... demonstrate my claim by advancing some of the key characteristics and consequent short-comings of realist and neo-realist thought. Practical not Critical? "Society is the Patient not the Product" Lawrence Frank Before we can understand realism in practice, one must first understand the theory behind realism. Problem solving (or practical theory as it is most often referred), concerns itself only with the world as it currently exists; its adversary, critical theory, takes the current world as a staring point and asks: how and why did it get this way? Is there a better way? At this point it is important to note that I will align my critique with a post-modern as opposed to a Marxian concept of critical social theory; the relevance of this distinction will become obvious later in the paper. Practical theory is commonly criticized on the grounds that it places unnecessary limitations on the parameters of political thought; as a ...

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