;
The other longs to soar beyond the dust
Into the realm of high ancestral minds

The passage is meant to denote the dichotomy of self and the dichotomies of life. One aspect of us is bound to the earth, its realities and struggles. The other yearns to be free and escape the mundane, in a word, to transcend. The two meet when what was previously through "impossible" becomes possible.In a way that is how I feel about politics when divided between international and domestic politics. In the former my realist self manifests. In the latter, my realist. How can the two be reconciled?

In domestic politics i consider myself staunchly liberal. I believe in freedom of speech, expression and assembly. I believe in the rule of law, and I believe in equal opportunity. I believe the state should provide for the welfare of all, especially the weak, and should ensure that everybody has an equal shot in life by providing good education. Finally, citizens should have influence over power through representative institutions, and regular, fair elections. Violence is not an acceptable means of promoting one's interests and should be punished. Ultimately, the rule of law provides a framework within which everyone can pursue his or her goals, exercising constraint when constraint is due, and free from the fear of violent interference.

However, I am finding it very hard to translate all the above into the international realm. Not because I do not want to, but because the "realities" do not allow it. International politics has long been divided between "realists" and "idealists", the ones grounded in reality and the others willing to transcend it. Liberalism is such and idealist theory. It has had a long history, but the latest exposition of idealism can be found in the liberal theories of international relations, mainly espoused by American scholars. Given the right institutions, these theories tell us, we can have the same outcomes internationally as we have domestically. I am alarmed that, to me, the staunch liberal, this is a highly dubious suggestion. Even more dubious is the latest evolution of liberalism, hyper-liberalism. The idea that a country can "police" the world and promote liberal institutions, a proposition to which the neocons have added "by any means, and preferably by unilateral application of power." My professor Richard Betts argued that Americans are so liberal they do not realize how liberal they really are. Perhaps this is why liberal theories have such appeal within the US. Indeed, during my first year in school I watched in amusement as some of my well meaning fellow students argued for the war in Iraq based on these premises, only to be unable to answer when asked "how is liberal democracy, going to instilled by coercion in a country that does not will it."

The liberal argument and its latest manifestations, I would argue, are in fact based on a realist premises. That is why my realist self is in conflict with my idealist self. The latter argues for a better world, a world where conflict is more limited and resolved by negotiation and goodwill. The former questions how this is to be supported. The liberals, argues the realist in me, wish away the effects of anarchy. Domestic orders are possible because we have all agreed, because of the fear our enemies inspire in us, to shed a part of our freedom to the supreme sovereign. This allows a division of labor that in turn allows hierarchy and specialization. Liberals want to transcend the national borders and apply this internationally. But where is the supporting structure? My realist self fears that internationally we are doomed to the effects of anarchy and bound by necessity to the use of force. And while all politics is power politics, internationally power involves violence, in contrast to the domestic politics where conflicts are resolved before they reach violent stages. In other words, in domestic politics, fear of enemies is the catalyst for the creation of institutions that ensure stability, while in the international realm fear of enemies and uncertainty of their motives leads states to resort to violence.

Thus, my realist self is afraid that when stability and prosperity occurs in the international realm, it is merely delusional or at least temporary. Or, rather it is frail, exactly because it is not, and cannot be, supported by robust institutions. Where it manifests itself, it is because realist premises have been fulfilled. There is a hierarchy of needs, the first of which is self-preservation. Once it is achieved everything else follows. Likewise in the international arena stable orders engender areas of stability; they permit security and trade and all the benefits of peaceful co-existence. Because of the frailty of such orders however, conflict always lurks in the background. Liberals - of all shades and across time - have repeatedly fallen in the same trap: they assume that the "current" is "universal". Perhaps people have too short memories. During the prosperous years 1815-1914, various scholars thought the era of conflict was now over - war was something of the past. Yet soon enough, humans fought for reasons that are surprisingly recurrent in human history. The Europeans fought because they were afraid of each other: England and France as superpowers, were refusing to acknowledge the rise of Germany which would soon make it their peer. For almost the same reasons, Athens fought Sparta (Thucydides reminds as that the reason behind the conflict was the "rising power of Athens that feared Sparta"), and Rome fought Carthage.

The realist self then, cant help but think that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that is where his optimism lies. I think that it is futile to try to wish away the realities the international system imposes on us. We should rather acknowledge them, and remember the ubiquity of conflict, or of the threat of conflict. Only orders constructed on realistic foundations can last in time; only orders founded on realistic foundations can limit the scope of conflict when this occurs. Only then can we transcend and make the impossible, possible.