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Journal of Politics and Law; Vol. 13, No. 3; 2020
ISSN 1913-9047 E-ISSN 1913-9055
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education
The Weakening of the Hegemon and the Future of the Liberal

International Order
Mikołaj Lisewski1
1
Faculty of Political Science and Security Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University, ABD, Toruń, Poland
Correspondence: Mikołaj Lisewski, Faculty of Political Science and Security Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus
University, Batorego 39L Toruń, Poland. Tel: 0-56-611-2111. E-mail: mjanelski@gmail.com
Received: July 11, 2020 Accepted: August 13, 2020 Online Published: August 30, 2020
doi:10.5539/jpl.v13n3p166 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/jpl.v13n3p166
Abstract
The hereby paper presents a theoretical approach to the U.S.–China geopolitical rivalry as the process of dispersion
of power from the hegemon to the challenger [Allison] that may toward, through the sphere of influence
fragmentation processes, to the polycentricity of the international relations system. In this work the author presents
a new theoretical approach to the U.S.–China political rivalry understood as a key element of a process of changing
the model of the global hegemonic leadership, shaped most fully since 1991. The paper presents the concept of
two theoretical levels – the rational strategy and the political vibrancy – which are a necessary context for
identifying the nature of given decision-making processes of the main subjects of contemporary international
relations. Thus, through the abovementioned concept the sino-american relations are explained within the methods
that are being used by states with particular emphasis on analyzing the operations of the People's Republic of
China. Furthermore, the author reasons why China is withdrawing from the use of soft power – understood in the
terms of J. S. Nye’s – and why it primarily uses the linking power and sharp power [Walker, Ludwig]. The article
ends with a summary in which author, based on the information presented, tries to answer the question – why the
liberal international order remains uncertain (or is about to fail).
Keywords: liberal international order, China, United States, geopolitics, soft power, sharp power, linking power
1. Introduction
It was 1991 when the world balance of power had totally changed as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Closed, bipolar world has been replaced by the model of one global and inevitable hegemonic leadership [Walt
2018]. For the very first time the world security responsibility was handed over to the power that is outside of
Mackinder’s world island, Eurasia. There were plenty of secondary regional powers, a states dominating in the
region, dictating rules and even able to influence other countries. Although the regional powers are also not power
only by themselves, but by the functioning within wider regional order or security complexes [Frazier, Stewart-
Ingersoll 2010], in the early nineties the United States of America had no other real power to compete with, being
in the favorable unipolar moment [Krauthammer 2002].
Within the rise of the hegemonic leadership the liberal international order and its main spheres of influence
flourished to the time of the first big challenge – the war of terrorism, that – without reasonable solution – might
had inhibited the liberal expansion. The Bush Doctrine and the idea of preemptive war made the West’s strength
more credible on the one hand, and on the other resulted in a number of negative consequences such as
development of fundamentalism, nationalism, and acculturation in the region. There were a plethora of reasons for
the decision on military, active campaign in Iraq. The motives came from different origins: the society needed
bringing justice after 9/11, the neoconservatives suspected Saddam Hussein might develop nuclear weapon, realists
were seeking opportunity to increase the power in the region [Nye 2019, 69]. Anyway, the moral resources so
needed for global leadership was almost squandered by incommensurability of hard power.
Apart from the formidable international economic crisis that started at the end of 2007 it was the wake of the Arab
uprising that was the second great challenge in international relations for the United States. In many terms this
phenomenon was not only a consequence, but a mark of continuation foreign policy toward the Middle East. After
Bush administration, while Anti-Americanism was highly spreading as well as terrorists threats, Obama tried to
rebrand the older way of participating in international order. He believed that with a little bit of luck and ability to
listen to others there would not be required any conflict and would be possible to lead the world safe ‘from home’
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jpl.ccsenet.org Journal of Politics and Law Vol. 13, No. 3; 2020
[Dueck 2015, 35-36]. Not America itself, but America with international cooperation in the formula of engaging
and containment (‘contagement’) was supposed to be a get-everything-done scheme.
The third great challenge in IR that USA is facing for years is the rise of China within all of its the consequences
for the modern balance of power, trade, arms, intelligence and technology racings and many others. This is –
obviously – a selective choice. It is impossible to ignore the escalated tensions with Iran, changes of the
international position of the Russian Federation or relations with North Korea. However, as the presented study
shows, many of these concerns are linked proximately with the problem with China or – from the wider perspective
– with the problem of decreasing USA political relevance on the IR.
The main research problem of hereby work is to point out the changes in the global balance of power and therefore
to identify the current state of the hegemonic leadership of the United States. As the system of IR is in many ways
a self-regulating system [Keohane, Nye 1978], comparative analysis is necessary to determine the political
relevance of superpowers. What is more, it is crucial to find out the character of the political actions staying behind
the changes and examine whether they are a result of rational strategy, whether they are a consequence of political
vibrancy.
With this comes several methodological problems. It seems that most papers devoted to IR, geopolitics and other
sub-disciplines directly connected with political science are casuistic studies. They may evidence or falsify
hypotheses and theories using induction or deduction methods, providing a detailed research on the specific area.
To understand the ontological basis of the alternation processes in the balance of power, the measures by which
these changes occur should be revealed. By the measures, however, I do not mean the exact empirical actions or
tools, but the theoretical channel through they are implemented. One of such a channel – with a very capacious
semantic field – is the power. The current typologies of power, primarily Nye's soft power concept [Nye: 2004]
are extremely valuable, however, in the era of IT societies it seems necessary to verify them and make further
typologies.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, I explain on what stages the rivalry between the U.S.
and China is performing and present an empirical data that illustrate the changing of the international order.
Concurrently, I show why some data from the methodological point of view should be questioned. Second, I
distinguish two fields of political actions in international relations, visualizing the difference between the
environment of rational strategies and political vibrancy. Relatedly, the possible methodological approaches to the
analyzing above phenomenon are proposed. In the next section I present a new – or forgotten – theoretical channels
of powers, i.e. linking power and sharp power that may be relevant to understand the reasons behind China’s
supremacy of the last – and maybe further – years. Before summarizing, I check the research questions and
hypotheses, formulating a conclusion of the gradual collapse of the liberal international order.
2. The U.S.–China Rivalry
Since the socio-economic reforms in the late seventies in China, initiated by Deng Xiaoping, a historic and
unprecedented increased country’s development could be observed. First government programme, called ‘Four
Modernizations”, was created in order to strengthen national agriculture, industry, science and technology, and
military power1. But solving the basic economic problems, mainly related to food and supply shortages, was just
the beginning. The second phase of modernization comes in the early nineties and lasts to the end of century. It
brought China to the doubling GDP as well as a further economy improvements, including relevant openness
extension for foreign investments and businesses. Although the transformation of a quantity-oriented economy
into a quality-oriented economy is associated today mostly with the Made in China 2025 project, in 2001 (the
times of Hu Jintao rules) the Go Global! initiative was created, which was intended to enhance China export as
well as improve products quality. Since 1978 to 2017 China’s gross domestic product had already grown about
22384% from 3678,7 to 827121,72. The scale of poverty in China has dropped drastically since the early 1990s.
In 1990, 47.3% of Chinese citizens earned no more than US $ 3.20 statistical US dollar (PPP). At the same time,
in 1990, 24.4% of Chinese people did not earn more than 1.90 statistical US dollar (PPP) per day. It can be observed
that at the turn of 1990–2014 the percentage of people earning US $ 1.90 statistic dollar (PPP) per day decreased
by 24.1 pp, i.e. 98.770491%, i.e. from 24.4% (1990) to 0,3% (2014) [data from worldbank.org]. This phenomenon
is twofold. On the one hand, the data show how poor Chinese citizen statistically was in the early 1990s (and even
poorest before), and on the other hand, how quickly this phenomenon began to change.
1
Vide: American ‘Four Modernizations’ analysis from 1982:
https://www.jec.senate.gov/reports/97th%20Congress/China%20Under%20the%20Four%20Modernizations%20Part%20I%20(1130).pdf.
2
Vide: National Bureau of Statistics of China, http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2018/indexeh.htm.
167
Economically, the United States remains a leader, but her position is no longer intact. The difference between the
degree of China's participation and the degree of US participation in the global economy has been systematically
decreasing since the beginning of the 21st century. The total value of Chinese imports and exports was
quantitatively ahead of the United States for the first time in this respect in 2013 [Pacuła 2015].
The number of Chinese patents entered in 2009 was 241,435, trademarks 838,071. In 2018, the number of patents
is 1,460,244, trademarks - 8,118,135. For comparison, the same variables for the United States are: 397,997 patents
and 1,040,068 trademarks (2009), 515,180 patents, 1,759,406 trademarks (2018 )3. What is more, today China is
the second most valuable nation brand in world, Chinese companies are well-known and
are in the group of the world highest market capitalization entities [Brand Finance 2019].
On the other hand, measuring the economy with the simplest tool, GDP, the difference still speaks in favor of the
U.S., but - as I point out in the section below - it is unclear how much data can be trusted by the Chinese government
(and access to data through external agencies is limited). It is already predicted that the Chinese economy (total
GDP) will overtake the United States around 2029.
Figure 1.
Source: Scott, M.. Sam, C. 2020. Here’s How Fast China’s Economy Is Catching Up to the U.S., za:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-us-vs-china-economy/.
These predictions were made just before the global SARS-COV-2 virus pandemic. How individual world
economies emerge from the economic recession will directly affect further forecasts (see section 6).
For some years the phenomenon of China rise has been the headline of many political science journals, though the
growth of Middle Kingdom power was already predicted in the 90. [Brzezinski 1997]. According to Bloomberg
analysts, if China's economic growth rate (measured in GDP) was on average 6% annually and the U.S. economic
development rate 2% annually, the Chinese economy would be equal to the US economy in 2029 [Scott, Sam
2019]. What is more, the total value of Chinese imports and exports for the first time was quantitatively ahead of
the U.S. in 2013. China's share in the global economy is steadily increasing.
However, at these points some methodological problems are revealed. Is it possible that China already has a more
powerful economy than the U.S.? In fact, the question is difficult to answer. Firstly, there are arguments showing
the possible incredibility of Chinese GDP data, which are based on data collected by Chinese local governments
that are rewarded for achieving growth targets [Chen, Chen, et al. 2019]. Secondly, China’s methods of calculating
3
Vide: WIPO: World Intellectual Property Organization, for China:
https://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/country_profile/profile.jsp?code=CN, for the U.S.:
https://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/country_profile/profile.jsp?code=US.
168
GDP are not transparent. This leads to the other side of the coin.
The main issue is the access to information. It is clear that in China’s interests it is a time delaying-play. It is very
well seen on the example of intended currency devaluing. Concurrently, publicly available economic data includes
