Is there a "timeless wisdom" to realism? (ePub)

Essay from the year 2007 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Miscellaneous, University of Sheffield (Department of Politics), language: English, abstract: I argue that there is no ¿timeless wisdom¿ to realism, because in my opinion wisdom has
nothing to do with realism. If realism is a timeless theory, then it should be viewed differently
from the concept of wisdom. Both will be discussed in the following essay.
Before we can fully answer the question if there is a ¿timeless wisdom¿ to realism, we should
focus on the meaning of wisdom. The term wisdom has a varity of different meanings and
implications in depending on your particular point of view. 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. (encarta. 13.11.07) Probably the political scientists have
another meaning of wisdom in their mind than the psychologists.
For this essay the definition of wisdom will be the one used in the encarta dictionary. It
declares wisdom as "the ability to make sensible decisions and judgments based on personal
knowledge and experience." (encarta dictionary. 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. the use of war merely as a political instument, as a sensible being.
From a realist viewpoint states are "self-help agents" which only see their own interests and
carry it through in an anarchic world order. (Doyle et al., 1997, p. 165) In regard to
Machiavelli and Hobbes, humans are born bad. Carr and Morgenthau assume that the
mankind learned by sociological factors to be self-maximizers. (Brown, 2007) Realist politics
is power politics. Morgenthau claims that "power may comprise anything that establishes and
maintains the control of man over man. 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. 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. (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. This would be the right way to work
scientificly.