“Realism” by Paul Berman Argumentative Essay

Introduction

Globalisation of world politics has led to numerous arguments on issues pertaining to global civil wars. Globalisation, popularly described as the defining feature of the existing world, has resulted to several changes cutting across economic, social, and political perspectives.

Global wrangles have become persistent with nations combating for wealthy and superiority, seeking to own precious natural resources and consolidate authority.¹

This aspect has shifted scientists, researchers, and psychologists’ attention to emphasise on studies concerning human responsiveness towards confronting situations resulting from war. With the advent of terrorism and liberalism, intrusion and triggering of human interaction and social welfare, human beings are becoming concerned with issues pertaining wars.

Some individuals seem anxious about the existing situation, while others remain tentative and tend to ignore the events occurring around them. In this view, this essay seeks to investigate the reality in the meaning and the notion of the word “realism” as described by Paul Berman.

Aspect of Realism

The subject of realism traditionally emerged from political issues that influenced the modernity of the political realm across the globe. Realism is a broad term, thus it attracts diverse definitions. However, realism is an international political matter that influences individuals’ perceptions on war, and thus research has described it with a reflection to international relations.

Donnelly² describes realism in both traditional and current meaning. According to him, realism might either refer to a philosophical disposition, a position of normative emphasis that forms theory, a loose framework, clear, and recognisable flavour or even an attitude of mind.

In a bid to simplify this definition, realism reflects an individual’s state of mind, which is of a philosophical state that characterises personal behaviour over certain issues. Therefore, a realistic person is someone who is likely not to accept anything, unless his or her state of mind gives room to acceptance of a certain fact.

Facts about realism

It is difficult to establish empirical evidence on realism in the context of human nature. Normally, as serious situations trigger the world towards massive action, three distinct characteristics in human nature are apparent. First, there are individuals who react wildly and aggressively towards things that affect their feelings, especially war and insecurity.

Secondly, some individuals tend to realise the happenings around them, but end up assuming that everything is okay. However, there are those who understand the occurrence of events, but due their retrogressive nature, they feel scared and remain defenceless. Therefore, in this context, there is no clear-cut boundary, in respect to human nature, to show who among the above persons possesses a realist trait.

Since research provides a shallow insight with little empirical evidence, the aspect of realism in human nature remains a dilemmatic subject, especially to the common people. Therefore, this paper refutes the claim that “A ‘realist’… is someone who, no matter what bizarre events may take place around the world, will profess not to be surprised.”³

Argument against

The term realist as demonstrated in the above statement may best suit naïve dictators, who fight with fear finally exposing their villain characters at later stages. Normally, individuals who tend to be stubborn on certain issues end up admitting the reality naively.

As postulated by Jacobsen,⁴ “Paul Berman argues that realists and leftists alike ignore irrational forces – pathological mass movements – that motivate global violence.” Actually, a realist is someone profound of using his or her urge as a driving force that determines the outcome.

However, realism as driven by egoism especially to political leaders, only refers to people who believe that they are the ultimate power, assume a permanent tendency to evil, and the driving motive to state is survival⁵. Surprisingly, they finally admit that, in the context of competition, one group must emerge in the wining and another in the losing end.

Evidence against

Since the emergence of global competition, that has triggered international war and global political contests, studies have tried to identify the reason behind the fall of certain leaders. Using an example of some fallen heroes in the global contest and their presence and fame diminished from the world, Jacobsen⁶ demises the meaning of the statement about realism.

As demonstrated in his study, leaders tend to believe that their followers love them and are thus subject to their orders. Taking an example of the era of Saddam Hussein, a dictatorial leader who served Iraq a few years ago, is enough to dismiss facts given by Paul Berman.

Being a powerful leader with heavy arsenal and strong militia, Saddam led Iraq using his power and egoism, assuming that people loved his political ruling. Saddam remained confident in his leadership and assumed the internal and external pressure against his regime. It only downed to him in his death that in reality his regime was a thorn in the flesh of Iraqis and the international community.

Discontented with Paul’s statement that realists remain unshaken despite the happenings in the surrounding, one of his statements contradicts the other. According to Berman⁷, commencing immediately from the first statement asserts that, wisdom involves the ability to feel nervous.

In fact, according to other researchers used in reference to the work documented by Donnelly⁸, analysts have discovered that political or any power is not the only thing that can define realism in human beings.

It is normally quite disgusting to believe in power as someone’s heroic measure only to realise that there are other powerful people than one’s imaginations.

Using the Bible reference to the story of Abraham,⁹ despite his innermost faith and belief built from the aspect of Christianity, Abraham discovered the materiality of the issue and thus decided to listen to God’s word and obey. This aspect explains the reason why wise persons make broad decisions compared to villains in critical circumstances.

Conclusion

Naturally, it quite difficult to believe how just a tiny single word, “realism” can describe the human nature and the environment uniquely. Political powers and personal justifications have made leaders to believe that they are realistic in nature.

This paper disagrees with the statement by Paul Berman¹⁰ that, “A ‘realist’… is someone who, no matter what bizarre events may take place around the world, will profess not to be surprised”. Based on common sense and evidence from the eventualities that nations are witnessing, it is hard to agree that realists are people who normally feel comfortable even under dangers.

The world has witnessed the collapse of empires and leaderships mainly due to political wrangles triggered by bad leadership. This aspect explains the reason why leaders have failed to prove their qualities through leadership and tend to believe that their egoism and philosophical judgment can equally contribute to proper leadership, something that finally turns out to be frustrating and confronting.

Bibliography

Berman, Paul. Terror and Liberalism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.

Donnelly, Jack. Realism and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Jacobsen, Kurt. “Review: Terror and Liberalism.” Logos. Last Modified, 2003. Web.

Footnotes

1. Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism (New York: W. W, Norton, 2003), 26.
2. Jack Donnelly, Realism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 41.
3. Berman, p.9.
4. Kurt Jacobsen, “Terror and Liberalism” Logos.
5. Donnelly, p.86
6. Jacobsen, p.2
7. Berman, p.84.
8. Donnelly, p. 111.
9. Jacobsen, p. 5
10. Berman, p.9.