Summary of John J. Mearsheimer's The Great Delusion

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The idea of liberal hegemony is that a state aims to turn as many countries as possible into liberal democracies, while also promoting an open international economy and building international institutions. However, this is rarely realistic.
#2 The liberal state is constantly trying to spread democracy around the world, but this also leads to illiberalism at home. The liberal state will not achieve its goals, and its failure will inevitably come with huge costs.
#3 The structure of the international system is anarchic, not hierarchic, which means that liberalism cannot work in international politics. Countries thus have little choice but to act according to balance-of-power logic if they hope to survive.
#4 The American foreign policy establishment embraced the mission of spreading liberalism around the world. They believed that this would eventually bring an end to balance-of-power politics, and they thought that people would become bored with it all.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie politique
• Politique
• Politics

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 10 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669383925
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on John J. Mearsheimer's The Great Delusion
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The idea of liberal hegemony is that a state aims to turn as many countries as possible into liberal democracies, while also promoting an open international economy and building international institutions. However, this is rarely realistic.

#2

The liberal state is constantly trying to spread democracy around the world, but this also leads to illiberalism at home. The liberal state will not achieve its goals, and its failure will inevitably come with huge costs.

#3

The structure of the international system is anarchic, not hierarchic, which means that liberalism cannot work in international politics. Countries thus have little choice but to act according to balance-of-power logic if they hope to survive.

#4

The American foreign policy establishment embraced the mission of spreading liberalism around the world. They believed that this would eventually bring an end to balance-of-power politics, and they thought that people would become bored with it all.

#5

The United States has been at war for two out of every three years since 1989, fighting seven different wars. American policy towards Ukraine, motivated by liberal logic, is chiefly responsible for the ongoing crisis between Russia and the West.

#6

To understand liberalism, we must first understand what it is and its intellectual foundations. I believe that humans are profoundly social beings, and that individualism is of secondary importance. There are no universal truths regarding what constitutes the good life, so the disagreements among individuals and groups can be profound.

#7

All three political systems are concerned with survival, and they all believe that their system is the best way to ensure it. States in the international system are also concerned with survival, and they carefully monitor the balance of power to ensure their own hegemony.

#8

Political liberalism is an ideology that is individualistic at its core and assigns great importance to the concept of inalienable rights. It is built on the assumption that individuals sometimes differ intensely about bedrock political and social issues, which necessitates a state that can maintain order if those disputes turn violent.

#9

The two other political ideologies that are sometimes labeled as liberal are utilitarianism and liberal idealism. They are not as concerned with individual rights, and they are more interested in state efficiency and progress.

#10

While it is true that some liberal states are anti-democratic, this is not the case for all liberal states, and it is important to distinguish between the two. Within countries, liberalism is a force for good, while outside of countries, liberalism can lead to anti-liberalism.

#11

I examine the relationship between liberalism and nationalism in chapter 4, and explain how states often pursue liberal hegemony, which usually leads to failed diplomacy and failed wars. I also explain how nationalism and realism are largely responsible for creating a modern international system that is mostly composed of nation-states.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

There are two assumptions behind the theory of liberalism. The first is that humans have a critical faculty, but it has limits when it comes to answering important questions about what constitutes the good life. The second is that humans are profoundly social beings who do not operate as lone wolves but are born into social groups or societies that shape their identities well before they can assert their individualism.

#2

Humans are, by nature, social beings. This is why it is so difficult to have a functioning society when individuals cannot agree on fundamental beliefs. Social groups must have overlapping beliefs about the good life for them to stay together.

#3

I believe that there are limits to how far we can reason about first principles, and that we are social animals at our core. Together, these assumptions tell us three important facts about the world: there are a great many social groups, each with its own culture.

#4

A society is a large group of people who interact with each other in organized and routine ways. The members of a society are interdependent, and thus they lead different lives and have different beliefs. But all societies have a culture that gives meaning to the patterns of relationships that are the essence of any society.

#5

I define a group as a collection of individuals who regularly interact with each other, have a sense of comradeship, share many of the same ideas, and have a common purpose. Identity is a profoundly social concept that involves a person’s or group’s sense of self.

#6

Humans have the capability to reason or think critically, which allows them to develop a body of theories about how the world works. However, we are also incapable of agreeing on what constitutes the good life, which causes individuals and groups to hate and try to hurt others.

#7

The idea that reason gives humans the capacity to figure out what constitutes the good life is called faith in reason. But this faith in reason has weakened over the past two centuries, as there is no consensus on first principles.

#8

Many people, when pressed, still believe that there are universal principles. The belief in objective truth often surfaces when someone is accused of being a moral relativist, who believes there are no right or wrong answers to life’s big questions.

#9

The history of religion shows that religions have a tendency to fragment over time. Certain members grow dissatisfied with existing interpretations of the original wisdom and break away. In Christianity, the first great schism occurred in 1054 when the Christian world broke into two parts: Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

#10

The idea that judges should decide hard cases based on economic efficiency rather than widely recognized moral principles is based on a utilitarian approach to the law. However, not all judges believe in this approach, and they rarely agree on first principles or how to apply them in difficult cases.

#11

The good life is not something that can be determined by legal precedent or rules of statutory or constitutional construction. It is something that requires a judge’s deepest values, concerns, and broader perspectives on how the world works.

#12

Strauss believed that the primary role of political philosophy is to call into question existing moral codes and beliefs, not discover truth. He believed that the more we cultivate reason, the more we cultivate nihilism.

#13

There are three main factors that influence an individual’s thinking about the good life: socialization, the set of innate sentiments hardwired into each of us at birth, and reason. While all humans have different inclinations toward life’s big questions, these are largely shaped by society and family.