I said:
> It's
> > not the same as the self-perception and self-justification of
> imperialists
> > that I described.
Ian writes:
> Right, except that I think they're no longer worried about the fables of
> "international public goods" and the like which were previously seen as
> constituting the vocabulary of self-description and self-justification
> which served their goals. That's the difference between the Neoliberals
> and the Realists in IR discourse. The whole recent discussion emanating
> from the Beltway regarding imperialism is, to my mind, Realism's [and the
> Realists] coming to full self-consciousness regarding the terms of their
> self-description/self-justification. "Ok, we're imperialists, we might as
> well get good at it" and "what are you going to do about it, beat us up"
> type rhetoric is symptomatic of this self-consciousness. They see
> themselves as so powerful now they don't *care* whether they are seen as
> imperialists. Hobbes.
all of what you said made total and utter sense except the last word. Hobbes is the one who presented the "public goods" argument first. He wasn't not the "might makes right" sort of the Bush administration. Instead, he saw the Leviathan as being good for everyone, by providing lawnorder, so people wouldn't grow up nasty, brutish, & short.
Jim