legal trade, and the economic value of other sources remains guesswork. What is more, even the real aspirations
of Chinese decision-makers remains uncertain [Beeson, Watson 2019, 388] or successfully blurred. As a result, a
scenario in which China's GDP will now or soon exceed the U.S. GDP cannot be excluded.
The fields on which China is dangerously approaching the level of the United States could be multiplied. According
to Lowy Global Diplomacy Index, in 2019 China has overtaken the U.S. as the largest diplomatic power in the
world4, which is unprecedented situation. Although the index illustrates the size of diplomatic institutions rather
than the architecture and real diplomatic power, this change is another small example showing the seriousness of
the overall international situation.
The rise of China is a factor that – a natura rei – affects the international order especially in the times of
hyperglobalization and a highly interdependent world. One of a very prominent asset of being in the position of
so-called challenger [Allison 2017] or just a second overall strongest country in the system is the possibility to
balance the interests of other members and the possibility to balance the others’ possibilities, which is much more
meaningful. Many empirical examples may be found to prove the importance of the above assets. Let only recall
the consequences of the hypothetic scenario in which the Chinese economy is decreasing rapidly. If the Chinese
export drastically lowers, the EU market would be at a tremendous risk, because of its high level of economic
dependence to China (on average China and EU trade over €1 billion a day). Not much better picture unveiled in
economic relations with USA. What is more, China is much more resistant to economic crisis as it could be seen
after the eruption of the recent global crisis.
3. Between Rational Strategy and Political Vibrancy
The vibrancy of international relations is understood as its substantive feature expressed in a significant level of
the inter-state relations complexity. Due to this feature, IR are a difficult subject of prognostic or futurological
analyzes. However, these definitions should be match to another phenomenon, which is called spontaneity of IR.
Another use of the term is to reflect the dynamics of political processes [Friedman, Chase-Dunn: 2005]. Although
the term is very rarely used in the research literature, its mean will be much closer to the proposed idea.
The political vibrancy, not related with the idea of vibrant matter [Bennett 2010], is much deeper phenomenon.
Within rational strategy5 it is a one of two basic levels of political actions in the IR. While the level of rational
strategy includes purposeful, orderly and conscious actions, to the level of political vibrancy might be assigned
those political actions, that can be more temporal, imposed, and even chaotic. The level of rational strategy
illustrates actions aimed at achieving previously planned overarching goals. The time horizon in this case can be
very long. This level may include all political strategies, e.g. national defense strategies, but it is needed to be
aware that publicly available information in many cases will not reflect the details of the strategy. However, these
two categories partly answer the question, whether states are rational actors in IR, whether they are not [Rubin
1997]. Like a Schrödinger’s cat, they might act rationally and irrationally at the same time, but in different spheres.
From the description outlined above, four theoretical models of political action (PA) can be distinguished as
follows:
1) Cohesive, deliberated PA
2) Unrepresentative, imposed PA
3) Inadequate, chaotic PA
4) Representative, fragmented PA
This typology is a result of a simple theoretical demarcation below:
4
Vide: Global Diplomacy Index, https://globaldiplomacyindex.lowyinstitute.org/country_rank.html.
5
The term rational refers to the awareness and does not include normative contexts.
169
4 1
3 2
Graph 1.
The diagram above consists of two curves. The horizontal line means the degree of political vibrancy, the vertical
line means the degree of rational strategy. Both lines are theoretical continuums, and all four distinguished models
are a separated Weberian ideal types [Weber 1949; Lindbekk 1992].
Although they do not exist in reality in the exact formula, they can be useful in theoretical analysis of changing
tendencies and illustrating the essential nature of considered political action. To justify the proposal of using ideal
types, it is worth to illustrate their purpose on the example of political action in international relations.
One of the last major precedence – killing Iranian Major General of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and one
of the most important political figure in Iran, Qassem Soleimani – was quickly interpreted by the media as an
extreme measure and deadly escalation leading to war. The causes of this event may be found in many factors.
President Donald Trump before announced that when a single American dies in a result of Iranian military actions,
the U.S. will react immediately. Regardless of the statement nature – an expression of strength at the level of
shaping the political power or a real promise – the next attack on the Iraqi base, which resulted in the death of an
American contractor, had to cause the announced reaction. In this situation, the both spheres of political actions
are presented. At the level of political vibrancy it can be see that a specific event was unpredictable, but required
the United States responses.
On the other hand, relations with Iran have escalated for a long time. Since the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
has failed and another economic sanctions were imposed on Iran, the economy and investments of this country
harshly felt it [Juneau 2019]. What's more, apart from the very controversial nature of the decision to kill Soleimani
(without approval from Iraq government, without the approval of the United Nations Security Council; and without
explicit approval from Congress) [Morkevicius, Lupton 2020], the conflict with Iran has been legalized in a sense
even by the recent official recognition of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization6,
therefore these actions were rather part of a planned, rational political strategy. Another arguments may be found
in the specifics of the action. First of all, the precision and the place of the attack on Soleimani shows that it was
not a step into the open conflict. Second, presidential speaking from the Grand Foyer of the White House from 8th
of January after the night Iranian missile attack on the U.S. military base has confirmed backing away from further
military conflict and – at the same time – ceding at least part of the responsibility of the security in the region on
the other NATO members.
The case of Iran and NATO represents the rational strategy of the United States as well as its approaches to China.
Very good examples of political vibrancy are the US–China trade deficit and intellectual property theft which were
problems for many years. These issues needed a reaction, e.g. raising tariffs, however, the reaction might not
represent the level of rational strategy. This dilemma is to be continued in next chapters.
4. Superpowers and Its Powers – Understanding China’s Global Play
It is worth for a while to analyze ways in which states (or non-state entities) exert influence on other actors of the
system. The distribution of power is very relevant in analyzing what states would tend to do as well as what they
are able to do (as ‘power checks power’) [Deudney 2017, 202; Deudney, Ikenberry 2017, 11]. The possibilities
6
Vide: Statement from the President on the Designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, za:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-designation-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps-foreign-terrorist-
organization/.
170
itself, in fact, are more important than political goals. Besides, the term refers also to the ‘power transition’
perspective, which seeks a simple dependence of cause and effect in international order and the rise (and fall) of
superpowers [Ikenberry 2018].
In a wider perspective a global distribution of power determines the type of international order [Mearsheimer
2019]. In more narrow concept a distribution of power is understood as a division of powers that states use in order
to achieve its purposes. Essentialising these powers is a key to realise the states’ methods and its ways of
approaches to the others.
For millenniums people have known many ways of achieving their goals in the relations with others – brutal force,
extortion, diplomacy, trade, mutual benefit, spreading culture or even intended shifts in religious landscape. Some
ways are still prevailing, others are obliviated. Probably one of the most relevant idea of distinguishing power is
the concept of soft power [Nye 1990; 2000, 2002; 2004]. This theoretical category determines the schemes of
actions, the way states – but mostly superpowers – influence each other. The measures may be different, but the
common denominator is its nature and purpose – Nye's soft power is ‘the ability of a country to persuade the others
to do what it wants without force or coercion’ [Ikenberry 2004]. In other words, it is ‘the ability to shape the
preferences of others’ [Nye 2004] in order to get what is wanted, and within other’s will. Due to soft power methods,
the attractiveness of one actor in the eyes of others increases, and therefore using the other kind of mechanisms,
e.g. carrots and sticks [Nye 2004], may become even unnecessary. Under soft power political effects may be
obtained without direct impact. The power is functioning indirectly by influencing other actors at different levels.
While hard power, which may be used to achieve goals directly and without any consent of the others, is realised
with force, sanctions and any other means of coercion, soft power uses values, culture, institutions, policies and
relationships.
Considering there are many varied sources of the ability to attract others, the conceptual framework seems to be
almost endless, which is why the idea should be partly questioned. Over the years the concept of soft power has
been arranged in a plenty of fields. The soft power resources may be found in many spheres and states’ activities
– public diplomacy [Nye: 2012], cultural policies [Otmazgin 2012], strategic narratives (or meta-narratives)
[Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, Roselle 2014], language using by representatives [Hill: 2014], higher education
[Trilokekar 2010] and international education [Sayamov 2013]. The soft power may be generated also by the
activities of politicized orthodox church [Hudson: 2018] as well as by global sport events [Grix, Houlihan 2014].
I believe that categories of soft power resources may be easily reclassified. On the level of axiological values the
state may attracts another state by its leading religion, ideology, and the kind of culture (e.g. individualistic,
collective). On the level of ontological basis there are such a factors like human rights, security, freedom of speech,
alleviation of poverty and many more. On the level of epistemological values the other factor is the leading social
inclusiveness or social exclusiveness, and the degree of the society’s acceptance for those who differ.
The fact that the concept can be transformed almost effortlessly indicates inaccurateness of its conceptual
framework. One of the most crucial soft power resource is widely understand culture. It might be high culture,
popular culture as well as so-called universal culture. But in the deducing process it is not the end. Among high
culture the activities and relevance of universities, operas, theaters, cinemas and many other important centres also
might be a next part of deduce. Although one of the above resources might generate only an indistinguishable level
of attractiveness, it should also be pointed out, in order to get a holistic viewpoint. This – with the high
transformability – suggests the idea might be too broad semantically. The Nye’s concept of power has been met
with scholars’ almost enthusiastic approval and – with its simplicity – it is almost splendid, but on the other hand
it tends to be overused.
In addition, Nye also distinguished smart power, ‘which is neither hard, nor soft – it is both’ [Nye 2004]. The
approach determines the need for a strong army, and thus investment in alliances, partnerships and international
institutions at all levels to increase their own influence and verify the legitimacy of action [Armitage, Nye 2007
7-11]. Actually, there is only one methodological doubt – so constructed approach suggests that the dilemma is
completed and all types of state powers are defined.
There are some political actions that are difficult to incorporate into Nye's concept as they function on a different
grounds. Analyzing the IR at least two other powers may be identified. The first type includes a states’ political
activities that are intended to reduce the alternatives of the second actor. They are usually carried out in a peaceful
manner. In order to obtain a preferred result the one side limits the choices of the other's. One’s purpose may be
achieved without coercion (at least direct ones) and not necessarily because of its attractiveness, but because of
other player’s no better choice at the moment. This kind of actions may be tentatively named as the linking power.
Whereas hard power changes what others do, soft power shaping others’ preferences in what to do, the linking
171
power changes and limits the others’ checkboxes.

