o what purpose do they deconstruct, problematize,destabilize, undermine, ridicule, and belittlemodernist and rationalist approaches?Docs this get us any further, make the world any better, or enhance the human condition?In what sense can this "debate toward [a] bottomless pit of epistemology andmetaphysics" be judged pertinent, relevant, help-fill, or cogent to anyone other than those foolish enough to be scholastically excited by abstract and recondite debate." Contrary to Ashley's assertions, then, a poststructural approach fails to empower the marginalized and, in tact, abandons them. Rather than analyze the political economy of power, wealth, oppression, production, or international relations and render an intelligible understanding of these processes, Ashley succeeds in ostracizing those he portends to represent by delivering an obscure and highly convoluted discourse. If Ashley wishes to chastise structural realism for its abstractness and detachment, he must be prepared also to face similar criticism, especially when he so adamantly intends his work to address the real life plight of those who struggle at marginal places.
Their k prior arguments trivialize the possibility of war. They try to separate discursive politics from actual outcomes.Andrew J. ROTTER, Prof. of History @ Colgate, 2K[The American Historical Review105.4, “Saidism without Said: Orientalism and U.S. Diplomatic History,” p. 1211]For diplomatic historians, the link between cause and effect is crucial, and this constitutes another area of disagreement with Said. In a perceptive 1995 Diplomatic History essay, Melvyn P. Leffler complained that "the post-modernist emphasis onculture, language, and rhetoricoften diverts attention fromquestions of causationand agency." The problem with discourse theoryspecifically "is that although we might learnthat seemingly unconnected phenomena are relatedin some diffuse ways, we do notnecessarily getmuch insight into how relativelyimportant these relationships aretoone another." And Leffler quotes Patrick O'Brien: "'Foucault's study of culture is a history with beginnings but no causes.'" Leffler does not mention Said, but insofar as Said employs Foucauldian analysis in his work, the criticism could apply to him as well.13 If most historians continue to believe that establishing the cause of things isa meaningfulpart oftheir enterprise, even more insistently do diplomatic historians hold to this principle. That is because so much is at stake: most scholars of U.S. foreign policy are interested inexpansionism, imperialism, and ultimately war. Given the field of analysis, the dismissal of cause seems irresponsible, for people should try to understand what causesimperialism and war, and where power has such solemn consequencesit seems trivial to equate it with knowledge. Power, say diplomatic historians, is economic and military superiority, not narrative authority.
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