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The problem of patriarchy
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- Ignoring the history of cooperation
The problem of patriarchyMy second objection concerns the way in which world leaders—who are often wealthy men—select data along lines which can accurately be called “masculinist.” While it may seem obvious, almost shallowly so, that “war” is “patriarchal,” there are more ontological and ethical reasons which must be laid out to fully understand why a Realist approach promotes patriarchy. First, there is the modernist, or Enlightenment-era underpinning of Realism. As an epistemic/normative philosophy which—by its very title “Realism”—claims absolute predictability of human events, Realism glorifies the kind of “predict-and-control” mentality characteristic of modernist and Enlightenment science. Many feminist philosophers have noted that such a “scientific” or over-rational view of the world reflect the masculine drive to control nature and other people. Second, and more importantly, there is the very practical implication for women of a society devoted to military preparedness. In such a society, women “enjoy” a special role: As mothers, their job is to reproduce, to “make more little soldiers,” and furthermore, to socialize those children into being “good citizens” who will work to reproduce the same structures of power as those into which they were born. According to this argument, the role of the mother is a unique focal point in the perpetuation of a population accustomed to preparing for, and fighting, wars. Obviously, the implication of both modernism and patriarchal reproduction is a perpetuation of woman as second-class citizen and slave to the state. It is instructive to note that Josef Stalin promoted a “family values” agenda when he led the Soviet Union. Stalin was concerned that women were having fewer children. They were: Under Lenin, women received free contraception and abortion on-demand, which the first generation of Bolsheviks saw as essential to women’s emancipation from patriarchy. Stalin worried that there would be too few young Soviet males to send to the inevitable wars to come. His response was to encourage Soviet women (who for years had enjoyed near-equal footing with their male comrades) to go back to home and kitchen. The situation was not much different in the United States immediately following the Second World War. Women had been encouraged to go out and work during the war, to keep production levels up while men were away fighting. Images in the media such as “Rosy the Riveter” told women that they could work just as well as men. When the war ended and the boys came home, politicians stepped up their “family values” rhetoric, to encourage women to go back home and have more children…presumably, for the next Great War. In this, as in other manifestations of Realism, women exist to drive the war effort, while men exist to make the key decisions. Finally, it can be argued that in so interpreting and recommending a world full of militaristic competition, Realism encourages the wholesale exploitation of natural resources, as well as a metaphysical view of humans being apart from nature. As the evidence in that section demonstrates, the values of “production” and “efficiency,” anthropocentric as well as masculine, encourage subordination of the planet and nature just as easily as they encourage the subordination of women. Ignoring the history of cooperationMy final objection to realist epistemology is that it is biased in its data selection against those instances when groups of people, even nations, cooperate rather than fight. If realists claim to base their assumptions on the entire history of international relations, they are incorrect. International events often feature war and competition, but there are just as many instances of cooperation and solidarity. The first instance of cooperation can be found in international law. The idea behind international law is that, although some laws are unenforceable and purely symbolic, they still do a good job of promoting norms that let leaders know it is in their best interest to follow. Leaders do not follow international law simply because they fear retaliation from other nations. Often, they follow such norms because they see adherence to peaceful norms as more conducive to an enduring legacy as leaders. To say that they are motivated from “self-interest” is rather unenlightening. The more important question is what they are self-interested in, and the answer seems to be that leaders are just as interested in being remembered as good leaders as they are in promoting their power. Neither one side nor the other can lay exclusive claim to interpretation of available historical data. The second instance of cooperation can be found in the altruistic acts of nations. Countries frequently send aid, personnel, and relief to other countries for moral, rather than immediately pragmatic, reasons. This is empirically true of nations of every conceivable political leaning: Capitalist America sends famine relief to Africa…communist Cuba sends medical personnel to hurricane-ravaged Nicaragua. Realists, again, will claim both countries do this in order to promote their influence over other countries. Even if that were true, it is a far cry from saying that influence is the sole motive. It is more likely that a complex combination of motives for action exists in every government. But complexity is something Realists refuse to acknowledge—that is the problem with any philosophy which begins its exposition by saying: “Nations ALWAYS do X…Nations NEVER do Y…” What is frustrating about this is that the Realist argument (“Leaders who adhere to international law do so simply to promote their power,” “Countries aid other countries to promote their agenda overseas,” etc.) resembles the reductionist arguments used by psychological egoists, who argue that selfishness motivates all actions. The problem with making such arguments is that they have no conditions of falsifiability. If I say I want to help someone for nothing, the psychological egoist will reply that I am seeking to be altruistic simply because I seek the satisfaction of being altruistic. The obvious answer to this is: “If I am satisfied helping others, this is not because I am selfish…it is precisely because I am unselfish.” Conclusion Realism in international relations is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophesy. It is the classic example of how elites conflate normative and epistemic observations, arguing that because things are sometimes a certain way, they ought to always be that way, or at least always be seen that way. Realism is a self-fulfilling prophesy for the same reason that the depressed student will remain depressed: because she has come not only to view the world in that way, but also to arrange her interpretations, choices, and interactions that way. The most objectionable part of realism, however, may be the way in which elite discourse is transposed into value assumptions in the media, in political science education, and into everyday conversations. News viewers are shown stories of conflicts abroad and are then told that these conflicts are the inevitable result of other peoples’ warlike nature. Students in international relations classes are taught that the world is anarchic and that U.S. hegemony is absolutely necessary. In everyday conversations, people talk about international conflicts in an “us and them” vocabulary. Nobody stops to question whether it is in ordinary people’s interest to urge their leaders to cooperate rather than threaten one another. Those few visionaries who speak up and say, “We ought to cooperate” are, of course, accused of being unrealistic. Realism is, therefore, the wrong word to attach to the international philosophy it describes. “Pessimism” may be a better word, and combating that pessimism requires digging deeper into the epistemological data. It also requires an ethical gesture that precedes any epistemology: believing in, and struggling for, peace and cooperation. 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