In fact, the linking power is the very well-known phenomena that is analyzed to understand the real purposes of
the states’ behaviors in the IR. It is strongly connected with the ‘dependency dilemma’. In a modern,
hiperglobalised world the networks of dependency relationships among actors are certainly vast. Activities in the
field of hard and soft powers are characterized, among others, by the fact that the actor who is the target of these
activities is generally aware of this. Linking power activities may not be clear to others and may remain just a
conjecture. What is required, are other actors.
The linking power is distinguished not only because it might be somehow important on the level of theory, but
mainly because it is commonly used by Chinese decision-makers. In the case of today’s China the linking power
concerns manipulating other actors and dominating them in order to make them somehow more dependent. The
great empirical example is the situation on Sri Lanka. The country’s inability to clear a debt caused a 99-years
lease of the Hambantota Port by Chinese [Carrai 2019]. The actions intended to make some states lack of
alternatives is a very powerful, pragmatic and – from the Atlantic point of view – immoral processes that already
happen. However, as the further examples shows, the methods of realising the linking power are not limited to the
so-called debt-trap diplomacy.
The position of China in the international order increases also due to the Chinese expansion in Africa. ‘Conquering’
Africa is possible mainly because of the initial attractiveness of the Chinese offers in the eyes of African decision-
makers. While Beijing’s exposure to a total African debt is reaching disquieting proportions, the Chinese
investments are intensifying [Alden, Jiang 2019]. Unlike the United States or European Union the Chinese
government, its national banks and cooperating financial institutions (e.g. Asian Development Bank, Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank) require neither democracy, nor respecting human rights. China is not negative
toward the phenomenon of corruption that is still widespread in many African countries. Instead of this, they
silently use this to corrupt elites. This ability of co-opting decision-makers is deeply rooted in the Chinese way of
governing and making politics at the local, provincial level [Persson, Zhuravskaya 2011].
It is quite symptomatic correlation that where the corruption level is higher, the Chinese involvements resulted in
side effects becomes more apparent. In Ecuador corruption led to the building of the Chinese-financed dam that
was located at a danger place near a volcano. The problem of ‘capturing elites’ is clearly noticeable in a the
countries belonging to the Chinese sphere of influence in the term of classic geopolitics. Such actors like Cambodia
or Myanmar are not only under Chinese leadership, but practically are being steered by the endured corrupt links
between leaders [Shullman 2019]. As a result, basically there are no other directions for them in the foreign policy.
The abovementioned Chinese practices are by no means the exception – they may be rather analyzing as a
procedural method of foreign operations.
I find the question – whether the classic Nye’s soft power is using by China, whether it is just a curtain – very
important for analyzing modern IR. What is China’s soft power and where its resources should be sought?
The concept is prevalent in Chinese academic discourse. The applause to the Chinese Dream are presented in many
scholar works but this could be classified as a little propaganda rather than real soft power’s example. Chinese
intellectuals write on Middle Kingdom’s soft power very often [Kalimuddin, Anderson: 2018], but it cannot be a
source of soft power in itself. Furthermore, there are Chinese scholarship programs, student exchange programs,
development and export of one's own culture. Chinese culture is also promoted by the network of Confucius
Institutes, which are present on six continents in a total of over a hundred countries [Yiwei 2016 155]. The Chinese
film industry is emerging for last years as well as literature, which is more often translated to English and other
languages.
One may say that the abovementioned examples are fragmentary and that, in fact, Chinese soft power is much
more advanced. Indeed, there are many other examples. Probably the most prominent ones are the governmental
programme, ‘Made in China 2025’, aimed not only at changing a quantitative economy to a qualitative economy,
but also at creating a good history related to Chinese products [Wübekke, Meissner, Zenglein, and others: 2016].
Another example is a developing Chinese space programme. A leading international and intercontinental project
is One Belt One Road Initiative (New Silk Road) which links two Spykmanian Rimlands – West’s and East’s. The
OBOR Initiative may be also considered as the instrument of political influence. Besides an impressive
infrastructure level of the project it is also realised in order to spread Chinese influence and linked (in a way of the
linking power perhaps) other participating actors. Of course, the initiative is advertised as primarily inclusive. In
the official version, the Chinese concept of inclusiveness means openness to others and cooperation on equal terms
that will combine the interests and values of participating states [Yiwei 2016].
Many alternative examples of Chinese soft power can be found in the research literature. However, is the fact that
172
the people in different states can see Chinese acrobatic shows (or any other cultural activities) may reflect Chinese
soft power? Can it be considered that soft power – but taken seriously – can be generated through Chinese TV
series, which the Chinese have provided in Cuba and many other states [Deng, Zhang 2009]? Is the ‘flexibility in
Chinese foreign policy’ may be one of a sources of Chinese soft power [Mingjiang 2009]? Analyzing the valuable
volume entitled Soft Power. China’s Emerging Strategy in International Politics, I do question many of the
examples presented by the Authors as they represent a different power than the soft one.
Earlier in this chapter I mentioned the possibility of distinguishing two other types of powers that complement the
picture that is not filled by Nye's concept. In addition to the linking power, it is important to distinguish sharp
power. Both theoretical categories work out for holistic understanding of the China’s approaches to other political
actors in the modern IR.
Sharp power, probably first time proposed in a 20177, refers to ‘piercing, penetrating and perforating’ the political
environment in other countries [Walker 2018]. The term is mainly used to explain the nowadays authoritarianisms,
such as Russia or China, but in fact it is much flexible. To sharp power belongs those states activities that are
intended to degrade the sovereignty or and integrity of other actors, i.e. governments, international institutions, its
representatives and other entities bounded to them.
The key to distinguishing between soft and sharp power is how the political instruments are used. If a given
measure does not attract to itself through its own attractiveness, but uses any form of coercion, it will not be a soft
power instrument. For instance, if the Confucian Institutes promote and present the culture and history of China,
then those instruments must be considered as soft, because there is no coercion. But if the Institute’s employees
prevent discussions on sensitive topics (e.g. Taiwan) and it is a procedural action, then it is a situation that concerns
a coercion, and therefore – it should be assigned as an example of sharp power.
As everyone knows, good intentions are not decisive at the level of international relations (e.g. because there is
probably no one intention that would be good for all of the actors). However, the differences between the various
channels of political actions are visible. If a given foreign investment, which even aims to enrich culture and
brighten economic well-being, is associated with the possibility of making the country's decision-makers
dependent (linking power) or acquiring valuable intellectual rights (sharp power), then such investment cannot be
an example of soft power. Of course, there are many other, more radical examples. There are several kinds of
Chinese sharp power activities in Australia, a country very economically bounded with China. China is using its
state-run media as well as private influencers to exert influence among Australia’s elites, students, voters in various
ways [Hamilton 2018; Hamilton 2018; Shao 2019].
A lot of work has been devoted to analyzing Nye's concept. Even for this reason, the assumption that soft power
for some states may be neither indispensable, nor crucial, seems to be dubious. I do not agree with Christopher
Walker when he states that ‘we should avoid conceiving of sharp power as soft power’s polar opposite. It is not
the case that countries can wield either “sharp” or “soft” power, but not both’ [Walker 2018; 18]. I do not think
that any country can ‘have’ 0% of soft power. Obviously, it can be assumed that there is a disproportion between
the use of soft and linking or sharp power. Realising that there is no methodological justification to conceive sharp
and soft powers as a two opposite points – leads to consider that these powers are not also an antinomian dyads –
both are not on the same continuum. Concluding, these are two completely different powers.
Walker also sees that China's soft power problem is due to its authoritarian character [Walker 2018, 18-19]. John
Fitzgerald observes that ‘there is no boundary between politics and what passes for culture in contemporary
China’8. As the western world knows more and more about the Chinese public behavior control system (Social
Credit System), it will be increasingly difficult to generate the classically understood soft power. In a country
where – next to the market economy – authoritarian socialism is still keen, there will be not enough factors that
