Whole summary of class notes and literature including:
- Moisi, D. (2009) Geopolitics of emotion, CH1
- Horton & Kraftl p. 35 Box 2.3 Orientalism
- F. Fukuyama (1989) The End of history
- Huntington, S. The clash of civilizations? in Foreign Affairs; Summer 1993
- I. Buruma/A. Margalit, Occ...
Lesson 1 - Geopolitics of emotions orientalism
D. Moïsi
- Idealism make it a better world
- Geopolitical is related to emotions
- Using emotions to understand others
- 20th first century is not about ideology but about identity
- we know how the very poor are doing and the very poor know about the rich (communication
revelation)
- we tend to search for our identities
- you have to integrate your emotions you can transcend them and understand the emotions from
the others and knowing that others have different emotions
- than we can create a more tolerant world
- criticism clash of civilization
- analyze your own feelings and thoughts to mapping and color the world and looking what is the
dominating color
Asian hope
Muslim/ Arab humiliation
Western fear
- in the culture of fear, you know that the next day will be worse than yesterday
- four aspects of fear
Blown up by the most fanatics (Islam)
Being left behind by the more dynamic Asians
Fear because you are are not choosing your path because democration is choosing for you
Invated by the poor (migration)
- populist selecting/ promoting negative emotions and they are creating “we-them”using
humiliation and not creating a country of hope but anger
Moisi, D. (2009) Geopolitics of emotion, CH1
In an age of globalization, emotions have become indispensable to grasp the complexity of the world
we live in. Magnified by media, they both reflect and react to globalization and in turn influence
geopolitics.
Friedman: globalization is the international system that replaced the system of the Cold War. Can be
seen as the combination of two disparate phenomena, which may be seen as either contradictory or
complementary. On the one hand, we witness the impact of the cultural Americanization of the
,world. On the other hand, the economic rise of Asia is bringing about the end of the monopoly of the
Western model. This leads to a situation of asymmetric multipolarity the key actors on the world
stage not only are unequal in terms of power and influence but also differ dramatically in their views
of the world.
- The primary reason that today’s globalizing world is the ideal fertile ground for the blossoming or
even the explosion of emotions is that globalization causes insecurity and raises the question of
identity. In the Cold War period there was never any reason to ask “who are we?” The answer was
plainly visible on every map that depicted the two adversarial systems dividing the globe between
them. But in an ever-changing world without borders, the question is intensely relevant.
- Identity is strongly linked with confidence and is expressed in emotions – in particular, those of fear,
hope and humiliation.
- What is new is the impact of the communications and transportation revolutions on the strategy
and tactics of the terrorists, with the media revolution providing new and powerful sounding board
for the terrorist message.
- In the ideological atmosphere of the 20 th century, the world was defined by conflicting political
models (socialism, fascism, capitalism), ideology has now been replaced by the struggle for identity.
- What is the specific, concrete connection between emotions and geopolitical conflicts?
- With mapping emotions you can recognize patterns. It brings diverse elements together (how
people feel about themselves/ their present/ their future/ the statement of political leaders/ cultural
productions et cetera). Through indicators like these, emotions can be approached and studied in an
objective/ scientific way.
Emotions versus civilizations:
Some observers have said that conflicts among nations today cannot be best explained by emotions
but rather by broader and deeper cultural patterns (Samuel Huntington)
Self and the other:
- By focusing on emotions, I am emphasizing a new reality that can be summarized in this terms: in
the age of globalization the relationship with the Other has become more fundamental than ever.
- For the West, yesterday non-Westerners could only succeed if they were following the Western
model. With the rise of Asia the West is confronted with serious questions about its identity. We
need the other to define yourself.
The difficulties of mapping emotions:
- Some people say that emotions are too inherently subjective, soft and indefinable to be truly
meaningful. But Moïsi says that many economic and politic maps aren’t objective portraits of natural
realities but subjective constructions (think of the differences in different geographic maps). So
subjective/ soft realities are essential to understanding geopolitics on even the most rudimentary
level.
- Mapping emotions is far from easy. If even classical political maps are increasingly difficult to draw,
the mapping of emotions can seem like a pure fantasy and perhaps a dangerous illusion, a superficial
and potentially dangerous venture based on subjectivity, simplification, and a Manichean view of the
world.
, - Another reason for the difficulty of mapping emotions is the growing relativity of geography in our
global age. For many, geography is no longer a given but a matter of choice. For example United Arab
Emirates, in geographic term they are located in Middle East but in psychological, economic and
emotional terms they are in Asia.
- Another reason is not only the existence of strong crosscurrents and reciprocal influences but the
fact that fear, humiliation and hope are always present in variable proportions, depending upon the
continent, the regions, the countries, and above all the period.
Why emotions matter:
- emotions reflect the degree of confidence that a society has in itself it is this degree of
confidence that in turn determines the ability of a society to rebound following a crisis, to respond to
a challenge, to adjust to changing circumstances. It is because of the importance of emotions in the
collective psyche of people that I assume have a greater capability to rebound from for example a
economic crisis.
- emotions can be changed because emotions matter, they impact the attitudes of people, the
relationships between cultures and the behavior of nations.
J. Sachs
- most people have lived in surroundings with people that look like them
- globalization changed that key question: can you live with people with different culture/
identities
- 20first century is a century of fear
- people get never used of change
- give back to your country household
- help people integrate, but they also want it
- “the house we build together versus hotel”
C. Taylor
- the story you write about migration
- paradox when you have democracy the whole system leans on a feeling of together
- globalization changed the relationship with migrants and society
- diaspora
- migrants are not just here and forget their foreign country
- mental shift in the minds of majority’s in society
- afraid or embrace
- immigration is a continuous process
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