Recently I read four works in an intriguing order. I started off with Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread. This marvel of political philosophy is not only seen as Kropotkin’s Magnum Opus (along with Mutual Aid), but also regarded as a guiding text into anarchist thought.
Afterwards, I read Ivan Jablonka’s recent hit The History of Masculinity. Written roughly a hundred years after Kropotkin’s time, it shares this sense of doubting the status quo and the necessity of existing hierarchies. With Jablonka focusing more specifically on how gender, and more specifically patriarchy as a political system, plays a role in these hierarchies.
Finally, I simultaneously read Machiavelli’s The Prince and Henry Kissinger’s World Order. The connection between these last two were like theory and praxis. The realist equivalent of the relationship between Marx and Trotsky’s account of the Russian revolution. One provided guidelines, the other provided how these guidelines had been implemented throughout history to mould our modern world order.
We could put these books into two distinct categories. There is a correlation to be made between Kropotkin and Jablonka, and likewise one between Machiavelli and Kissinger. This struck me as obvious. However, there is also a relationship between these two respective groups of books which does not necessarily present itself as immediately.
In this short essay, I argue that masculinity today has very strict similarities with realist thought in international relations.
Permanent competition on every scale
My main argument is that both are characterised by permanent competition. In realism, this idea is rather self-explanatory. At its core, realism argues that the world order is anarchic and that states are locked in an inescapable relay race for power. States will act as purely self-serving entities that are vying to increase their power, both hard and soft.
Both Machiavelli and Kissinger accept this as fact. In The Prince, Machiavelli even takes this as a given and dedicates the entire work to counselling Lorenzo de Medici on how to best navigate this anarchic world. A difference between these thinkers is that Kissinger argues for a prudent approach to maintaining a balance of power in a rapidly changing world while Machiavelli mainly focuses on how a single ruler can best serve his own interests. Kissinger is also a little more nuanced in his realism and mentions the necessity of a dose of idealism, however, still accepts the core realist argument.
Anarchist thought as that of Kropotkin pays little mind to this realist analysis of the world. As it sees hierarchy and appropriation of material wealth as a corruption of human nature, this should not come as a surprise. What I find interesting is how to use this anarchist idea in analysing international relations.
Something that has always bothered me in the way discourse on geopolitics is conducted is how we talk about states as large organic entities, all parts of which are acting in unison. This is problematic as it completely disregards the way class plays into our world order.
When Putin gives an order to attack Ukraine, this order travels down through a military and bureaucratic hierarchy that eventually leads to boots on the ground executing this order. However, in the discourse we speak of “Russia” attacking, automatically associating every Russian citizen with the decision and action taken by an elite fraction of their population.
Within an anarchist framework, war isn’t an affair between two countries, but an affair between two governments with the citizens of both caught in the middle. I argue this is a crucial differentiation. When we start to look at IR through the lens of class, it becomes easier to conceptualize certain tendencies.
One of these is an insight into the thought-processes of world leaders. This is where Jablonka’s masterpiece The History of Masculinity comes in. In this work, Jablonka diligently gives an overview of the multitude of issues that masculinity as a social construct faces today. In his analysis, he mentions how the way a lot of men experience masculinity is characterised by a competition for virility. This constant competition often leads to conflict between men. This, paired with the fact that patriarchal systems have characterised the organisation of states for thousands of years gives us an interesting insight into the pathologies that impact leaders’ decision making.
To clarify this connection, I give two examples:
The first is an example given by Jablonka in his book. He describes how there is a tendency towards “hypermasculine” behaviour among young men in the banlieues of France -his home country. Jablonka argues that these youths feel emasculated by the economic deprivation and racism they are born into. Therefore, they attempt to compensate this insecurity by acting out extreme performative masculinities. This is very visible in the recent rise of typically aggressive drill rap music. In this genre, topics range from being a very sexually active man, having a lot of money, expensive cars and jewellery and, perhaps most interestingly, being a threatening and dangerous person. Plenty of drill songs are exclusively about gang violence and murder. An interesting part of this is how murder is seen as an expression of masculinity of the murderer and the emasculation of the victim.
My second example will hopefully clarify this connection I claim is present between masculine competition and international relations.
Take Germany after WWI. It goes without saying that the Treaty of Versailles was a very uneven treaty that made Germany out as the instigator principally to blame for the Great War. I argue this was the real end of the Concert of Vienna, as it betrayed the principle of not disturbing the balance of power after a treaty in hopes to avoid revanchism. This revanchism came out swinging after Germany had found time to get back on her feet, led by an interesting new dictator. What allowed a man as outrageously tyrannical as Hitler to rise to power? I argue a large part of this was due to this aspect of permanent competition for virility within masculinity. A competition that an otherwise proud Germany was losing. I think this feeling of international emasculation of the German man gave Hitler the necessary pent-up aggression in the German populace to manipulate for his own benefit. I also claim that Hitler himself was acting out of a performance of hypermasculinity to prove his own virility to the world. A shorter man than average, not blessed in the looks department, frequently scolded and emasculated by his father, an art school reject and mistreated WWI veteran surely must have had enough internal frustration to take out onto the world.
I see a clear link in behaviour between the French drill rappers in the banlieues of Paris and the German national consciousness in the interbellum period.
So?
This essay covers essential concepts in both (neo-)realist, anarchist, and feminist literature. In fear of losing structure, I summarise the core of my argument below.
I started off with a short discussion of the four different books that inspired this essay. After classifying them into two distinct groups, I tried to demonstrate a clear link between the two. This being that patriarchy influences the way international relations are conducted. Especially the realist concept of permanent competition is something that is very present in the contemporary conception of masculinity.
I therefore state that because men are socialised to be in a permanent competition for virility, and most world leaders are men, the realist theory of a permanent global anarchy characterised by states vying for power constantly shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
The Analytic Hour 
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