would attract the West. Using sharp power, therefore, seems to be useful as well as coherent.
5. Towards Multipolarity? The Liberal International Order Remains Uncertain
Changes in the international liberal order are a topic that can be analyzed from many sides. Analysis of the ways
and directions of superpowers’ influence exerting illustrates that on the one hand, China will continue its political
and economic expansion, using mainly sharp power, on the other hand, the United States – despite the need to
7
Vide: International Forum for Democratic Studies, ‘Sharp Power: Rising Authoritarian Influence” (Washington D.C.: National Endowment
for Democracy, 2017), https://www.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Introduction-Sharp-Power-Rising-Authoritarian-Influence.pdf.
8
Vide: Testimony Before The U.S. House Pemanent Select Committee On Intelligence, ‘China’s Foreign Influence And Sharp Power Strategy
To Shape And Influence Democratic Institutions, https://www.ned.org/chinas-foreign-influence-and-sharp-power-strategyto-shape-and-
influence-democratic-institutions/.
173
respond to the changing reality of political vibrancy – on the level of rational strategy does not decide on a more
direct confrontation. The history of the U.S.–China trade war, which continues and extends without more
significant deviations, suggests that the rivalry met its saddle point. Thus, the next emerging trends will illustrate
global trends.
Many observers are wondering if China will replace the United States, and thus – will the liberal international
order be changed? From a geopolitical point of view, this competition may or may not resemble the classic
Thucydides or Kindleberger Traps. China's ever-growing power and the lack of previous reactions to stop this
tendency, according to some, reveal fragments of ‘geopolitical vacuum’ that are waiting to be filled [Kristensen:
2017, 557-559].
The Kindleberger Trap, created by one of the architects of the Marshall Plan, as well as Thucydides Trap are
theoretical constructs - in fact, in some cases related to game theory - that allow to discern the possible balance of
power scenarios. The above models, however, are very general, but it is easy to see that they are able to be expanded.
1) The Kindleberger variant. In the face of the threatening, growing power of the aspiring superpower, the
hegemonic power, accepting the advantage of its rival, gradually gives way.
a. Depreciation model. The position of the former hegemonic power in the system of IR is much
less politically relevant.
b. Indifferency model. The position of the former hegemonic power in the system of IR has similar
significance in terms of the political relevance and similar ability to influence and shape the
international environment as a result of partial withdrawal from global leadership when at the
same time the aspiring power is not able to gain a clearly dominant position.
c. Teselatic model (latin: tessellatus). The position of the former hegemonic power in the system
of international relations becomes more regional and similar to the position of the other largest
regional powers.
2) The Thucydides variant. In the face of the threatening, growing power of the aspiring power, the
hegemonic power does not accept the potential change in the balance of power and thus it efforts to reduce
the advantage of the rival.
a. Depreciation model. The position of the former hegemonic power is decreased to the level that
it is not able to lead others and is forced to accept the changes.
b. Appreciation model. The position of the hegemonic power in the system of IR remains
symmetrical or stronger than the position of the aspiring power.
In the face of danger, especially in the case of the appreciation model of the Thucydides Trap, maintaining the
current hegemonic position is possible through the set of specific, preemptive actions in order to use the still
existing advantage in selected sectors, e.g. economic, military, international relations. This advantage may be used
to react to the occurrences on the level of political vibrancy and to maintain the current position, but not necessarily
to expand it. Of course, the above goals can be effectively realised by off-shore balancing policies [Walt 2018],
minimizing own exposure.
Within a positional changing of international order advances other substantial reversal. As John J. Mearsheimer
points out that the liberal order may become an agnostic order within undermining the unipolarity [Mearsheimer
2019]. This may happen with or without the United States' will as a result of the emerging players influence.
However, the discourse regarding changes in the international order is often conducted rather on the basis of
theoretical possibilities (which I have done myself), than empirical premises revealing a superpowers' real interests.
Thus, what is in the China’s best interests?
First of all, as it was mentioned before, a time-delaying play is the essence. China does not need further engaged
confrontation, because the passing time plays in their favour. China has been the world’s largest exporter of goods
since 2009. By dealing with internal problems through its specific methods, China is developing technologically
and industrially. A quantity-based economy is slowly transforming into a quality-based economy. It can be seen,
moreover, that this first model is gradually being transferred to the politically dependent countries of the region,
e.g. Cambodia. As China develops, its regional position and zone of influence may expand and strengthen. With
these on the one hand the need of cooperation with others will enlarge, on the other the needs of protecting owns
interests. Although China uses sharp power and does not act transparently or honestly on many levels, at the same
time it seeks a more democratized system of the IR. But China understands democratization of the IR in a much
different way than West scholars do. For them it is mostly constraining the U.S. hegemonic behaviour [Foot 2006,
174
77-90].
Secondly, by contrast to the USA, China does not need to be officially recognized as an equal or better. They do
not even need a reshaping of the liberal international order being aware that international order is not just a product
of concentration of powers. Instead of creating a new order ineptly, China will focus on the maximum exploitation
of the current order. What is needed for its further development is access to other states for trade, investment,
technology [Ikenberry 2018], and linking possibilities perhaps.
Thirdly, while the sources of American soft power (and American exceptionalism too) and the targets of its
spreading might be limited, the Chinese sharp power operations may be progressed much faster due to the
technological advances. The future of Sino-American relations will largely depend on technological development
and work on the artificial intelligence. But even in this aspect – due to a limited semiconductors production [Ding:
2018] – China is doomed to cooperation and will not act to escalate.
However, the above issues do not mean that the liberal international order will still exist in the same formula. Once
again it can be seen that the rational strategy level is different that the level of the political vibrancy. Even if China
does not want to compete, it will have to do so in some areas. With the rapid development of China more and more
Chinese national goals inevitably will have international consequences [Beeson, Watson 2019, 404-405]. The
situation will not be helped by the fact that in order to avoid institutions’ control, China, like Russia, prefers to
pursue bilateral agreements wherever it is possible. Another problem is concerned with the rapid technology
advancement. In the era of IT societies, the procedures for information management processes will be increasingly
more significant, because they might be applied in a different, yet unknown, matters.
Paradoxically, within the rise of China the level of the USA–China interdependence will systematically grow up.
Some theorists may not like it, and therefore proposes the return to old school methods like using hard power
[Cohen 2016]. Cohen argues, for instance, that ‘America’s greatest challenge is China: to balance and prevent it
from establishing hegemony over its neighbors and attempting to reshape an international order in its image’
[Cohen 2016, p. 99]. America’s hard power response to China would be completely irrational at many levels. First,
because of the level of economic interdependence between the U.S. and China as well as China and European
Union countries, such actions would met catastrophic economic results. Secondly, using hard power methods
would acutely damage the U.S. political image on the international area, and therefore weakened its economic
partnerships. Furthermore, we no longer live in the reality of sticks and carrots, and military conflict with China,
apart from defensive actions et cetera, would only cause major problems leading to a significant change of the
international order.
6. SARS-COV-2 as a Catalyst for Political and Social Transitions
Coronavirus pandemic may not only affect the future, but is able to shape the further international order. There is
still too little data to indicate more certain differences. Noticeably the Chinese economy is doing better than the
European or American economies. Still, however, it is unknown whether China will be able to repair its broken
global supply chains completely and the ongoing pandemic fluctuations in the context of subsequent waves of
infections can make it much harder. Domestic demand can drive Chinese economy, but not for a long term. On the
other hand the case of COVID-19 is more about not who wins more, but who loses less. According to the analysis
of data obtained from the IMF, apart from health issues (in this case, it is also difficult to fully trust Chinese
sources), so far the economic crisis has affected the U.S. economy more than the Chinese economy.
175
15
China - Gross domestic product, constant prices [%
change]
10 China - Inflation, average consumer prices [% change]
5 China - General government net lending/borrowing [%

