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Postmodernism
By
Paul Newall (2005)
In
the study of philosophy we eventually come up against postmodernism,
however hard we may try to avoid it. Typically the context is someone
uttering the familiar refrain "that postmodern nonsense", but
sometimes it can be heard as a description of art or society. In this piece
we'll try to get a grip on what it means, what we can use it for, what we
can learn from it and why some people are want to insist that only
troglodytes partake of it.
What
is Postmodernism?
The
first place we run into trouble when discussing postmodernism is in
defining the term itself. The thinkers and ideas often referred to as
postmodern disagree amongst themselves —usually significantly—as well as
with dictionary versions, while opponents may not always be fair in their
characterisations. With this in mind, can we even speak of postmodernism in
the first place? To try to make sense of it, we can attempt several
approaches.
The
word itself
The
term "postmodern" is a recent one, as we might expect. The
furthest it has been traced is to 1932 or thereabouts, when it was used to
describe the contrast in Hispanic poetry between Borges (and others) and
newer work that seemed to be a reaction to modernism (or ultramodernismo,
as it was called). Toynbee called the period from 1875 to the present (in
1940, when he wrote) "postmodern", while poets and artists began
to employ it to talk of challenges to modernism. Some writers prefer to
distinguish between two senses of the word: on the one hand, we have
post-modern (with a hyphen) to denote the continuation of modernism,
perhaps in new directions (hence the post-modern, or after modernism); on
the other, postmodern (with the hyphen gone) signifies something different
(postmodern, or after modernism and separate from it—replacing it).
Modernism
Given
that all this talk involves modernism in some way, we need to understand
this notion if we hope to appreciate what came after or replaced it. The
difficultly—yet again—is that this term is itself used to denote a wide
spectrum of directions, tendencies and influences in literature and art, as
well as a philosophical idea; indeed, it also appears to differ in meaning
in many countries, even if only slightly. Before we get any further, then,
we can say that one of the main problems with postmodernism is that not
everyone means the same thing by it: it could be a person rejects a claim
characterized as postmodern when the listener does not even think of it as
such. Perhaps the proper response, then, to someone who exclaims " not
more postmodern rubbish!" is to ask "what do you mean by
postmodern?" It may be worth ducking if the rejoinder is a swift clip
around the ear, though.
In
order to attempt a rescue of this situation, we can focus not on the many
specific differences in understanding but on the general tendency described
by Jürgen Habermas and others whereby modernism is synonymous with or much
the same as the Enlightenment project; that is, those ideas that came about
(roughly) at the time of the Enlightenment (the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries), often also called the Age of Reason. This was when the first
encyclopedias were being compiled and thinkers were critical of forms of
traditional knowledge or authority, especially religious or political ones.
Broadly speaking, the hope was that the search for truth by means of reason
and the natural sciences would replace superstition, irrationalism and fear
and lead to an ordered world in which men thought for themselves instead of
following custom or the beliefs that had been held unquestioningly for
generations. Kant offered a motto as defining the Enlightenment, saying
"Sapere aude: have courage to use your own understanding." Goya
rendered this as "El sueño de la razón produce monstruos", or
"the sleep of reason produces monsters".
While
it is easy to see where the attraction in the progressive enlightening that
would follow the march of reason, Weber called it the "disenchantment
of the world"; many of the religious ideas, superstitions and folk
tales that provided explanations or comfort of one kind or another would
not stand up to scrutiny, but the rational picture that replaced them could
seem cold, impersonal and just as imprisoning. Habermas' opinion is that
although this process may be flawed in some ways, it is not yet finished:
although much has been accomplished, the potential in this approach has
still to be realized. Postmodernism, then, is on this view rather an
anti-modernism that would give up this reasoned effort in favour of an
irrational one that is skeptical of the very possibilities encouraged by
the Enlightenment.
