The End of a Beginning


               International Theory is a core class in American’s Masters in International Relations for a good reason. Many of us are headed for, or are already engaged in careers in the public and private sector that rely on a solid understanding of not only current events, but also the historic and theoretical precedents that underline them. From Hobbes, whose Leviathan seeks to distill the human experience, particularly as it pertains to government and societal interactions, down to words that can transmit this vast concept, to Thucydides and others like him that have focused their attentions on specific events, there is a vast body of work out there for us to reference.
                The point of this class is not necessarily to ‘pick a side’ per se, it is to make yourself aware of the sides and different ways we can view the situations that we come across in our professional, and possibly personal, lives. The 2x2 is of course a valuable tool to do this. Another important lesson we touched on in the course was the consideration of author perspectives and biases. The elusive ‘they’ say that history is written by the victors. In our world today that does still mean, more often than not, people writing from a point of privilege, either academic, gendered, economic, ethnic, or a combination of all four and more.  Not only does this teach us to think critically, but it instills compassion. We cannot all grow up to be the crusty old general with more swagger than clarity in his decision-making.
                We are undertaking this degree and our careers in a time that is rather more eventful than those of the past few decades. Or at least we would like to think so. As we covered in our final group debate, humans are very good at getting themselves into conflict and equally good at forgetting it and making the same mistakes not three decades later. Part of our job as internationally-focused professionals is to be the voice in the room that can say, ‘wait, we’ve already tried this.’ Admittedly, referencing Thucydides will likely garner some odd looks, but the core ideas of this class provide an excellent basis to argue your predictive points. Fly fleetly and walk the talk.

Comments

  1. Amanda BossAugust 15, 2018 at 9:20 PM

    I like one of the last comments you made, about humans easily getting into conflict and soon forgetting it. I think that to often we are ready to just jump into a war or conflict without thinking it through first. I feel like this reinforces the argument against the likelihood of the future "human project" scenario. As a race, we love conflict too much, and refuse to learn from our mistakes. Finally, I am glad we started this class by reading the Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, as it really does set the stage for all of the topics in the following weeks.

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  2. AnonymousAugust 16, 2018 at 2:44 PM

    Very good take away in the end. As long as I don't have flashbacks from Leviathan 3 years from now, I'll agree. It's fun to see the concepts from this class come to life. You find yourself teaching new airmen about the realist agenda of western nations and why places like Turkey and Iraq still have consequences (whether they are made up ones or not). Really, at the end of the day as long as I can tell people they are nasty and brutish #hobbes then it's a job well done, right?It's all about perspective after all.

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