THE IDEALISTS ARE THE REALISTS:

The Case for "Moral Democratic Realism" (George Weigel, August 1, 2007, THE CATHOLIC DIFFERENCE)

I first met Bob Kaufman when he was preparing a biography of one of my political heroes, the late Senator Scoop Jackson of Washington State. Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics was a triumph: here was Scoop in full, insightful, courageous, occasionally flawed, his life's story told by a biographer who didn't cotton to contemporary fashions in biography-as-pathography and who remained both respectful and critical. In his new book, Professor Kaufman tries something the Bush Administration seems oddly reluctant to mount -- a full-scale defense of its grand strategy of promoting free societies as the path to world peace and stability.

Robert Kaufman styles this "moral democratic realism." The first adjective is not pious padding:

"Moral democratic realism offers a ..compelling framework for American grand strategy...because it takes due measure of the centrality of power and the constraints the dynamics of international politics impose, without depreciating the significance of ideals, ideology, and regime type. It grounds American foreign policy in Judeo-Christian conceptions of man, morality, and prudence that innoculate us against two dangerous fallacies: a utopianism that exaggerates the potential for cooperation without power; and an unrealistic realism that underestimates the potential for achieving decency and provisional justice even in international relations. It rests on a conception of self-interest, well understood, and respect for the decent opinions of mankind, without making international institutions or the fickle mistress of often-indecent international public opinion the polestar for American action..."

"Moral democratic realism" follows Augustine in its determination to see things as they are and Thomas Aquinas in its resolve not to leave things as they are, when prudence indicates that positive change is possible. "Moral democratic realism" is one 21st century embodiment of what used to be called Catholic International Relations Theory -- although few Catholics today (including many publishing in America and Commonweal, where Catholic I.R. Theory used to flourish) remember that this distinctive way of thinking about the world ever existed.

In his new biography of Condi Rice, Marcus Mabry frets much over the question of how much she's bought into W's idealism and at what expense to her former Scowcroftian realism. He finally settles upon the notion of her having invented practical idealism--an advocacy of democratic reform as the most realistic way to guarantee our future security.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 18, 2007 7:15 AM