New Utopia and Muddleheaded thoughts
Carr – Reflective
Of Carr’s analysis of international relation, of political science as a mixture of reality and utopianism, he says: “This, too, is a utopia. But it stands more directly in the line of recent advance than visions of a world federation or blueprints of a more perfect League of Nations. Those elegant superstructures must wait until some progress has been made in digging the foundation” (219). So what do you have to say for your self, E.H.? What is this utopia you speak of? And then Carr goes on to describe the real international crisis:
The real international crisis of the modern world is the final and irrevocable breakdown of the conditions which made the nineteenth-century order possible. The old order cannot be restored, and a drastic change of outlook is unavoidable (217).
On page 87 Carr says “Having demolished the current utopia with the weapons of realism, we still need to build a new utopia of our own, which will one day fall to the same weapons.” So the inference is that the laissez-fair/harmony of interests/political Darwinist order has collapsed on its own weight and the new arising utopia of the League of Nations is so too doomed to fail.
But returning to the question, what is this utopia? This utopia is a political order that recognizes the smorgasbord of both, utopia and reality, plains. Simply put (HA! Carr Simple. And you said Kant was the hard drugs!), an order that would know when to switch between being utopian and realist as the international system changed.
Come on! Can this even be a possibility? This idea of measuring the international climate and creating a forecast for political outlook, is more utopian than anything that spilled over Woodrow Wilson’s typewriter late at night typing up the foundation for the League of Nations. Like I brought up in class, not even history is 20/20 so could we ever predict the future of politics or even the present for that matter? Even if political science was successful in mapping out this inclement IR landscape, how could those implementing policies ever change their view to fit the circumstances? This is like telling Bush JR that the war on IRAQ is no longer pertinent and we need to start cooperating with Osama in order to institute a cooperative democracy in the Middle East, conductive to peace. So ok, this isn’t the best example to get my point across but it is meant only to support my claim that, like it or not, politicians are going to have strong unwavering beliefs that are not likely to quake in the near future.
Maybe somebody else can help me to clarify my own thoughts? Comments are welcome.
Of Carr’s analysis of international relation, of political science as a mixture of reality and utopianism, he says: “This, too, is a utopia. But it stands more directly in the line of recent advance than visions of a world federation or blueprints of a more perfect League of Nations. Those elegant superstructures must wait until some progress has been made in digging the foundation” (219). So what do you have to say for your self, E.H.? What is this utopia you speak of? And then Carr goes on to describe the real international crisis:
The real international crisis of the modern world is the final and irrevocable breakdown of the conditions which made the nineteenth-century order possible. The old order cannot be restored, and a drastic change of outlook is unavoidable (217).
On page 87 Carr says “Having demolished the current utopia with the weapons of realism, we still need to build a new utopia of our own, which will one day fall to the same weapons.” So the inference is that the laissez-fair/harmony of interests/political Darwinist order has collapsed on its own weight and the new arising utopia of the League of Nations is so too doomed to fail.
But returning to the question, what is this utopia? This utopia is a political order that recognizes the smorgasbord of both, utopia and reality, plains. Simply put (HA! Carr Simple. And you said Kant was the hard drugs!), an order that would know when to switch between being utopian and realist as the international system changed.
Come on! Can this even be a possibility? This idea of measuring the international climate and creating a forecast for political outlook, is more utopian than anything that spilled over Woodrow Wilson’s typewriter late at night typing up the foundation for the League of Nations. Like I brought up in class, not even history is 20/20 so could we ever predict the future of politics or even the present for that matter? Even if political science was successful in mapping out this inclement IR landscape, how could those implementing policies ever change their view to fit the circumstances? This is like telling Bush JR that the war on IRAQ is no longer pertinent and we need to start cooperating with Osama in order to institute a cooperative democracy in the Middle East, conductive to peace. So ok, this isn’t the best example to get my point across but it is meant only to support my claim that, like it or not, politicians are going to have strong unwavering beliefs that are not likely to quake in the near future.
Maybe somebody else can help me to clarify my own thoughts? Comments are welcome.
posted by Holly at 10:39 PM
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