of GDP]
0 China - Current account balance [% of GDP]

2019 2020 (est.) 2021
US - Gross domestic product, constant prices [%
-5 change]
US - Inflation, average consumer prices [% change]

-10
US - General government net lending/borrowing [% of
GDP]
-15
US - Current account balance [% of GDP]
-20
Chart 1.
Source: Author’s analysis based on data retrieved from International Monetary Fund (IMF), https://www.imf.org/.
7. Conclusions
In the hereby work I emphasize that in order to know to what extent China is threatening the position of the United
States, and thus the liberal international order as well, it is worth to analyze political actions – whether they
represent the level of rational strategy, whether they belong to the sphere of political vibrancy. The main advantage
of this theoretical approach is the ability that allows us to catch what is difficult to perceived, and to see the real
nature of some phenomena.
Another methodological issue is the adaptation of theoretical concepts to describe empirical reality. The way China
realizes international politics – with dubious and vague practices that seem to have procedural nature – led me to
question the validity of China’s soft power. Obviously, China has its soft power, generates it and influences others,
although it is not the main channel. It is the linking power and sharp power that form the China’s approach to the
international order and other states. The presented struggle between America’s smart power and China’s sharp
power will lead to some changes in international relations, maybe even some ‘democratization’ processes at the
level of superpowers in the mean that is close to the multipolarity, rather than to escalated conflict. On the one
hand, as John S. Nye states accurately, 'China is simultaneously too weak and too strong' at the same time [Nye
2017]. On the other hand, on the level of rational strategy the U.S. seems to be renegotiating or withdrawing not
only from the important partnerships, e.g. Trans-Pacific Partnership, North American Free Trade Agreement, but
from the hegemonic, widespread power and responsibilities.
The issue of the liberal international order affects a number of other concerns. Sino-American rivalry is a question
mark over Russia's position, whose relative neutrality in a possible conflict would be a huge asset for the U.S.
Other problems are the issue of the so-called rogue states (North Korea, Iran), fast developing countries (India,
Brazil), and the further position of post-Brexit European Union, with particular emphasis on Germany, which, on
the one hand, has been facing a huge challenge related to various contentious issues (Chinese export, OBOR
Initiative etc.), on the other – have never been diplomatically this far away from the United States [Herszenhorn
2020].
As it was stated earlier, the further world will need a cooperation between states, regional powers and superpowers.
But the cooperation – as well as the lack of cooperation – is always at the cost of something. In this case it may be
a decreased political influence of the United States resulted in the processes of a gradual fragmentation of world
power.
176
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to one of his “Fabliaux.” A sinner lies dying, and an angel and a
fiend, after disputing the right to his soul, agree to settle the affair by
a throw of dice. The fiend gets the first chance, and the fatal cubes
come up—two sixes! He chuckles and rubs his claws, for everybody
knows that no higher number is possible. But the angel thinks
otherwise, throws, and, behold, a six and seven! And thus it is, that
when the understanding has done its best, when it has reached, as it
thinks, down to the last secret of music and meaning that language
is capable of, the poetical sense comes in with its careless miracle,
and gets one more point than there are in the dice.
Imagination is not necessarily concerned with poetic expression.

Nothing can be more poetical than the lines of Henry More the
Platonist:
What doth move

The nightingale to sing so fresh and clear?
The thrush or lark, that mounting high above,
Chants her shrill notes to heedless ears of corn,
Heavily hanging in the dewy morn.
But compare it with Keats’
Ruth, when sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn.
The imagination has touched that word “alien,” and in it we see the
field through Ruth’s eyes, as she looked round on the hostile spikes,
and not through those of the poet.
Imagination enters more or less into the composition of all great

minds, all minds that have what we call breadth as distinguished
from mere force or acuteness. We find it in philosophers like Plato
and Bacon, in discoverers like Kepler and Newton, in fanatics like
George Fox, and in reformers like Luther.
The shape which the imaginative faculty will take is modified by the
force of the other qualities with which it is coördinated in the mind. If
the moral sense predominates, the man becomes a reformer, or a
fanatic, and his imagination gets itself uttered in his life. Bunyan
would have been nothing but a fanatic, if he had not been luckily
shut up in Bedford jail, alone with his imagination, which, unable to
find vent in any other way, possessed and tortured him till it had
wrung the “Pilgrim’s Progress” out of him—a book the nearest to a
poem, without being one, that ever was written. Uniting itself with the
sense of form, Imagination makes a sculptor; with those of form and
color, a painter; with those of time and tune, a musician. For in itself
it is dumb, and can find expression only through the help of some
other faculty.
Imagination plus the poetic sense is poesy, minus the poetic sense it
is science, though it may clothe itself in verse. To those who are
familiar with Dr. Donne’s verses, I need only mention his name as a
proof of my last position. He solves problems in rhyme, that is all.
Shakspeare was so charged with the highest form of the poetic

imagination, as some persons are with electricity, that he could not
point his finger at a word without a spark of it going out of him. I will
illustrate it by an example taken at random from him. When Romeo
is parting from Juliet, Shakspeare first projects his own mind into
Romeo, and then, as Romeo becomes so possessed with the
emotion of the moment that his words take color from it, all nature is
infected and is full of partings. He says:
But look what envious streaks

Do lace the severing clouds.
Shakspeare’s one hundred and thirteenth sonnet was here also

quoted in illustration.
The highest form of imagination, Mr. Lowell said, is the dramatic, of

which Shakspeare must always stand for the only definition. Next is
the narrative imagination, where the poet forces his own personal
consciousness upon us and makes our senses the slaves of his
own. Of this kind Dante’s “Divina Commedia” is the type. Below this
are the poems in which the imagination is more diffused; where the
impression we receive is rather from mass than from particulars;
where single lines are not so strong in themselves as in forming
integral portions of great sweeps of verse; where effects are
produced by allusion and suggestion, by sonorousness, by the use
of names which have a traditional poetic value. Of this kind Milton is
the type.
Lastly, said Mr. Lowell, I would place in a class by themselves those

poets who have properly no imagination at all, but only a pictorial
power. These we may call the imaginary poets, writers who give us
images of things that neither they nor we believe in or can be
deceived by, like pictures from a magic lantern. Of this kind are the
Oriental poems of Southey, which show a knowledge of Asiatic
mythologies, but are not livingly mythologic.
Where the imagination is found in combination with great acuteness

of intellect, we have its secondary or prose form. Lord Bacon is an
example of it. Sir Thomas Browne is a still more remarkable one—a
man who gives proof of more imagination than any other Englishman
except Shakspeare.
Fancy is a frailer quality than Imagination, and cannot breathe the

