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I have a feeling that if you try to define what you mean by national interest, you'll get a circular definition. What does France want? To further its national
by Arnt 6y ago
I have a feeling that if you try to define what you mean by national interest, you'll get a circular definition. What does France want? To further its national interest. What is its national interest? It is what France wants. Uh.
That loop leads to no insight. Perhaps thinking along those lines is frustrating and the frustration makes you blame the current system, but blaming also won't help with insight or understanding.
- jpcooper 6y agoThese two concepts are part of a wider network. The measures of those concepts alone closely correlate. It is difficult to think about one without thinking about the other. I am not blaming the system as a whole. It just is. I was more taking issue with (reacting against) and questioning the motives and sources of people's reaction to the system and its big players. I was trying to show that these motives and sources are similar to those of both the big players which they are reacting to (UK), and also those which they leave out (continental EU, Greece). Some motives may be moral, but it should not be forgotten that these motives correlate with the interests of a wider group. For many people alone, being immoral correlates directly with negative personal interest. This is not to forget that people's reactions interact with the wider system bidirectionally.