Whether
we accept this characterization or not, we could say that postmodernism is
skeptical of theoretical viewpoints that are foundational (as we discussed
in our fifth article) or grounded in some way, and critical of theory in
general. Sometimes a distinction is made along the following lines:
Affirmative postmodernists: theory
needs to be changed, rather than rejected
Skeptical postmodernists: theory should
be rejected, or at least subject to severe critique
There
are other ways to appreciate what postmodernism involves by looking at some
of the ideas and understandings proposed by various important thinkers, as
well as by comparing some of the trends in modernism with how they have
become viewed in a postmodern context. This what we'll do shortly below.
After
modernism?
Before
we get to some of the characteristics of postmodernism, it would be
meaningful to ask if any of them are new or radically different from
anything that came before. Is postmodernism really after modernism? The
answer to this question appears to be in the negative: all the features we
see below have been spoken of or held before in ages past. We could try to
insist that never before have thinkers assumed them in a systematic
fashion, but that is also not the case today—as we said previously.
Some
writers have suggested that the very notion of defining periods (as
"modern", "postmodern" or anything else) is merely a
rhetorical device: a means of comparing the present to something different
(usually to show the more recent in a favourable light) by constructing
some other time in history that was perhaps not so enlightened as our own.
For example, we have already seen the contrast between so-called
"traditional" ways and modernism or the rise of the Age of
Reason. Were traditional times really as backward as they are sometimes
portrayed, though? If not, then it seems fairer to say that succeeding
views brought to light those features that were already there but perhaps
neglected or ignored. As we saw in earlier pieces, some of the
"new" ideas proposed by philosophers and others have in fact been
little different from (or the same as) those in the past; the only change
might be that circumstances became more favourable to their acceptance.
Comparing
the two
Bearing
these remarks in mind, we can now contrast modern and postmodern thinking
on some illustrative areas and questions, taking each respectively.
Although we must be careful to over generalization or oversimplification,
opposing modern to postmodern we have:
Structure opposed to anarchy
Construction opposed to deconstruction
Theory opposed to anti-theory
Interpretation opposed to hostility
toward definite interpretation
Meaning opposed to the play of meaning
or a refusal to pin down
Metanarratives opposed to hostility
toward narratives
The search for underlying meaning
opposed to a suspicion (or certainty) that this is impossible
Progress opposed to a doubt that
progress is possible
Order opposed to subversion
Encyclopedic knowledge opposed to a web
of understanding
Some
of these will be considered in greater depth as we continue.
Elements
and influences
Metanarratives
One
of the most important thinkers on postmodernism, referred to often, is
Jean-François Lyotard. In discussing postmodernism, he wrote:
I
define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives..."
Now
some people are not too convinced about Santa's existence either and may be
incredulous toward him (hence explaining the lumps of coal in their
stockings), but at least we know what we mean by him. What are
metanarratives?
A
narrative is usually another way of saying a "story" or a
description of some turn of events, so a metanarrative (sometimes also
called a Grand Narrative, with capitals for effect) is a narrative that
explains (or perhaps contains) all others. For example, there are various
narratives all over the world that explain the creation of the universe and
everything in it; if a particular story is claimed to be the ultimate one
that explains properly or accurately, it could be characterised as a
metanarrative. The Enlightenment narrative that we have discussed above, to
take another instance, says that reason and the natural sciences will help
to free the world from superstition and ignorance, bringing us to (or
closer to) true knowledge of our universe. Metanarratives can and are used
to translate other narratives into their own form, subsuming them as they
must if they are to explain all other accounts in their own terms.
According
to Lyotard, then, postmodernism is at least skeptical of this tendency, if
not outright "incredulous" at the very possibility of finding one
story that explains the world and all others. It is easy to see where this
suspicion could come from: we could make the argument that since all
attempts so far (that we know of) to find a grand narrative have failed, it
follows that the thing just cannot be done. That does not follow, of
course, as we saw in our fifth article, but it might at least incline us to
be doubtful of the chances of success.
Some
critics have suggested that in talking of the "death" or failure
of all metanarratives, we are merely offering yet another metanarrative in
their place, one that talks of this universal failure and tells us we have
to accept it as the final story. Another point of objection concerns those
narratives that have not yet failed; for Habermas, as we saw, modernism has
not fulfilled its potential, while other cultures have their own narratives
that cannot easily be dismissed just because Anglo-European ones are said
to be doomed.