difficult air of the higher regions of intuition. In combination with
Sentiment it produces poetry; with Experience, wit. The poetical
faculty is in closer affinity with Imagination; the poetical temperament
with Fancy. Contrast Milton with Herrick or Moore. In illustration Mr.
Lowell quoted from Marvell, the poet of all others whose fancy hints
always at something beyond itself, and whose wit seems to have
been fed on the strong meat of humor.
As regards man, Fancy takes delight in life, manners, and the result
of culture, in what may be called Scenery; Imagination is that
mysterious something which we call Nature—the unfathomed base
on which Scenery rests and is sustained. Fancy deals with feeling;
Imagination with passion. I have sometimes thought that
Shakspeare, in the scene of the “Tempest,” intended to typify the isle
of Man, and in the characters, some of the leading qualities or
passions which dwell in it. It is not hard to find the Imagination in
Prospero, the Fancy in Ariel, and the Understanding in Caliban; and,
as he himself was the poetic imagination incarnated, is it considering
too nicely to think that there is a profound personal allusion in the
breaking of Prospero’s wand and the burying of his book to the
nature of that man who, after such thaumaturgy, could go down to
Stratford and live there for years, only collecting his dividends from
the Globe Theatre, lending money on mortgage, and leaning over
the gate to chat and chaffer with his neighbors?
I think that every man is conscious at times that it is only his borders,
his seaboard, that is civilized and subdued. Behind that narrow strip
stretches the untamed domain, shaggy, unexplored, of the natural
instincts. Is not this so? Then we can narrow our definition yet
farther, and say that Fancy and Wit appear to the artificial man;
Imagination and Humor to the natural man. Thus each of us in his
dual capacity can at once like Chaucer and Pope, Butler and Jean
Paul, and bury the hatchet of one war of tastes.
And now, finally, what is the secret of the great poet’s power over
us? There is something we love better than love, something that is
sweeter to us than riches, something that is more inspiring to us than
success—and that is the imagination of them. No woman was ever
loved enough, no miser was ever rich enough, no ambitious man
ever successful enough, but in imagination. Every desire of the heart
finds its gratification in the poet because he speaks always
imaginatively and satisfies ideal hungers. We are the always-
welcome guests of his ennobling words.
This, then, is why the poet has always been held in reverence
among men. All nature is dumb, and we men have mostly but a
stunted and stuttering speech. But the longing of every created thing
is for utterance and expression. The Poet’s office, whether we call
him Seer, Prophet, Maker, or Namer, is always this—to be the Voice
of this lower world. Through him, man and nature find at last a
tongue by which they can utter themselves and speak to each other.
The beauties of the visible world, the trembling attractions of the
invisible, the hopes and desires of the heart, the aspirations of the
soul, the passions and the charities of men; nay, the trees, the rocks,
our poor old speechless mother, the earth herself, become voice and
music, and attain to that humanity, a divine instinct of which is
implanted in them all.
LECTURE II
PIERS PLOUGHMAN’S VISION
(Friday Evening, January 12, 1855)
II
In literature, as in religion and politics, there is a class of men who
may be called Fore-runners. As there were brave men before
Agamemnon, so there must have been brave poets before Homer.
All of us, the great as well as the little, are the result of the entire
Past. It is but just that we should remember now and then that the
very dust in the beaten highways of thought is that of perhaps
nameless saints and heroes who thought and suffered and died to
make commonplace practicable to us. Men went to the scaffold or
the stake for ideas and principles which we set up in our writings and
our talk as thoughtlessly as a printer sticks his type, and the country
editor, when he wrote his last diatribe on the freedom of the press,
dipped his pen without knowing it in the blood of the martyrs. It would
be well for us to remember, now and then, our dusty benefactors,
and to be conscious that we are under bonds to the Present to the
precise amount that we are indebted to the Past.
Thus, from one point of view, there is nothing more saddening than a
biographical dictionary. It is like a graveyard of might-have-beens
and used-to-be’s, of fames that never ripened and of fames already
decayed. Here lies the great Thinker who stammered and could not
find the best word for his best thought, and so the fame went to
some other who had the gift of tongues. Here lies the gatherer of
great masses of learning from which another was to distil the
essence, and to get his name upon all the phials and show-bills. But
if these neglected headstones preach the vanity of a selfish
ambition, they teach also the better lesson that every man’s activity
belongs not to himself but to his kind, and whether he will or not
must serve at last some other, greater man. We are all foot-soldiers,
and it is out of the blood of a whole army of us that iron enough is
extracted to make the commemorative sword that is voted to the
great Captain.
In that long aqueduct which brings the water of life down to us from
its far sources in the Past, though many have done honest day-labor
in building it, yet the keystone that unites the arch of every period is
engraved with the name of the greatest man alone. These are our
landmarks, and mentally we measure by these rather than by any
scheme of Chronology. If we think of Philosophy, we think of four or
five great names, and so of Poetry, Astronomy, and the rest. Geology
may give what age she will to the globe; it matters not, it will still be
only so many great men old; and wanting these, it is in vain that
Egypt and Assyria show us their long bead-roll of vacant centuries. It
is in the life of its great men that the life and thought of a people
becomes statuesque, rises into poetry, and makes itself sound out
clearly in rhythm and harmony.
These great persons get all the fame and all the monuments like the
generals of armies, though we may lead the forlorn hope, or make a
palpitating bridge with our bodies in the trenches. Rank and file may
grumble a little—but it is always so, and always must be so. Fame
would not be fame if it were or could be divided infinitesimally, and
every man get his drachm and scruple. It is good for nothing unless it
come in a lump. And besides, if every man got a monument or an
epitaph who felt quite sure he deserved it, would marble hold out, or
Latin?
The fame of a great poet is made up of the sum of all the

appreciations of many succeeding generations, each of which he
touches at some one point. He is like a New World into which
explorer after explorer enters, one to botanize, one to geologize, one
to ethnologize, and each bringing back his report. His great snowy
mountains perhaps only one man in a century goes to the top of and
comes back to tell us how he saw from them at once the two great
oceans of Life and Death, the Atlantic out of which we came, the
Pacific toward which we tend.
Of the poet we do not ask everything, but the best expression of the
best of everything. If a man attain this but once, though only in a frail
song, he is immortal; while every one who falls just short of it, if only
by a hair’s breadth, is as sure to be forgotten. There is a wonderful
secret that poets have not yet learned, and this is that small men
cannot do great things, but that the small man who can do small
things best is great. The most fatal ill-success is to almost succeed,
as, in Italy, the worst lemons are those large ones which come
nearest to being oranges. The secret of permanent fame is to
express some idea the most compactly, whether in your life, your
deed, or your writing. I think that if anything is clear in history, it is
that every idea, whether in morals, politics, or art, which is laboring
to express itself, feels of many men and throws them aside before it
finds the one in whom it can incarnate itself. The noble idea of the
Papacy (for it was a noble one—nothing less than the attempt to
embody the higher law in a human institution) whispered itself to
many before it got the man it wanted in Gregory the Great. And
Protestantism carried numbers to the stake ere it entered into Luther:
a man whom nature made on purpose—all asbestos so that he could
not burn. Doubtless Apollo spoiled many a reed before he found one
that would do to pipe through even to the sheep of Admetus, and the
land of song is scattered thick with reeds which the Muse has
experimented with and thrown away.
It is from such a one that I am going to try to draw a few notes of

music and of mirth to-night. Contemporary with Chaucer lived a man
who satirized the clergy and gave some lively pictures of manners
before the “Canterbury Tales” were written. His poem was very
popular, as appears from the number of manuscript copies of it
remaining, and after being forgotten for two centuries, it was revived
again, printed, widely read, and helped onward the Reformation in
England. It has been reprinted twice during the present century. This
assures us that it must have had a good deal of original force and
vivacity. It may be considered, however, to be tolerably defunct now.
This poem is the vision of Piers Ploughman.
I have no hope of reviving it. Dead poets are something very dead,
and critics blow their trumpets over them in vain. What I think is
interesting and instructive in the poem is that it illustrates in a
remarkable manner what may be considered the Anglo-Saxon
element in English poetry. I refer to race, and not to language. We
find here a vigorous common-sense, a simple and hearty love of
nature, a certain homely tenderness, held in check always by a
dogged veracity. Instead of Fancy we have Feeling; and, what more
especially deserves notice, there is almost an entire want of that
sense of form and outline and proportion which alone brings
anything within the province of Art. Imagination shows itself now and
then in little gleams and flashes, but always in the form of Humor.
For the basis of the Anglo-Saxon mind is beef and beer; what it
considers the real as distinguished from, or rather opposed to, the
ideal. It spares nothing merely because it is beautiful. It is the Anglo-
Saxon who invented the word Humbug, the potent exorcism which
lays the spirit of poetry in the Red Sea. It is he who always translates
Shows into Shams.
Properly speaking, “Piers Ploughman’s Vision” is not a poem at all. It

is a sermon rather, for no verse, the chief end of which is not the
representation of the beautiful, and whose moral is not included in
that, can be called poetry in the true sense of the word. A thought
will become poetical by being put into verse when a horse hair will
turn into a snake by being laid in water. The poetical nature will
delight in Mary Magdalen more for her fine hair than for her
penitence. But whatever is poetical in this book seems to me
characteristically Saxon. The English Muse has mixed blood in her
veins, and I think that what she gets from the Saxon is a certain
something homely and practical, a flavor of the goodwife which is
hereditary. She is the descendant on one side of Poor Richard,
inspired, it is true, but who always brings her knitting in her pocket.
The light of the soul that shines through her countenance, that “light
that never was on land or sea,” is mingled with the warm glow from
the fireside on the hearth of Home. Indeed, may it not be attributed
to the Teutonic heart as something peculiar to it, that it has breadth
enough to embrace at once the chimney-corner and the far-reaching
splendors of Heaven? Happy for it when the smoke and cookery-
steam of the one do not obscure the other!
I find no fault with the author of Piers Ploughman for not being a
poet. Every man cannot be a poet (fortunately), nor every poet a
great one. It is the privilege of the great to be always
contemporaneous, to speak of fugacious events in words that shall
be perennial. But to the poets of the second rate we go for pictures
of manners that have passed away, for transitory facts, for modes of
life and ways of thinking that were circumstantial merely. They give
us reflections of our outward, as their larger brethren do of our
inward, selves. They deal, as it were, with costume; the other with
man himself.
But these details are of interest, so fond are we of facts. We all have
seen the congregation which grew sleepy while the preacher talked
of the other world give a stir of pleased attention if he brought in a
personal anecdote about this. Books are written and printed, and we
read them to tell us how our forefathers cocked their hats, or turned
up the points of their shoes; when blacking and starch were
introduced; who among the Anglo-Saxons carried the first umbrella,
and who borrowed it.
These trifles, also, acquire importance in proportion as they are

