Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper), It is time to give up on the failing liberal democracy project and its attendant ideologies: human rights, the sanctity of life, the rule of law, civic engagement, the international community, and other such infantile inanities.
Liberal democracy is fading everywhere because exactly like Communism it is founded on a counterfactual view of human psychology and a fallacious reframing of human history.
Ideologies are inflexible and self-defeating straightjackets. Adherence to such fantasies ineluctably and inexorably leads to conflict and mayhem.
As the USA’s Founding Fathers knew, universal franchise democracy is a dangerously flawed idea. It empowers the nescient and the dumb, gives rise to demagogues, and elevates ruthless, populist antisocial leaders.
Similarly, the human and civil rights agendas are totalitarian victimhood doctrines that abrogate the inalienable and primordial right for self-defense and the meritocratic allocation of resources, among many other consequent distortions.
We need to get rid of all this delusional enlightenment baggage and revert to Realpolitik: the consummate use of power, hard and soft, to create and maintain peace and to regulate conflict.
Contrary to deliberate misrepresentations by bleeding heart acolytes of the liberal democracy religion, Realpolitik does not equate might with right nor does it do away with a civil discourse among interest-holders. It merely recognizes reality, adapts to it transigently, on the fly, without preconceptions, and aspires to optimize outcomes in a game-theoretical manner.
Where is the place of existing structures in a Realpolitik world?
Human institutions are founded on the preservation of the utilization of power: its dissemination, its management, and its maintenance. Realpolitik is about honestly admitting to this fact, not about instigating a revolution.
What about the rule of law? It is a natural derivative of Realpolitik because the state possesses a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
But will not Realpolitik sacrifice niceties such as human and civil rights? Not necessarily and not always. But it will dispense summarily with the self-imputed right to intervene in the internal affairs of sovereigns. Let domestic power matrices within polities determine the local admixtures of the rights and obligations of the populace and the shape and functioning of their institutions.
By far the greatest impact of Realpolitik will be the pacification of international affairs. In a Realpolitik world, powers – global and regional – would recognize each other’s spheres of influence and rarely trespass for as long as overt, unambiguously signaled might be the regulating and organizing principle of international affairs.
Time to resurrect Henry Kissinger and the long line of wise statesmen who preceded him throughout history and who served as his intellectual inspiration.
Opinions expressed in the op-ed section are solely those of the individual author and do not represent the official stance of our newspaper. We believe in providing a platform for a wide range of voices and perspectives, even those that may challenge or differ from our own. As always, we remain committed to providing our readers with high-quality, fair, and balanced journalism. Thank you for your continued support.Sincerely, The Brussels Morning Team