Another
way to look at this issue is by way of foundationalism, which we considered
in our fifth article on epistemology. The search for a metanarrative,
according to Gianni Vattimo, is much the same as the quest for a foundation
underlying our knowledge; this assumption that we require a foundation,
though, is called into question. Instead, Vattimo suggests the metaphor
used by Jorge Luis Borges in his famous story The Library of Babel, in
which the universe is described an infinite library. When we wander though
it looking at the books, we find that they each refer to other books—never
an external authority, or the "catalogue of catalogues", as
Borges terms it. Rather than appealing to foundations, then, or something
else to ground our knowledge, we instead have to be satisfied with the
library, or an interlocking web of ideas and beliefs.
A
philosopher who has looked at this question in much depth is Richard Rorty,
who is very critical of foundationalism (see our fifth article) and much of
classical epistemology. In his early work he opposed the notion that knowledge
somehow "reflects" or "mirrors" the world around us. If
that is so, then it would make more sense for us to give up looking for an
overarching language or narrative to understand all others in and instead
just translate between them, much like Vattimo. Antifoundationalism is a
rejection of the earlier ideas in favour of other understandings of
knowledge, some of which we considered previously. Rorty suggests that we
employ our concepts as tools to accomplish whatever goals we have, not as a
means of hooking onto the world as it really is.
Another
epistemological perspective that has seen much activity in recent years and
which often comes up in the context of postmodernism is constructivism.
According to this idea, we don't receive knowledge through our senses or
through discussion; instead, we build it up for ourselves from these and
other inputs—we construct knowledge, rather than discover it. A slightly
different way to say this is that we adapt our knowledge to organize what
we experience, as opposed to using it to explore an external reality. This
is quite a contrast with foundationalist approaches; according to some
constructivists, we come up with many models to guide us toward whatever
goals we have and all that reality can do is help us accept or reject those
that are unsuccessful. We could say that we're devising better and better
maps to get us where we're going, not exploring the territory.
An
obvious criticism of constructivism is to ask how it can select between
alternative models if not by reference to a world that already exists and
is not just constructed by us? Can we really say that we built up the fact
that we can't breathe underwater, or was it instead forced upon us by the
way the world happens to be? We find in our everyday experience that not
every model is as good as any other when trying to accomplish a specific
task, so many constructivists point to coherence or pragmatic concerns (cf.
our tenth article) instead of verifying ideas by testing them against the
world.
The
notion of metanarratives and their rejection or acceptance thus involves
many aspects, including epistemology and metaphysics. If Lyotard's
definition of postmodernism is anything to go by then our opinions of these
issues can go some way to determining how we view the subject.
Power
and knowledge
In
our sixth piece we looked at the power that can be associated with terms
like "knowledge" and "truth". Some thinkers
characterized as postmodern worry about this and feel that some legitimate
areas or methods of inquiry—or indeed modes of life—could be restricted. To
take a simple example, if it is known that a certain method of farming is
known to most efficient, it may be that some people insist that everyone
adopt it—after all, there are a lot of hungry people. Nevertheless, should
we allow this knowledge to force others to live in a way they do not wish
to?
On
another level, some people consider that "primitive" groups
should be civilized for their own benefit, but critics say that this
assumes that what is good for one is good for everyone. This is partly a
question of ethics (see the previous piece), of course: should we point to
the successes of a particular way of doing something or insist that others
adopt it to, say, increase their health or life-span? The concern is that
the sanction of calling something the truth endows it with a power that
makes it easier to force people to do or accept things they otherwise might
not.
Another
example of this kind concerns madness or insanity, the history of which was
studied by Michel Foucault and others. According to a certain understanding
of this phenomenon, popularized by a group known as the anti-psychiatrists,
it is very difficult indeed to define what we mean "insane", say,
unless by comparison to "normal" behaviour; what, though, is
normal? Nowadays more complex methods are used in this process but it is
clear that in the past it would be a relatively easy matter to define
conduct that we disapprove of as abnormal or insane and legislate for the
(forcible) treatment of people displaying it. If a certain group has the
power to decide who is mad and who isn't, then their actions could have
terrible consequences, as we have seen throughout history with the
sterilization of so-called simpletons in the US or the concentration camps
in Germany.
