The Semantics of the Tower of Babel: Language and Morality in International Politics
by Oleg Barabanov
Differing values and a variety of associated moral attitudes are becoming an increasingly tangible barrier to a dialogue between existing global centers of power. The idea of Western values’ universalism is being increasingly rejected and is often perceived by developing countries as neocolonialism. As a result, those involved in today’s international politics increasingly speak in different semantic languages. This happens even when everyone is using common professional English for communication. The reason for this lies in different value paradigms and public expectations with regard to foreign policy in various social media. Therefore, mutual semantic misunderstanding has become a key problem in international relations.
This can be seen clearly in practice. The G20 summits, which bring together representatives of diverse value systems, are a case in point. It is much more difficult to reach consensus on important and pressing matters at the G20 than at the more homogeneous G7 (at least, before Trump) or in BRICS. As a result, in order not to upset the consensus (for the media, consensus is perhaps the main criterion of a summit’s effectiveness from the perspective of the host country), the items on the G20 agenda have taken on a more general and abstract nature. The G20’s recommendations are beginning to look like the well-known formula “we are for all good and against all bad.” The media has stopped paying attention to anything in the G20 other than bilateral meetings between world leaders held on the sidelines. As a result, the G20, which was designed as a key forum for equitable geographical representation in global governance, was largely hollowed out because of the difference in value paradigms promoted by various groups of its participants and turned partly into a logistics platform for bilateral meetings.
What are the main political conditions for making this new “global translation” between competing value systems effective? The first one is clear: all countries need to recognize that their values are not universal and that other countries are not required to share them. Clearly, this will come as a tall order for many countries (not just the West, but the non-Western countries, as well). Translation will not be effective without this. The above “diffusion” will remain in place and attempts to impose one’s own values on other people will be preserved.
Second, in order to understand other people’s values, there is a need for an awareness or education process to study them and to understand them politically and culturally. Clearly, here too, there is a thin line between providing education and imposing one’s own values on others, which should be avoided.
Third is recognizing the right to the above “value non-alignment.” This means that value-based conditions will not determine political and economic agreements. Certainly, this would not be easy, either.
Fourth, translation cannot be done without translators. The countries that are either at the junction of new values and are experienced in understanding each of these value systems or, historically and culturally, have been exposed to different value systems and ideologies, such as countries that adopted Western values at some point in their recent history, but then abandoned them, or the like, can play a key role here. Countries that walk the line between the global West and the global East, between the north and the south, the countries that combine different national, cultural and religious traditions can play a role of their own.
Last, ideally, effective global translation can ultimately lead us to a place where competing value systems will converge and, possibly, merge. That’s where common universal values can become available and be shared by everyone rather than perceived as imposed from the outside.
As a result, semantics and semantic translation for different types of foreign policy discourse are taking on particular importance. Therefore, in 2020, the Valdai Club will focus on these matters, including, among other things, a new diplomacy language, which, in a matter of one short decade, went a long way from the seemingly unshakable standards of the “gallant era.” Is this just plain vulgarization or does it reflect the social forces’ profound needs? Diplomacy languages in some regions of the world (Asia, Africa and Latin America) with an emphasis on their specifics, where the semantics of decolonization, left-wing liberation discourse, and the semantics of the common fate of humankind are manifest, constitute a separate area of research. Naturally, such an emphasis on global semiotics calls for an interdisciplinary analysis, drawing on the findings and conclusions from linguistics, social psychology, cultural studies and other sciences.
Of these related sciences, history has a place of its own. The Valdai Club has repeatedly written about the problems stemming from different perceptions of historical memory. The upcoming 2020 75th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War in Russia and World War II internationally will clearly focus on the semantics of war and victory. Its diverse and even opposite interpretations and perceptions may have consequential political significance and thus need to be analysed particularly thoroughly.
To reiterate, there is no such thing as universal values and moral principles that are shared worldwide. Therefore, inevitably, the problems of moral relativism begin to exert an ever-increasing influence on international politics, which is increasingly adopting the “friend or foe” approach where those who have been tagged “foe” are morally demonized. The Valdai Club will focus on these matters, moral relativism, value revisionism and the normative conditionality of foreign policy in 2020.
Overall, the semantics of the Tower of Babel of international politics that suits all participants, on the one hand, seems insoluble, at least in the short term. On the other hand, a better grasp of it will make foreign policy processes more predictable, and lead to greater convergence and mutual understanding between countries and peoples over time.
Source: Valdai Club