Isolationism In Political History

unilateralism is really just a new form of American isolationism (as Cited in Dunn, 2005, p. 246). Bear Braumoeller (2010) is quite straightforward, stating that isolationism in the U.S. is simply a myth (p. 1). Although Braumoeller’s idea may not be sufficiently rigorous nor historically responsible, this indicates the convoluted denotations of isolationism. Through history, as what above has showed, persisted definition debate over isolationism seemly never ends even for scholars. Not to expect how well the unprofessional public can comprehend the denotations of “isolationism” as a professional terminology. To conclude, due to the varying property of the denotation of isolationism may vary over time and conditions. Based this property, it would be reasonable that most people who are not in the field of politics cannot fully comprehend isolationism, without which one may misunderstand certain foreign policy and be potentially misled. Besides varying denotations of isolationism in America over time, the abuse use of this terminology by the mass media might also lead to misinterpretation by the public. Jack Hunter (2014), contributing editor at Rare.US, in a commentary entitled “Hey insult, pejorative term media, ‘isolationist’ is not an acceptable term.” notes that the phenomenon in America that for either hawkish or dovish, either the liberal or the conservative, either Democrat or Republican might be immediately label as “isolationist” who even dares suggest that the U.S. shouldn’t intervene much of the international affairs. Hunter claimed that media deliberately using the term “isolationist” as a smear (pp. 1-3). To further interpret Hunter’s article, misuse and abuse use of isolationist by the media might have led to misunderstanding of the public using rather one-sided interpretation of such term. The public perception of this rather complicated political term may thus be twisted, leading to a unilateral view. In addition to potentially misleading media coverage of this term, according to Johnstone (2011), the isolationism has remained a convenient substitute word for much more complicated and systematic foreign policy frameworks and based on the changing nature of this rather historical term he demanded that there should be a more sophisticated generalized interpretation. Johnstone also argued that isolationism as a political terminology has a significant historical restriction. (p. 12). In other words, a more explicit interpretation or more easily a replacement of the term - isolationism is needed to clarify the true definition of such foreign policy framework. In general, the term isolationism can be misleading in the U.S. academia has been seeking proper clarification for the public and further progress is needed to present the full logic of this ideology to decrease the public misinterpretations. In addition to public misinterpretation of this terminology due to objective and subjective factors, public population may also have harbored a common misconception that subjectively recognize isolationism as abnormal and pejorative foreign …show more content…
Throughout the American political history, isolationism has never been an outsider of American foreign strategies. In other word, isolationism methodologies are in fact quite normal in a way that public should not fear or panic at the first glance. First of all, isolationism, just like its reputable counterpart internationalism, has always been a crucial component of American political culture. According to Crothers (2011), the author aimed to find the answers to the swinging nature of U.S. foreign policies between isolationism and internationalism. Crothers examined several potential factors that Americans have supported both internationalist and isolationist foreign policies at various points in history from a political cultural standing point. Through a deep consideration of the original practices with a historic focus on Mexican-American conflicts more than one century ago, Crothers found that both isolationism and internationalism are core components of American political culture and thus will heavily influence American foreign policy, thus concluded that the political and cultural roots of American foreign policy place an important framework around the policies made by the United States. Both ideologies – isolationism and internationalism – have helped the forming of American foreign policy frameworks which can be accessible to American policymakers even in modern days as both isolationism and internationalism have pointed out the foreign policy direction of U. S’s very own, offering ideas, values, tools and even rituals that can help the development of the U.S. foreign policy. Both isolationism and internationalism are core components of American political culture. They