Event Date: December 2, 2015 - 1:00 pm
Location: Social Sciences Building, 120 University Pvt., room 4006
RICHARD FRENCH, University of Ottawa.
Presented by the CIPS and the Security Studies Network.
Free. In English. Registration is not required. Seating is limited and available on a first come, first served basis.
Realism is often misunderstood as encouraging a passive or fatalist attitude toward progress in human affairs: pessimism as resignation. An examination of the some of the most penetrating thinkers in the pessimistic tradition shows otherwise. A common tradition of pessimism and tragedy reveals a world-view which insists on the imperative of struggle in the face of the odds, and on the dignity and self-respect engendered by such efforts. Excellence and value are contingent, but their pursuit is not. Realism, pessimism and tragedy are not inherently corrosive of activism; they conceive themselves simply as a superior mapping of the territory to be traversed by the activist.
Richard French is Professor and holder of the CN – Paul M. Tellier Professor of Business and Public Policy at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
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