High and Low culture

The globalization of low culture is not a problem. People are simply bored with their own popular culture, food or language, and seek out broader perspectives in a world riddled with free press and mutual consequence. Broader networks of communication and information have thinned national borders, but they have also helped preserve and embolden our high culture. Perhaps by sharing our menial traditions with the rest of the world, we keep our higher culture sacred and precious. Chinese religion and philosophy is not the first thing that comes to the average American’s mind when they think China. Mayan temples aren’t the hottest spot for MTV’s Mexican spring break tour. Dostoevsky is translated into every language, and those who have had the pleasure of experiencing his writing find themselves more in touch with postmodern Russian culture than if they drank a fifth of Popov vodka. The assimilation of low culture should be embraced to reduce national(ist) differences and put us more in touch with the way other societies live. It also helps us grasp and protect our high culture and preserve cultural autonomy.

Borders and Belongings

The author of this article does a fine job of summarizing everyoneelse's opinion of globalization into a coherent debate. Essentially,there are two thought processes that predict the future of global culture. First, there are those who believe that the global flow ofinformation, investment, trade and people across borders will create a"borderless world". These theorists argue that global capital marketswill dominate the policies of national governments and thenation-state will dissolve. The globalization of markets will createmultinational brands and modes of thought, making cultural autonomy athing of the past. Borders will be determined by televisionsatellites, radio signals, newspapers and magazines. It's a bitsevere, but makes complete sense. However on the other side of thecoin, some argue that the nation-state is not in decline, and that the globalization argument is too Eurocentric. The actions of WesternEurope to integrate do not represent the future of the world.Instead, borders will be determined by civilization. I like this argument more, as the earliest symptoms are already present. Thosecountries who share a cultural affinity cooperate with each other, andthose of different ideologies will cooperate and clash with others.This is evident in the growing anti-Western sentiments in many Arabic countries. Times are a changing.

Gender and Language

When discussing gender dichotomy in world affairs, it is interesting to examine how cultural linguistics produce different ways of thinking about gender. This is called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. In English, third-person singular pronouns categorize gender, although there is no noun-gender and adjective agreement, as in French, Italian, Spanish, or German, who categorize all objects and adjectives as masculine or feminine. This suggests that the Italians, for example, focus more on gender differences than Americans. Language affects the way people think, which filters into social interactions.

Cynthia Enloe is a Raging Feminist

Where to begin? Cynthia Enloe is a raging feminist whose opinion ofglobal politics is so slanted and inappropriate that her argumentdoesn't deserve to be considered academic. She claims that the sexualrelationship between a diplomat and his wife, which she so vulgarlydefines as 'unpaid services', are essential for the man to createpolicy. She claims that soldiers need sexual services as much as theyneed military hardware. This doesn't even make sense. Did Cynthiaever interview a man in her research? An academic argument is invalidunless it offers both sides of an issue and then proves one wrong,empirically and completely. We are on the eve of a woman President inthe most powerful nation in the world. There are women in themilitary, and military bases aren't set up for their proximity tobrothels. This isn't Vietnam anymore.

Cynthia is bold enough to claim that women like Margaret Thatcher havebeen successful because they learned to "think like a man". Perhapsthey were successful because of their intellect, leadership abilitiesand personability. Simply being a woman as well can help a womanachieve power status. Today, maybe a female President is what weneed; who's slight of touch and diplomacy may be less "masculine".This excludes, of course, Condoleezza, who really is a man. She iscorrect though, in stating that it is harder for a woman to excel to aposition of power or political influence. The system perpetuatesitself to keep women down and keep men at the helm. But her argumentof this fact is limited to a few passing sentences.

What is femininity but the polar opposite of masculinity. They areequally destructive and unequal. There must be a balance! The role ofgender in political decision-making must be removed just as religionwas way back when. Positions must be appointed based on a candidate'sperformance. Women have all the same opportunities growing up as men:socially, academically, athletically, etc. They are just as capableof achieving greatness. Perhaps feminists should shift their focusfrom politics to the media, where the main offenses of genderinequality occur, where women are degraded to sexual equipment andunhealthiness is sexy.