older. If a naturalist showed us a toad, we should be indifferent, but if
he told us that it had been found in a block of granite, we should
instantly look with profound interest on a creature that perhaps ate
moths in Abel’s garden, or hopped out of the path of Lamech. And
the same precious jewel of instruction we find in the ugly little facts
embedded in early literatures. They teach us the unchangeableness
of man and his real independence of his accidents. He is the same
old lay figure under all his draperies, and sits to one artist for a John
and to another for a Judas, and serves equally well for both portraits.
The oldest fable reappears in the newest novel. Aristophanes makes
coats that fit us still. Voltaire is Lucian translated into the eighteenth
century. Augustus turns up in Louis Napoleon. The whirligig of Time
brings back at regular intervals the same actors and situations, and
under whatever names—Ormuzd and Ahriman, Protestantism and
Catholicism, Reform and Conservatism, Transcendentalism and
Realism. We see the same ancient quarrel renewed from generation
to generation, till we begin to doubt whether this be truly the steps of
a Tower of Babel that we are mounting, and not rather a treadmill,
where we get all the positive good of the exercise and none of the
theoretic ill which might come if we could once solve the problem of
getting above ourselves. Man’s life continues to be, as the Saxon
noble described it, the flight of a sparrow through a lighted hall, out
of one darkness and into another, and the two questions whence?
and whither? were no tougher to Adam than to us. The author of
Piers Ploughman’s Vision has offered us his theory of this world and
the next, and in doing so gives some curious hints of modes of life
and of thought. It is generally agreed that one of his names was
Langland, and it is disputed whether the other was Robert or William.
Robert has the most authority, and William the strongest arguments
in its favor. It is of little consequence now to him or us. He was
probably a monk at Malvern. His poem is a long one, written in the
unrhymed alliterative measure of the Anglo-Saxon poetry, and the
plan of it is of the simplest kind. It is a continued allegory, in which all
the vices, passions, and follies of the time, the powers of the mind,
the qualities of the spirit, and the theological dogmas of the author,
are personified and mixed up with real personages with so much
simplicity, and with such unconscious interfusion of actual life as to
give the whole an air of probability.
The author of Piers Ploughman’s Vision avoids any appearance of

incongruity by laying his scene in a world which is neither wholly real
nor wholly imaginary—the realm of sleep and dreams. There it does
not astonish us that Langland should meet and talk with the
theological virtues, and that very avoirdupois knights, monks, abbots,
friars, and ploughmen should be found in company with such
questionable characters as Do-well, Do-better, Do-best, Conscience,
Nature, Clergy, and Activa Vita. He has divided his poem into twenty
“steps,” as he calls them, in each of which he falls asleep, has a
dream, and wakes up when it becomes convenient or he is at a loss
what else to do. Meanwhile his real characters are so very real, and
his allegorical ones mingle with them on such a common ground of
easy familiarity, that we forget the allegory altogether. We are not
surprised to find those Utopian edifices, the Tower of Truth and the
Church of Unity, in the same street with an alehouse as genuine as
that of Tam o’ Shanter, and it would seem nothing out of the common
if we should see the twelve signs of the Zodiac saving themselves
from Deucalion’s flood in an arc of the Ecliptic.
Mr. Lowell here read long extracts from the poem, with a
commentary of his own, generally brief, of which we can give only
the following fine passage on Personification.
The truth is, that ideal personifications are commonly little better than
pinchbeck substitutes for imagination. They are a refuge which
unimaginative minds seek from their own sterile imaginativeness.
They stand in the same relation to poetry as wax figures to sculpture.
The more nearly they counterfeit reality, the more unpleasant they
are, and there is always a dejected irresponsibleness about the legs
and a Brattle street air in the boots that is ludicrous. The imagination
gives us no pictures, but the thing itself. It goes out for the moment
to dwell in and inform with its own life the object of its vision—as
Keats says somewhere in one of his letters, “I hop about the gravel
and pick up crumbs in the sparrows.” And so, in personifying, the
imagination must have energy to project its own emotion so as to
see it objectively—just as the disease of the hypochondriac runs
before him in a black dog. Thus it was that the early poets, “who
believed the wonders that they sang,” peopled the forests, floods,
and mountains with real shapes of beauty or terror; and accordingly
in primitive times ecstasy is always attributed to the condition of the
poetic mind. To the great poets these ecstasies are still possible, and
personification had its origin in the tradition of these, and the
endeavor of inferior minds to atone for their own languor by what we
may call historical or reminiscental imagination. Here is indicated the
decline from faith to ritual. Shakspeare has illustrated the true secret
of imaginative personification when he makes the conscience of
Macbeth become external and visible to him in the ghastly shape at
the banquet which he alone can see, and Lady Macbeth’s afterwards
in the blood-stain on her hand. This is the personification of the
creative mind whose thoughts are not images, but things. And this
seems to have been the normal condition of Shakspeare’s genius,
as it is the exceptional one of all other poets. He alone has
embodied in flesh and blood his every thought and fancy and
emotion, his every passion and temptation. Beside him all other
poets seem but the painters and not the makers of men. He sent out
his profound intellect to look at life from every point of view, and
through the eyes of all men and women from the highest to the
lowest. In every one he seems to have tapped it with the knuckles, to
have said sadly, Tinnit, inane est, It rings, it is hollow; and then to
have gone down quietly to wait for death and another world at
Stratford.
As fine an example as any of the prose imagination, of the intellect

acting pictorially, is where Hobbes compares the Papacy to the ghost
of the Roman Empire sitting upon its tomb. This implies a foregone
personification, but the pleasure it gives springs chiefly from our
sense of its historic and intellectual truth. And this subordinate form
of imagination uses typically and metaphorically those forms in which
ecstasy had formerly visibly clothed itself, flesh-and-blooded itself,
so to speak; as where Lord Bacon says that Persecution in the name
of Religion is “to bring down the Holy Ghost, not in the likeness of a
dove, but in the shape of a vulture or a raven.”
After reading more extracts from the poem, Mr. Lowell concluded his
lecture in these words:
Truly it seems to me that I can feel a heart beat all through this old
poem, a manly, trustful, and tender one. There are some men who
have what may be called a vindictive love of Truth—whose love of it,
indeed, seems to be only another form of hatred to their neighbor.
They put crooked pins on the stool of repentance before they invite
the erring to sit down on it. Our brother Langland is plainly not one of
these.
What I especially find to our purpose in Piers Ploughman, as I said

before, is that it defines with tolerable exactness those impulses
which our poetry has received from the Anglo-Saxon as
distinguished from the Anglo-Norman element of our race. It is a
common Yankee proverb that there is a great deal of human nature
in man. I think it especially true of the Anglo-Saxon man. We find in
this poem common sense, tenderness, a love of spiritual goodness
without much sensibility to the merely beautiful, a kind of domestic
feeling of nature and a respect for what is established. But what is
still more noticeable is that man is recognized as man, and that the
conservatism of Langland is predicated upon the well-being of the
people.
It is impossible to revive a dead poem, but it is pleasant, at least, to

throw a memorial flower upon its grave.
LECTURE III
THE METRICAL ROMANCES
(Tuesday Evening, January 16, 1855)
III
Where is the Golden Age? It is fifty years ago to every man and
woman of three-score and ten. I do not doubt that aged Adam
babbled of the superiority of the good old times, and, forgetful in his
enthusiasm of that fatal bite which set the teeth of all his
descendants on edge, told, with a regretful sigh, how much larger
and finer the apples of his youth were than that to which the great-
grandson on his knee was giving a preliminary polish. Meanwhile the
great-grandson sees the good times far in front, a galaxy of golden
pippins whereof he shall pluck and eat as many as he likes without
question. Thus it is that none of us knows when Time is with him, but
the old man sees only his shoulders and that inexorable wallet in
which youth and beauty and strength are borne away as alms for
Oblivion; and the boy beholds but the glowing face and the hands
stretched out full of gifts like those of a St. Nicholas. Thus there is
never any present good; but the juggler, Life, smilingly baffles us all,
making us believe that the vanished ring is under his left hand or his
right, the past or the future, and shows us at last that it was in our
own pocket all the while.
So we may always listen with composure when we hear of Golden

Ages passed away. Burke pronounced the funeral oration of one—of
the age of Chivalry—the period of Metrical Romances—of which I
propose to speak to-night. Mr. Ruskin—himself as true a knight-
errant as ever sat in a demipique saddle, ready to break a lance with
all comers, and resolved that even the windmills and the drovers
shall not go about their business till they have done homage to his
Dulcinea—for the time being joins in the lament. Nay, what do we
learn from the old romances themselves, but that all the heroes were
already dead and buried? Their song also is a threnody, if we listen
rightly. For when did Oliver and Roland live? When Arthur and
Tristem and Lancelot and Caradoc Break-arm? In that Golden Age of
Chivalry which is always past.
Undoubtedly there was a great deal in the institution of Chivalry that

was picturesque; but it is noticeable in countries where society is still
picturesque that dirt and ignorance and tyranny have the chief hand
in making them so. Mr. Fenimore Cooper thought the American
savage picturesque, but if he had lived in a time when it was
necessary that one should take out a policy of insurance on his scalp
or wig before going to bed, he might have seen them in a different
light. The tourist looks up with delight at the eagle sliding in smooth-
winged circles on the icy mountain air, and sparkling back the low
morning sun like a belated star. But what does the lamb think of him?
Let us look at Chivalry a moment from the lamb’s point of view.
It is true that the investiture of the Knight was a religious ceremony,

