Jonathan Berman Responds to Adam, The Power Hungry Liberal Constructivist

Dear Adam, (I had a feeling I'd have to start a letter like that...)

The only people I accused of acting outside of the boundaries set by their theory were the liberal constructivists. I can understand the liberals going along with a majority consensus since they are more interest driven and tend to accept institutions at their face value. In addition, I hungered to take a stab at the realist constructivists but I could never actually figure out what they were advocating for.

I agree with you that there are norms in the international system, however, one must admit that not all norms are created equal. In fact, some norms are created for the express purpose of keeping others down!

That is where your group got off theory. You accepted the system, in this case Robert's Rules, without analyzing the power relationships it created and enforced.

What you failed to see is the insidious power behind that system. Yes, Roberts Rules protects the rights of the minority to speak out, but only to a point. The unfortunate downside of Robert's Rules is if you have 2/3+ support you can pretty much do what you want without having to listen to other people. We saw that best exemplified best by how you used the power of the majority to silence us.

You claim to have invited us into dialogue but this was simply not the case. What you call dialogue creation, I call a mob. First, I had to fight my way to the table. Second, when I tried to speak I was interrupted constantly. And third, no one was forced to be quite and listen. It was quit clear that no one was interested in what the realists had to say. Which from our point of view is fine, when you have the power use it, as realism says you should.

However, this certainly was not the communicative dialogue envisioned by Lynch. Everytime we tried to get on the speaker's list or amend the resolution you left the rules and created anarchy, an anarchy where the strong (the three groups) did what they pleased while the weak (us) suffered for it. In the end, our best option was not to acknowledge the legitimacy of the resolution, signled by our lack of voting.

Had the debating session gone on any longer we, as a group, would have seceded from the proceedings and not recognized its legitimacy, forming our own "Realtopia" if you will, because it was clear that being a member of the body did not serve our interests.

In the end, Adam, I feel the liberal constructivists failed to find universal values. You found the majority's values for sure, but by not including us those values hardly apply to all of humanity.

Now, in this case the resolution, namely Bono's proposal to give 1% to the poor, wasn't sinister but I can imagine how this could be different. Imagine if the proposal was to remove us from our land or eliminate us from the face of the earth? In those cases, if the majority (read the powerful) decided to bend us to their will there would have been no way for the minority could seek protection or have their voices heard. Sounds a little bit like IR, huh?