So far, the heyday of realists’ thought was from the 1940 upwards. But if it could be called ‘sensible’, it can only be valued in a context of war. 15) Therefore regarding the experience of two cruel World Wars and a dangerous Cold War, perhaps it might be necessary and advisable to judge state behavior in the way a realist does. 48) “Theorists such as Hans Morgenthau were well read in history and wanted to warn their countrymen against reverting to the idealism and isolationism that they believed helped to bring on World War II.” (Nye, 2004, p. So you can support the critics who argue with a lack in sensibility in that the classical realism was “developed in reaction to both the practical and the intellectual failures of the inter-war period, and the experiences of the Second World War and the Cold War.” (Buzan, 1996, p. This would be the right way to work scientificly.īut in the definition of wisdom it is also claimed that the ability to make ´sensible´ decisions and judgments is based on knowledge and experience. (Jackson et al, 2003 ) Of course, if we want to be 100 per cent correct, we also have to define the meaning of sensible decisions making, which is used in the definiton of wisedom. 11) Does this sound sensible? The focus on realism is rather power politics, conflict and war in which the values of cooperation, peace and progress are focused in the theories of liberalism. Thus power covers all social relationships which serve that end, from physical violence to the most subtle psychological ties by which one mind controls another.” (Morgenthau, 1948, p. Morgenthau claims that “power may comprise anything that establishes and maintains the control of man over man. (Brown, 2007) Realist politics is power politics. Carr and Morgenthau assume that the mankind learned by sociological factors to be self-maximizers. 165) In regard to Machiavelli and Hobbes, humans are born bad. From a realist viewpoint states are “self-help agents” which only see their own interests and carry it through in an anarchic world order. the use of war merely as a political instument, as a sensible being. 13.11.07) When we use this definition, which is of course mainly used to describe the behavior of human beings rather than a political theory, it is very doubtful to describe someone who sees power politics and e.g. It declares wisdom as “the ability to make sensible decisions and judgments based on personal knowledge and experience.” (encarta dictionary. 13.11.07) Probably the political scientists have another meaning of wisdom in their mind than the psychologists.įor this essay the definition of wisdom will be the one used in the encarta dictionary. If you search the online lexicon encarta, you find for instance explanations of “Western philosophic theories on wisdom”, “wisdom in Chinese philosopic tradition”, mythological definitions of wisdom and there exist other understandings of wisdom. ![]() ![]() ![]() The term wisdom has a varity of different meanings and implications in depending on your particular point of view. ![]() Before we can fully answer the question if there is a ´timeless wisdom´ to realism, we should focus on the meaning of wisdom. Both will be discussed in the following essay. If realism is a timeless theory, then it should be viewed differently from the concept of wisdom. I argue that there is no ´timeless wisdom´ to realism, because in my opinion wisdom has nothing to do with realism.
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