but this was due to the Church, which in an age of brute force always
maintained the traditions at least of the intellect and conscience. The
vows which the Knights took had as little force as those of god-
parents, who fulfil their spiritual relation by sending a piece of plate
to the god-child. They stood by each other when it was for their
interest to do so, but the only virtue they had any respect for was an
arm stronger than their own. It is hard to say which they preferred to
break—a head, or one of the Ten Commandments. They looked
upon the rich Jew with thirty-two sound teeth in his head as a
providential contrivance, and practised upon him a comprehensive
kind of dental surgery, at once for profit and amusement, and then
put into some chapel a painted window with a Jewish prophet in it for
piety—as if they were the Jewish profits they cared about. They
outraged and robbed their vassals in every conceivable manner,
and, if very religious, made restitution on their death-beds by giving a
part of the plunder (when they could keep it no longer) to have
masses sung for the health of their souls—thus contriving, as they
thought, to be their own heirs in the other world. Individual examples
of heroism are not wanting to show that man is always paramount to
the institutions of his own contriving, so that any institution will yield
itself to the compelling charms of a noble nature. But even were this
not so, yet Sir Philip Sidney, the standard type of the chivalrous,
grew up under other influences. So did Lord Herbert of Cherbury, so
did the incomparable Bayard; and the single fact that is related as a
wonderful thing of Bayard, that, after the storming of Brescia, he
respected the honor of the daughter of a lady in whose house he
was quartered, notwithstanding she was beautiful and in his power,
is of more weight than all the romances in Don Quixote’s library.
But what form is that which rises before us, with features in which
the gentle and forgiving reproach of the woman is lost in the aspiring
power of the martyr?
We know her as she was,
The whitest lily in the shield of France,

With heart of virgin gold,
that bravest and most loyal heart over whose beatings knightly armor
was ever buckled, that saintly shape in which even battle looks
lovely, that life so pure, so inspired, so humble, which stands there
forever to show us how near womanhood ever is to heroism, and
that the human heart is true to an eternal instinct when it paints Faith
and Hope and Charity and Religion with the countenances of
women.
We are told that the sentiment of respect for woman, a sentiment

always remarkable in the Teutonic race, is an inheritance from the
Institution of Chivalry. But womanhood must be dressed in silk and
miniver that chivalry may recognize it. That priceless pearl hidden in
the coarse kirtle of the peasant-girl of Domremy it trampled under its
knightly feet—shall I say?—or swinish hoofs. Poor Joan! The
chivalry of France sold her; the chivalry of England subjected her to
outrages whose burning shame cooled the martyr-fire, and the King
whom she had saved, the very top of French Knighthood, was toying
with Agnes Sorel while the fagots were crackling around the savior of
himself and his kingdom in the square of Rouen! Thank God, that
our unchivalric generation can hack the golden spurs from such
recreant heels! A statue stands now where her ashes were gathered
to be cast into the Seine, but her fittest monument is the little
fountain beneath it, the emblem of her innocence, of her inspiration,
drawn not from court, or castle, or cloister, but from the inscrutable
depths of that old human nature and that heaven common to us all—
an emblem, no less, that the memory of a devoted life is a spring
where all coming times may drink the holy waters of gratitude and
aspiration. I confess that I cannot see clearly that later scaffold in the
Place de la Révolution, through the smoke of this martyr-fire at
Rouen, but it seems to me that, compared with this woman, the
Marie Antoinette, for whose sake Burke lamented the downfall of
chivalry, is only the daughter of a king.
But those old days, whether good or bad, have left behind them a
great body of literature, of which even yet a large part remains
unprinted. To this literature belong the Metrical Romances.
Astonished by the fancy and invention so abundantly displayed by
the writers of these poems, those who have written upon the subject
have set themselves gravely to work to find out what country they
could have got them from. Mr. Warton, following Dr. Warburton,
inclines to assign them to an Oriental origin. Dr. Percy, on the other
hand, asserts a Scandinavian origin; while Ritson, who would have
found it reason enough to think that the sun rose in the West if
Warton or Percy had taken the other side, is positive that they were
wholly French. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere between the
positions of Percy and Ritson. The Norman race, neither French nor
Scandinavian, was a product of the mingled blood of both, and in its
mental characteristics we find the gaiety and lively fancy of the one
tempering what is wild in the energy and gloomy in the imagination
of the other.
We know the exact date of the arrival of the first Metrical Romance in
England. Taillefer, a Norman minstrel, brought it over in his head,
and rode in the front at the battle of Hastings singing the song of
Roland. Taillefer answers precisely the description of a Danish skald,
but he sang in French, and the hero he celebrated was one of the
peers of Charlemagne, who was himself a German.
Taillefer, who well could sing a strain,

Upon a swift horse rode amain
Before the Duke and chanted loud
Of Charlemagne and Roland good,
Of Oliver and vassals brave
Who found at Roncesvalles their grave.
What this song of Roland was it is impossible to say, as the only

copy of it seems to have perished with Taillefer at the battle of
Hastings; but it was probably of the same kind with many of those
which have survived and brought down to us the exploits of Arthur
and his knights.
With regard to a large part of the romances of the Round Table, and
those which grew out of them, it is tolerably certain that, although
written in French, they were made in England.
One of the great charms of the Metrical Romances is the innocent

simplicity with which they commit anachronisms. Perhaps it would be
more exact to call them synchronisms, for, with the most undoubting
faith, they compel all other times to adopt the dress, manners, and
conventionalities of their own. To them there was no one world, nor
ever had been any, except that of Romance. They conferred
retrospective knighthood upon the patriarchs; upon Job, David, and
Solomon. Joseph of Arimathea became Sir Joseph of that ilk. Even
the soldier who pierced the side of Jesus upon the cross was made
into Sir Longinus and represented as running a tilt with our Lord. All
the heroes of the Grecian legend were treated in the same way.
They translated the old time and the old faith into new, and thus
completed the outfit of their own imaginary world, supplying it at a
very cheap rate with a Past and with mythology. And as they
believed the gods and genii of the Pagan ancients to have been evil
spirits who, though undeified, were imperishable in their essence,
they were allowed to emigrate in a body from the old religion into the
new, where they continued to exercise their functions, sometimes
under their former names, but oftener in some disguise. These
unfortunate aliens seem to have lived very much from hand to
mouth, and after the invention of holy water (more terrible to them
than Greek-fire) they must have had rather an uncomfortable time of
it. The giants were received with enthusiasm, and admitted to rights
of citizenship in the land of Romance, where they were allowed to
hold fiefs and castles in consideration of their eminent usefulness in
abducting damsels, and their serving as anvils to the knights, who
sometimes belabored them for three days at a time, the fight ending
at last, not from failure of breath on the part of the combatants but of
the minstrel. As soon as he has enough, or sees that his hearers
have, the head of the unhappy giant becomes loose on his
shoulders.
Another charm of the romances is their entire inconsequentiality. As

soon as we enter this wonderful country the old fetters of cause and
effect drop from our limbs, and we are no longer bound to give a
reason for anything. All things come to pass in that most charming of
ways which children explain by the comprehensive metaphysical
formula—“’cause.” Nothing seems to be premeditated, but a knight
falls in love, or out of it, fights, goes on board enchanted vessels that
carry him to countries laid down on no chart, and all without asking a
question. In truth, it is a delightful kind of impromptu life, such as we
all should like to lead if we could, with nothing set down in the bills
beforehand.
But the most singular peculiarity of Romance-land remains to be

noticed—there are no people in it, that is, no common people. The
lowest rank in life is that of a dwarf. It is true that if a knight loses his
way there will always be a clown or two to set him right. But they
disappear at once, and seem to be wholly phantasmagoric, or, at
best, an expedient rendered necessary by the absence of guide-
posts, and the inability of the cavaliers to read them if there had
been any. There are plenty of Saracens no doubt, but they are more

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Imagination is not necessarily concerned with poetic expression.

What doth move

But compare it with Keats’

Ruth, when sick for home,

Imagination enters more or less into the composition of all great

Shakspeare was so charged with the highest form of the poetic

But look what envious streaks

Shakspeare’s one hundred and thirteenth sonnet was here also

The highest form of imagination, Mr. Lowell said, is the dramatic, of

Lastly, said Mr. Lowell, I would place in a class by themselves those

Where the imagination is found in combination with great acuteness

Fancy is a frailer quality than Imagination, and cannot breathe the

(Friday Evening, January 12, 1855)

The fame of a great poet is made up of the sum of all the

It is from such a one that I am going to try to draw a few notes of

Properly speaking, “Piers Ploughman’s Vision” is not a poem at all. It

These trifles, also, acquire importance in proportion as they are

The author of Piers Ploughman’s Vision avoids any appearance of

As fine an example as any of the prose imagination, of the intellect

What I especially find to our purpose in Piers Ploughman, as I said

It is impossible to revive a dead poem, but it is pleasant, at least, to

(Tuesday Evening, January 16, 1855)

So we may always listen with composure when we hear of Golden

Undoubtedly there was a great deal in the institution of Chivalry that

It is true that the investiture of the Knight was a religious ceremony,

We know her as she was,

The whitest lily in the shield of France,

We are told that the sentiment of respect for woman, a sentiment

Taillefer, who well could sing a strain,

What this song of Roland was it is impossible to say, as the only

One of the great charms of the Metrical Romances is the innocent

Another charm of the romances is their entire inconsequentiality. As

But the most singular peculiarity of Romance-land remains to be

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