Realism and Liberalism - Different Perspectives

March 14th 2018

Review (week 1)

At the beginning of the class, the professor talked about realism and liberalism. Their perspectives are different from each other. While realism sees the World pessimistically, liberalism does optimistic. According to realism, states should behave based on their self-interest. So they should always be powerful due to taking care themselves from any attack made by any countries. Basically, as realism does not support international harmony, liberalism thinks that if institutions which belong to different countries are involved in interactions, conflicts between states occur less frequently. After that according to Doyle which are positive liberty, negative liberty, and democratic participation or representation are mentioned. To be honest, specifically, the dilemma caught my attention. Because It is a much-debated issue. If the liberal system is right and negative and positive liberty should be high for people's own good, how can it work at the same time or how can they be balanced? What should be the level of negative liberty? Generally, many people want that no more poverty, famine, lack of education, infant death, bad health conditions etc. Means mostly high positive liberty is desired. But the essence of liberalism is freedom of individualism included having a property right. As an example, during government takes something from rich and gives to poor for maintaining livable conditions for every citizen, does that country still regarded as a liberal state or we should assume a new ideology due to disregarding its own main rule? I have the same idea with Doyle. Because freedom of individualism is significant but in this inequality world people shouldn't live in bad conditions throughout their owns life. Additionally, although positive liberty is important, negative one shouldn't ignore so much. A government should maintain a balance even if it's tough.

The other interesting topic is patriotism and tolerance. In Turkey, patriotism is very significant. Throughout the history, Turkish people are known for having high patriotism due to showing extraordinary success during wars like Gallipoli which Ottoman military sources such as rifles, cannons, food and the number of soldiers were very few in comparison with opponents. The key point is we know that sovereignty is irreplaceable. Since childhood, we are raised with learning our historical past like Independence War, if we have not our own country without any mandatary, we cannot live liberally. And we've seen some other countries like Egypt or Syria. For so many years there is no peace after the collapse of Ottoman Empire. These are examples for us to show how important having a sovereign and independent country is and why we should devote ourselves to our country even one day to death for own country may be necessary. So patriotism is important in my opinion. Because if you want to have a good future for yourself and your children, the other's children, shortly for your next generations, being patriotic is the shortest way to be sure that. Means, if citizens are patriotic, they behave by thinking favor of their country, in other words, the other citizens. So the country will develop and the possibility that the country has a good future will be higher. It's a possibility because when you have a sovereign country, because of some effects like political conditions of the country may not be very good. By the way, having high patriotism should not be confused with being racist. Because Turkish people do not get above themselves than the other people who are different nationalities, they are respectful. High patriotism means citizens sacrifice themselves for their country if it needs.

The second point is tolerance which is important to live in a peaceful, liberal country. Every person has different personalities. Different personality means different idea. So

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