The Foundation of Politics
Ideas and Interests, Politics and Realpolitik
In her post this week, Kirstin, makes an excellent point that it seems almost illogical that the importance of ideas has not been perpetually tied to the study of politics. As she states, what, if anything but ideas themselves, forms the foundation of politics? Are cultures and modes of governance not in-and-of-themselves rooted in a base idea of how the world should be? I imagine this will be an important point of contention during our upcoming synchronous session.
I'd like to chime in with my two cents on the subject. I wholeheartedly agree with Kirstin's suggestion that the two should be linked, but I'd go a step further: ideas and interests should not be looked at through a black-and-white lens either. In my opinion, as you can probably tell from my previous posts, the world is foolishly viewed through a melodramatic black-and-white lens whereas in actuality, it is defined by shades of gray.
Certainly interests and ideas are different concepts, as defined and discussed in this week's pre-class material, but are they separate? I don't think so. To a certain extent I would argue that ideas form the basis of interests because they help define our views of the world, and thus our views of the context of our environment. To this end, someone that subscribes firmly to the ideas of personal freedom and democracy, are, in my opinion, more likely to find those notions in their category of interests than someone who has a more authoritarian view of the world. Similarly, a person who subscribes to the notion that fiscal conservatism is an important idea or base value of a society, then their calculated decision-making process (interest) is more likely to be guided by this idea than someone who subscribes to fiscal liberalism. The point that I'm trying to make is that homo sociologicus and homo economicus are not separate species, instead, they are two halves of the same whole. As Hobbes states, facts may be universal, but how we perceive them is not. As such, no one person (or machine) can be without bias, and bias is formed from our ideas. As a result, in my understanding of the world, our politics define our realpolitik.
Dan,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for expounding on the thought. I agree completely. While I argue for explicit definition in the field, my sole motivation there would be to move away from the extreme tendency to language that does not translate even among English speakers. I love a good metaphor and tend to overuse (and egregiously mix) them myself. But, when we are about the business of real global issues that affect lives, we have to be careful. We need some precision in scholarly language to effectively engage internationally - and even domestically. And, to your final point, simply by virtue of bias and cultural differences in understanding, there will still be difficulty. Human beings are complex, and all of these characteristics can be found to some degree in each of us. I worry that our study of political dynamics is a little ass-backward in over-complicating the language and over-simplifying the human being - and the social context in which he/she resides.
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ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteTo re-iterate what was said in class...
I think that either/or phenomenon (at least in this case) comes from thinking about ideas as non material interests and interests as material interests with the two potentially competing to see which one has a greater pull on a dependent variable. If you define ideas like Laffey and Weldes do, the dichotomy melts away.