Cynthia Enloe takes her argument so far as to state: "Male officialswho make foreign policy might prefer to think in reality they haveself-consciously designed immigration, labor, civil service,propoganda and military bases policies so as to control women." Whatare you talking about? Cynthia Enloe does not suggest a process forchange, only the need for change itself. This conclusion does apiss-poor job of describing the feminist position. It was notrational or academic, but purely rambling. I believe it isinteresting to consider the role of gender in internationalpolitics, but this article did not do the issue justice. HopefullyHooper will clear things up for me.

Random Post

Sitting in my living room watching reruns of Myth Busters I have the sudden inspiration to put my time to good use. I never really took the notion of IR theory as everyday practice for individuals seriously until I actually used the prisoner's dilemma today in a practical decision making process. My friend Jerry has a lab report to finish today with a group in an engineering class. Apprently engineering labs are awful and tedious, especially voluntarily on a friday afternoon (I wouldn't know). He told me he was going to just call his group and tell them he couldn't make it because he was sick, and he would do the bulk of work on next week's lab report. He was following the realist agenda of the game by defecting, supporting the futility of external balancing in realist thought. He was leaving the alliance to maximize his relative gain. However, I explained to him, this isn't just a game you play once with this group, you're in it for the long haul with them, so you will maximize your gain through cooperation. Shadow of the future, Jerry. In the end, I don't think he ever made it to that group meeting, but I accomplished putting my understanding of IR Theory into practical use, something I don't normally have the chance to do.

I would like to use this post to rearticulate something I tried to express in class in response to the question about the -isms' ability to prevent war. Wars of national liberation, genocidal wars and wars on terror are not accounted for in any of the theories we have discussed. Functionalism fails by preventing the international facilitation of peace, realism defines the action of rational states seeking security, and liberal wars are paradoxical in the sense of their mission to spread peace and democracy. National liberation and new wars, however, are ethically justified by the aggressor and the 'terrorist' agents. If a war is ethical and justified it is rational, yet warring states are generally considered to be acting irrationally under the constraints of international theories.

Nye's Common Market

Nye describes the conception of neo-functionalist political theory as the rational outcome of total war. Nye supports the classical neo-functionalists (if that makes sense) and their motives to integrate states in a region politically to achieve peace. However, he calls this loosely structured and suggests a revised neo-functionalist approach of a stringent common market. Logically, a common market with political roots would imply an economic union, which would lead to peace. Western Europe is a perfect example of regional integration, but even it has its faults. Haas uses an economic union to create a broader functional model. Nye suggests we cut through the single-path spillover theory and directly implement a common market. This would involve a large number of political actors and use the spillover theory inherent in economic policy to shape political policy, defense policy, etc.

The common market leads to a trade interdependency and progressively to peace, a simpler functionalist evolution. Negative critics declare the common market forces a state to surrender too much economic autonomy, but Nye’s approach says to cut to the point rather than wade into the waters of integration, stripping off your nationalism piece by piece like layers of clothes. A direct common market allows you to preserve your sense of national culture through regional integration as well, and reduces unstable self-determinational attitudes. I enjoy Nye’s neo-functionalist model, but I think it is a little too hip for 2007. Once we take regional integration too far and collapse back upon ourselves, we will consider Nye seriously.

