Nietzschean Dialectic and World Affairs (Updated 10/20)

So I've been reading The Twenty Years' Crisis by E.H. Carr, one of the seminal works of realist philosophy. It's fascinating in a completely nerdy way. He argues that there is a constant struggle between realism and utopianism, where the two clash and come to a consensus, only to struggle again as the consensus drifts away from its initial intent. This is a model of the Hegellian dialectic, which argues you have a thesis (a big idea) that clashes with the antithesis (an opposing idea), which don't eliminate each other but combine to form the synthesis (the culmination of the thesis and antithesis; a sort of in-between). Hegel argues this process essentially ends, and the synthesis is the final form of that idea. Carr spins this on its head, building off of Friedrich Nietzsche's critique of the Hegeillian dialectic, arguing that the synthesis merely becomes the new thesis. What I found interesting about Carr's take on the dialectic was his application to world affairs.

Carr sees world affairs as a clash between utopian idealism and realism. The two eventually reach a consensus, or the dialectic is toppled, only to restart again. Values to Carr will never reach a final humanitarian or political pinnacle. Rather, they will constantly evolve. History must be viewed as a never-ending vacuum, not something that will ultimately end, as Francis Fukuyama argues in discussing democracy as the final manifestation of global order. He argues that realism without utopian vision is sterile, and utopianism without realism is ineffective and counterproductive. I found this view interesting in that he is the first "real" realist, yet he argues a realist vision requires a sort of utopian complement in order to actually do anything. A realist without utopia consigns him or herself to a sense of powerlessness that forces stagnancy. This can be a sobering reminder for the "power politician" (about which Carr argues there is no such thing as a politician without power). Yet one way or another, the important message for those living in Carr's idealistic time period is that utopian thought has no inherent value unless it can be lived out and practically applied. He points to the European imperialism, the League of Nations or Comintern of instances where blind idealistic thought backfired, and in many cases hurt those it intended to protect. It's an equally sobering point.

More interesting and applicable in our dicussions of the world today are his discussions about why international organizations are largely ineffective. He looked to the formation of the League of Nations as an empirical example of how this happens. He argues that the reason the League was founded was to solidify the position of powerful nations. For instance, those nations pushing for its creation were the US, Great Britain, and France (the victors of World War I). In fact, several members of Great Britain's House of Lords openly advocated making it a G-8-like exclusivist organization for great powers only. The League was founded according to a "harmony of interests", which he claims did not exist. The theory of harmony of interests argues that states' interests lie with those of the people, and the people's interests are those of the state. This theory's flaws became clear upon World War II's advent, where the "harmony of interests" became synonymous with the interests of the victorious powers. Even more condemning in his mind is the relation of power between the states and international organizations.

The state's authority lies in its monopoly of power. Without this, the state has no ability to enforce its will. For an international organization to be trusted with arbitrative power or effectiveness in world affairs, states are forced to yield an element of their authority over to this body. Those who believe a nation will give up this power "evade the unpalatable fact of a fundamental divergence of interest between nations desirous of maintaining the status quo and nations desirous of changing it." It is advantageous for a smaller nation to stay out of a body like the UN, as it is seen, in Carr's view, as the body representing the interests of those larger nations (the P-5 nations) rather than a podium for the smaller to voice their opinions; without a transfer of power from the nation as a body to the international organization, they serve merely as a hollow body with no real power.

I'm also pretty fascinated with his stance on where morals themselves come from. Carr argues that they emerge to fit a situation. For instance, the idea of a League of Nations did not emerge to prevent war, but to solidify the power of those nations who would be threatened by it. It was a means of preserving the current balance of power. These values, he argues, are relative to the position of the nation expressing them.

He's also got some pretty astounding foresight. He saw the decline of the nation-state as being inevitable following World War II, and the rise of power blocs (a la Warsaw Pact vs. NATO) and superpowers.

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EDIT:

I found this article in Foreign Policy, and thought you'd find it interesting. Good quick way to get on a government watch list: The List: Rebel Websites to Watch