When I first began reading the assigned article, "Beyond Belief: Ideas and Symbolic Technologies in the Study of International Relations" by Mark Laffey and Jutta Weldes, I thought I had a good understanding of what the authors were trying to convey. This however changed after the second page and I became confused. What are the authors trying to explain here? I understood the arguments made against constructivist and realist theories, but then it took a turn when they began to talk about ideas and interests. What do Laffey and Weldes mean by symbolic technologies, and why can't I go back to reading works by 17th century philosophers? Obviously I had many more questions than understandings going into the week's online class.
After failing to guess the meaning of symbolic technologies, Professor Shirk explained that interests come from ideas. Apparently the argument that Laffey and Weldes were attempting to make was that juxtaposition of ideas and interests was not possible, as interests only exist because of the existence of ideas. Now, I am sure that Professor Shirk had really simplified the meaning, but it was still somewhat confusing. In an attempt to understand this, I tried to relate it back to the lecture posted for the module by Professor Jackson.
Specifically, I tied this concept of "interests coming from ideas" to the example Professor Jackson made about growing up with certain preferences, based on a person's surroundings and interactions. The argument was that people have different preferences based on the area, culture, or time they grew up in. I grew up in a very small town of farming families; therefore, my preferences would be different from someone who grew up in say Chicago, who never had to worry directly about the price of feed or hay. In my comparison, the ideas are what made me think a specific way, by the experiences and culture I grew up in. The interests would then be the preferences in the example by Professor Jackson, these are the personal interests of an individual, forming of the environment that that individual was raised in.
Now, my grasp of these concepts could be offbase. I hope that by re-reading the article, watching the online session, and asking questions in next week's session, I will better understand just what Laffey and Weldes are conveying.
https://auisgroup1summer18.blogspot.com/2018/05/what-in-world-are-symbolic-technologies.html
I think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of how ideas form interests. Where you're from, your culture, your religion, all of these help you decide what is best for you. Your world view and set of values are determined by these factors and help you determine what is important to you. I think one area of confusion for many states on the international level (particularly in terms of conflict resolution) is that they have a notion of the interests of another state based on their worldview, but the interests of the second state could vary greatly. This might serve in part to explain why some treaty negotiations, the Iran nuclear deal for example, take so long to accomplish, each side needs to have an understanding of what ideas drive their interests. At least that's one way of framing such long negotiations.
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