Why “however”? What do you want it to contrast to? — neomac
The use of the word "however" is to to contrast with the fact that parties seeking their own gain at the expense of some collective gain (family, organization, business, institutional, government, country, empire, or what have you) usually don't advertise that, but will present their plan as in the interest of the group. — boethius
In order to talk about “parties seeking their own gain at the expense of some collective gain” one has to establish how collective gain must be assessed. Adopting a normative standard for it. The problem I’m pointing out is that involved parties do not necessarily share the same understanding of collective gain. So before talking about dishonesty one has to discuss about views of national interest.
The fact that accusing government representatives of being dishonest about their claims or policies over national interest, not only suggests (without proving it) one’s own honest and/or non-exploitative attitude toward national interest (how convenient is that for powerless anonymous people whom nobody would hold accountable?), but that there is a shared view on what the national interest is. Unfortunately there are competing views of ”national interest” within a nation (see pro-Ukraine vs pro-Russian views within Ukraine, or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel views in Israel). And due to these competing views, whatever supporter of any of them can be accused of being self-serving and exploitative. Any propaganda has its counter-propaganda. Besides humans are generally more prone to detect the abuses they suffer from than the ones they inflict on others, and if offense is in the eye of the beholder, nobody can consider themselves immune from such accusations.
What I find peculiar to “national interest” wrt other concepts is that it is inherently subject to a perpetual ideological struggle with moments of greater convergence or divergence. This is what can be said, independently from what ideology one personally espouses or one side one picks.
So, party A pursues B and party C pursues D; however, party C will usually also claim to be pursuing B. — boethius
You mean, C can’t do both, pursuing B and D?
Your formula applies as well to negotiations. A sells bread, C seeks bread. If C tells A: “hey I’m here to buy some bread from you”, is C being deceitful or exploitative toward A because in reality C wants bread, not give money to A?
What is missing in your formula is what you wished to highlight: the deceitful/exploitative part.
Yet also the notion of “exploitation” can be more slippery than it looks at first. See, there are cooperative games where each player can maximise their payoffs by choosing to cooperate instead of refusing to cooperate. Yet the payoffs are unequally distributed among players. Is this enough to claim that the players who get the least are exploited by the ones who get the most? What if we also add that payoffs are not only unequally distributed but also uncertain or unstable over time? What if we also add that understanding of the payoffs and uncertainties, is not shared?
National interest is and can’t be anything else than what results from people’s self-serving interests on a national level AND given certain power relations between them. — neomac
It obviously can. You can easily have a situation where the "certain powerful people" self-serving interest would be to plunder the national treasury and make off with the winnings. This is obviously not in the interest of any sensible concept of "the nation". — boethius
Here some additional clarifications. If “nation” refers to a series of perceived common traits among certain individuals (e.g. shared language, geographic roots, ancestors, historical events, traditions, phenotypical traits, etc.) that supports a sense of collective identity and common fate wrt other nations, then each individual can form a certain understanding of what could be beneficial to the nation as a function of how representative of the nation one perceives himself (with his self-interest) to be and the kind of cooperation he expects to be likely among national fellows (given certain power relations).
Now multiply this by all the members forming a given nation. What you get is the number of views one nation can offer about their “national interest” , and we can’t simply assume they converge to the point of perfectly overlapping. So more or less competing views of national interest will struggle to become popular and politically represented. Hence my point: “‘National interest’ points at something that is the result of collective dynamics however inspired by individual expectations and wishes”. It’s a collective historical process that determines what counts as the national interest de facto, not what any isolated individual has in mind and calls national interest.
That’s where I find your focus on the honesty of powerful people about "national interest" conceptually misleading. Indeed the dishonest or exploitative intent of powerful people doesn’t necessarily compromise the fact that a policy can still be legitimately perceived in line with national interest. There might be reasons independent from the trustability of certain politicians for others to support these politicians' policies. Besides, lacking “moral” scruples in pursuing taking certain decisions and policies can’t be a-priori considered inherently unapt to achieve national interest. It’s very much human the predicament where people understand what needs to be done but lack the courage or the determination to do it, also for alleged “moral” scruples. Any society as the human beings that form it, have its own inertia due to cross-generational habits, entrenched self-serving interests and prejudices which make non-cosmetic change hardly possible for any national government. While dramatic change will likely trigger controversy and any side will invoke "morality" to rationalize their self-serving views (and "populist" views like yours are not immune from such risk either). Besides, a politician can exploitatively promote a policy which he honestly believes detrimental to national interest and yet be mistaken as much as a honest politician can be mistaken about what is beneficial to national interest.
