By David Runciman
Tony Blair has frequently stated that he needs heritage to pass judgement on the good political controversies of the early twenty-first century--above all, the activities he has undertaken in alliance with George W. Bush. This e-book is the 1st try to satisfy that want, utilizing the lengthy heritage of the fashionable nation to place the occasions of modern years--the conflict on terror, the battle in Iraq, the falling out among Europe and the United States--in their right standpoint. It additionally dissects the best way that politicians like Blair and Bush have used and abused background to justify the hot international order they're creating.
Many books approximately foreign politics for the reason that Sep 11 contend that both every little thing replaced or not anything replaced on that fateful day. This ebook identifies what's new approximately modern politics but in addition how what's new has been exploited in ways in which are all too prevalent. It compares fresh political occasions with different crises within the historical past of contemporary politics--political and highbrow, starting from seventeenth-century England to Weimar Germany--to argue that the dangers of the current hindrance were exaggerated, manipulated, and misunderstood.
David Runciman argues that there are 3 sorts of time at paintings in modern politics: information time, election time, and old time. it's all too effortless to get stuck up in information time and election time, he writes. This ebook is set viewing the threats and demanding situations we are facing in genuine ancient time.
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Extra info for The Politics of Good Intentions: History, Fear and Hypocrisy in the New World Order
Sample text
Weber asked in his lecture. “Their noble intentions, some will say. Very well. ”24 It was a distinction of this kind that even the moralizing Gladstone sought to uphold. Though he made clear enough his personal revulsion at the antics of his Tory opponents, he was careful not to impugn their motives, for it was not motives that mattered. 26 Tony Blair is not usually so cautious. He has not shirked from questioning the motives of his opponents, from the wicked Saddam, to the malicious French, to the self-serving Tories, to the cynical media.
Moreover, it is central to the political philosophy of Blairism that actions that may have the potential to endanger the unity of the international community can be justified by the good intentions that lie behind them. Yet, as Weber says, what matters here are the means. Disraeli was able to show that there was no mismatch between the means and the end of his adventure in Abyssinia, because he only set out to liberate nine hostages, not a whole captive people. Blair does not have this luxury. There is an unavoidable mismatch between what Blair intends and the methods he employs, because he intends peace, and he has chosen war.
Much harder is to construct a realistic model of politics for the twenty-first century, in which global governance and national governments are able to coexist. Most attempts to construct such a realistic model contain a utopian streak of their own. For example, it is not enough to argue, as Robert Cooper does in The Breaking of Nations, that the challenge of contemporary politics is simply “to get used to the idea of double standards” (see Chapter Eight). 25 Cooper explains why it might be desirable to adapt to these double standards, but he does not explain how.