https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mh3T173fk4VEvdSwGPS8yYynOEPh-VWQ/view?usp=sharing

 

An extract from one of my published papers:

It is hardly an earth-shattering revelation to state that if the essence of human relations is based on human characteristics, then so are inter-state relations. However much international relations theorists try to create neat, clinical and Procrustean models divorced from the blood and guts realities of living together, it is to primary written sources that we must turn to understand how atavism, insecurity, fear, pride, anger, greed, ambition, lust, but also humaneness, thoughtfulness and love are the determining factors of relationships. This is particularly apparent in the ideas of Guicciardini and Macchiavelli (even if the former lacked the public amorality of the latter).

As Lin Yutang wrote in 1938, putting human affairs into exact formulae shows a lack of sense of humour and therefore a lack of wisdom. More devastatingly, he wrote that Man’s love for words was his first step towards ignorance, and his love for definitions the second. The more he analysed, the more he needed to define, and the more he defined, the more he aimed at an impossible logical perfection, the effect of which was only a sign of ignorance.