My considerations should be hardly surprising since politicians do not take decisions in a void of collective expectations, lobby pressure, and collaborators’ advice that are integral part of a nation. Even more so where decisional power is institutionally constrained and distributed over a wider network of influential people. And things get even messier when one reasons strategically under uncertainty where the payoffs of political moves by one player are determined how all other players are moving. Also at inter-national level.
Whatever plausible moral hazard one pins on Netanyahu, Hamas leaders, Iranian leaders, Trump, Putin or Zelensky, all powerful and wealthy people, and all trapped in a conflict of interest between personal gains and their political functions, even more so in times of crisis (what unexpected is there really? How else could it be? is there any instance of power in human history immune from such suspects and fears of abuses?), is not this what I find it decisive to assess the alignment of certain decisions and policies with national interest. On the contrary, it can be misleading in making us believe e.g. that if it’s enough to remove Netanyahu, Trump, Putin, Zelensky, current Hamas leaders or Iranian leaders things will change or align better with national interest. Also discrediting them today as national catastrophes won’t preclude them from being revalued in the future as national heroes. See how Putin elevated Stalin as national hero (e.g. wrt Lenin), compared to previous presidents like Khrushchev, Yeltsin or even Medvedev. And how popular this has become amongst Russians now. Perceived national interest evolves.
It’s an entire nation that is historically engaged in determining what national interest is from within and outside pressure. And that’s why I agree with your following statement: “what exactly is the national interest, even for people trying to be genuinely focused on that, is up for debate”. However, it’s not just misinformation or evil intentions which make us debate and speculate over what’s best for national interest. It’s its inherently historical and ideological nature.
As I said you are framing a situation not in terms of competing interests, but in moral terms. This reflects your allegedly “impartial” (or “virtuous”?) interest. Yet your views are exposed to the same “bias” you are accusing others to be victim of or purposefully embracing: namely, viewing national interest in light of your self-interest. Your “populist” views are putatively aligned with those of the mass of powerless nobodies which are victims of the putative abuses of evil elites. — neomac
At this point in the discussion you are interjecting into, the debate with Tzeentch and @Benkei is descriptive of whose interest is even being served by recent policy.
@Tzeentch presents a description of the decision making process as coherent grand strategy since many decades, whereas @Benkei and I disagree the policy changes and decisions in the middle-east represent some sort of coherent US grand strategy over many decades. — boethius
Nice summary. I’m willing to accord Israel (and Ukraine and Europe) more decisional autonomy from US demands/instructions than Tzeench seems willing to concede. And I would even go further than you did: namely, even if the Israeli attacks against Iran ultimately benefits the US grand strategy, or aligns with a certain understanding of it, that wouldn’t prove that the Israeli attacks were due to the US initiative or consent.
My comment is however about something else, on purpose, no matter how tangential it looks to you. Your “descriptive” yet ideologically loaded analysis is based on certain assumptions of what national interest of the US is and how certain political decisions fulfill such national interest (“I disagree with @Tzeentch, I view the
genocide in Gaza as
absolutely terrible for US Imperial interests”), to then identify intent and later assess responsibility (“My analysis of the current situation is that Zionists
"went for it” and tried to
push the United States into a high-intensity war with Iran and the faction that stopped that from happening (for now) is the pentagon (because
they know it conflicts with US imperial interest, represent far more costs than gains, have other regions they worry about, such as East-Asia)”). As far as I’m concerned, I find nothing philosophically interesting in adopting certain normative standards (e.g. genocide is bad), assess (not describe) if certain actions comply or not with held normative standards (e.g. supporting a genocidal state is bad), and then attribute intentions (e.g. the US can’t possibly have supported a genocidal state, if it wasn’t somehow forced into doing it), and later blame accordingly (e.g. sure the Great Satan is the evilest, but we can’t blame it for the initiative of Israeli’s attacks against Iran) be it in the moral or political domain. You as the others are engaging in a political debate and wish to be representative of certain political views, possibly contribute to amplify them and make them more influential (I don’t care how honestly). Good luck with that.
That’s the gist of politics and propaganda not philosophy, though. My engagement in political debates in this philosophy forum is finalised to do philosophy no to fix the world. The philosophical task, as I understand and enjoy it, is engaging in conceptual investigations. Hence my focus on the notion of “national interest” to challenge views like yours.