"Kraut" somewhat uncannily and coincidentally (one day after I made this larger post from which I quote) gave this quite in-depth analysis on the same phenomenon I summarised, but from a geopolitical international relations sense (rather than economic that I premised mine on).
Suffice to say he shares my similar disdain for "might makes right" in the extreme application of Realism to concepts of "empires" and "spheres of influence".
I agree with almost everything he brings up (not surprising since I am a classical liberal on most issues) and it gave me quite a few things to muse upon at the end especially....and would like to hear (over time) what members think and would like to discuss and debate on the deeper layers of this subject and also how it has materialised in the current Ukraine war.
Tagging the folks that hit like on my earlier post, but everyone is welcome to participate....the video is 1.5 hours long (one might need to watch it in parts) but well worth your time (instead of say a netflix movie) if you are interested in this subject.
I have changed the title of this thread to reflect this larger theme by way of a larger set that contains the two previous subsets (combat, war, geopolitics).
@Saithan @Asena_great @Melkor @Rodeo @Vag @Yasar @Ryder et al.
Primarily, it looks to me he is trying to define the overall spectrum of Realist view in his own terms, ignoring other variations and flexibilities in the broader theory itself. Thus, effectively putting it somewhat into a corner. In the process he also seems to misrepresent Noam Chomsky and mischaracterize him, as well as i believe his understanding and analysis of Islamism is incomplete and considerably flawed.
Anyway, this is not to dismiss any criticism of the Realist theory in general nor to blatantly to reject all of his points made in the video.
Indeed, Realism has many flaws and weaknesses and those can debated on as much as we want.
However, even for a dedicated thread i think there would be too many variables in such conversation to be effectively organized for a fruitful outcome.
Instead, here i only want to focus my discussion on the idea of human nature in principle w.r.t both liberal Idealist and pragmatic Realist world views as you yourself also touched upon it in your first post.
Personally to me, despite all the flaws and weakness Realism was able to fundamentally get the premises right about human nature.
Which is, humankind is innately driven by self interest and self preservation thus, by definition they seek power and domination causing everlasting conflicts.
For me, this is unequivocally unchanging and overwhelmingly supported by historical evidences.
On the other hand, the liberal idealist assumption about progressive history/human nature is fundamentally false and simply an illusion.
Because, objectively there is no such thing as PROGRESS.
To avoid misunderstanding i should clarify i am not taking any extreme moral relativist stance, rather i am arguing, the very fundamental and innate human nature is unequivocally unchanging.
And all these so called progresses about 'Freedom, liberty, equality and rights' that we observed with modernity since the enlightenment, is simply RELATIVE CONSEQUENCES of rapid material/technological and economic changes that happened in last few centuries.
Meaning, if somehow our contemporary technological and economic circumstances drastically changes, lets say if human civilization were to be devastated by a nuclear war or something tomorrow, these so called progresses as we perceived them today, may very well cease to exist. Thus, these are not actually progresses, rather these are just some RANDOM changes in light of history.
That could disappear and reoccur again.
So for example, in line with this particular view of the world, fundamentally the abolishment of slavery wasnt accomplished because we human somehow achieved some sort of progress in our morality through enlightenment/classical liberal revolution. ( Usually what liberals try to convince of themselves and others ) Rather it was a socioeconomic consequences of industrial revolution and massive economic/technological changes in a short period of time.
It would be interesting to see if idealist liberals keep making the same mistake over and over again in pursuit of END OF HISTORY, like Francis Fukuyama when he 'famously' declared IT after cold war ended or probably what French revolutionaries thought after the revolution.
ULTIMATELY THERE IS NO END/PEAK OF HISTORY TO REACH AND ACCOMPLISH.
The crisis of modernity is very real, we should accept it. However, i also acknowledge the shortcoming of post modern thinkers like Foucault who denies the very idea of innate HUMAN NATURE itself.
Note, this is not a formal discussion, Anybody can find it incomplete, vague and not well defined, i am okay with it. You are welcome.