Doyle - Liberalism and World Politics

The thing that struck me most about Doyle's dry analysis of liberal theory was how relevant it is today. Written in 1986, Doyle describes liberal states as peaceful, yet prone to make war paradoxically over peace. Since I was born in 86, I don't really know much about our presence as "freedom fighters' in Latin America, but from the context, it is basically interchangable with our tour in the Middle East. Liberal states have discovered peace in aggression, which is as terrifying. Liberalism tends to be affiliated with pacifism, as is the nature of inter-dependency and democracy, yet Doyle makes the claim that liberal states are prone to make war; a war of imperial peace, however, is paradoxical and pseudo-realist. Material and democratic states will cooperate to inhibit free trade and liberty, but only after a state has been converted to democracy and inflicted by globalization. Doyle's description of liberalism is all encompassing and complete. By utilizing the historical theories of Machiavelli and Kant, he proves the grounds of liberal theory to be constant but the details flexible to their environment.

Continuing the Ethical Debate From Class

Political realism denies the impact of morality on governing state actors. However, ethics must be a part of International Relations for the world to coexist. Ethics and International Relations cannot be segregated. Yet realism relies on the design that humans are not necessarily inherently good. This is because there is no universal definition of good-natured. But relative morals can be defined by one’s background: religion, family, socio-economic status, education, political affiliation, even the literature one read as a child. These affect your personal set of morals, which is always aligned with your motives, whether externally regarded as good or evil. Especially in a democracy, leaders act on the behalf of those who elected him/her to power. People are moral animals, even when acting instinctively. If a leader acts on power instincts (in accordance to realist thought) they may not necessarily be acting for the greater good of their people. Self-sufficiency may not be as effective as dependency, which has been proven to lead to security, the medal of realism. Following this progression of logic, realism can negate democracy, the institution it is recognized to protect.

The Hypocrisy of Realism

Morgenthau describes political realism essentially as “interest defined as power.” Realism is based on an anarchic state system that is governed on objective laws at the root of human nature. Classical realists assume that humans are greedy, power hungry and resourceful animals acting on the Darwinian platform of hegemonic dominance. The state system, according to Morgenthau’s realist, is effectively governed by actors of power politics who seek soft and hard leverage over other actors to ensure their survival. However, motives always play a key role in policy making; Churchill acted on personal and nationalistic motives in office and before World War I when he switched His Majesty’s Navy to oil power, deepening the power of Great Britain and his pocket. If realists act instinctively and rationally on their will to survive, they are unarguably acting on behalf of their motives or the motives of their people. Morgenthau states, “To search for the clue to foreign policy exclusively in the motives of statesmen is both futile and deceptive. It is futile because motives are the most illusive of psychological data…History shows no correlation between the history of motives and the history of foreign policy. This is true in both moral and political terms.” Perhaps policy is determined without regard to morality, but motives are intrinsic in every societal interaction, in accordance with realist perspective which assumes humans are greedy and power hungry.
A tenet of realism is the existence of an anarchic international state system. But within the boundaries of realist thought, this is also hypocritical. The pursuit of dominance in realism negates anarchy. Soft power global dominance to ensure order, protection and survival is the utopia of realist thought. However, the ability of a state to control the global stage through any means (economically, militarily, etc.) is a form of an international system of control: the antithesis of anarchy.

The Dialects of World Order: Theory and Perspective

Through the synthetic analysis of historical interdisciplinary theories, Alker and Beirsteker effectively analyze the global political system as conflicting in theory, yet alternatively descriptive of their relative historical and social context. Emerging in the twentieth-century, characterized by anti-capitalist schools of thought, political disorder, war and subsequent recessive liberalism, three definitive interdisciplinary approaches to theoretical international relations form which encompass traditional, dialectical and behavioral scientific approaches. Since each is theoretical and scientific, they are scrutinized in practice and against each other. However, the point of this research is to realize the importance of the modern social scientific research traditions which derive each theory and to attach significance to how each inhabited the twentieth-century. It is important to note that international theory is created in relation to region, time and political orientation, and that cross-culture analyzing proves bias results and only catalyzes disorder. This type of analysis impedes politics to transcend the boundaries of theory into practice and establish any sort of international order. The Dialects of World Order was also refreshing because it classified broad international theories and attached practical significance to each one.