The
principle behind these and other instances is to be aware of the power and
influence associated with defining terms or making distinctions between
people; the way we understand concepts has consequences—the pen being
mightier than the sword on occasion—so we have to be aware of this and act
accordingly.
Poststructuralism
A
term that comes up often in discussions of postmodernism or thinkers
associated with it is poststructuralism. Much like our opening remarks on
postmodernism, this is also a difficult concept to define and involves the
same notion of after-structuralism, so we need to look at this as well.
Structuralism, then, is sometimes described as the attempt to bring all our
attempts to understand the human condition under one model or structure,
with a single methodology, all derived from the linguistics (the study of
languages) of a Swiss theorist called Ferdinand de Saussure. There are many
other influences but this is often said to be the main one.
Much
work and controversy is associated with Saussure's studies and that which
followed, but the important and basic is that language is conceived of as
not just a way of expressing our needs and ideas but something required
before we can even think or have social interaction. The meaning of a
story, say, is thus to be found in its structure; by analysing this and the
language used, we can come to understand it.
As
structuralism became more important, particularly in Europe,
poststructuralism emerged as a challenge to it. Is the meaning of a word
really fixed or is it instead, to consider an alternative, actually defined
by the use we want to put it to? What if the words we employ to refer to
some fixed structure in fact miss their mark and never quite provide us
with a bedrock structure to base everything on? Poststructuralism suggests
instead that meaning is always unstable; when we use a word to point to a
concept, it never quite gets there—reaching instead to another word, and
thence to another, and so on. This is another challenge to the possibility
of metanarratives and the Enlightenment ideas in particular.
Interpretation
When
we read a story, we sometimes take it for granted that the author is
explaining to us what happened to the characters, what they thought about
and—often—what the moral of the tale is. We could think of it as a fireside
chat, in which the writer talks and we listen; in some detective stories,
say, we are hoping to find out who did it, how and why. In some books,
though, the moral isn't so obvious, and with poetry or movies it can be
even worse; sometimes two people can see the same film and understand it in
completely different ways. In that case, the issue is one of
interpretation: who has appreciated the point of the piece most accurately?
One
way to answer this would be to ask the author, if he or she is still alive.
Having said that, why should they necessarily be the one to decide? If we
have a favourite poem that we read to have a particular meaning to us,
should we allow that there are more authoritative ways of approaching it?
Given that there may be very many understandings of the same piece, some of
which may seem a lot more sophisticated than what the writer apparently
intended, can it make sense to call one legitimate and the others not?
Hermeneutics
is the study of interpretation, named according to some after the Greek god
Hermes (Mercury in the Roman pantheon), the patron of interpreters (among
other things) who also lent his name to hermeticism. In the past it was
associated with the interpretation of scriptures; some holy books warn
against over-interpretation while others attribute many distinct layers of
meaning to the same text, particularly in some Judaic works and the
Hermetic oeuvre. Works by Homer, Dante or Shakespeare have been studied on
many levels, but the prime example remains the religious texts:
commentaries on commentaries had so much become the standard that in the
fifteen hundreds Luther declared his famous maxim sola scriptura (or
"by Scripture alone"), intending to strip away all the
interpretations that had gone before and hence influenced the reader and
instead start anew.
In
more recent times, Jacques Derrida declared "il n'y a pas de hors
texte"—there is nothing outside the text. One way to understand this
is to take it that there are is no guidance or adjudication to be found
when considering a piece save within it; thus, when we try to decide what
the correct interpretation of a poem is, we can only use the poem itself
and not point to something external that would settle the matter for us.
Indeed, one writer (Dilthey) said that the purpose of hermeneutics is
"to understand the author better than he understood himself";
perhaps the writer unconsciously included aspects or influences in a text
that he or she is not aware of and that can only be brought to light by
interpretation by others? This led some to proclaim the "death of the
author", but at the very least we have the author, the text itself and
the reader all having an input into how the text is read.
Deconstructionism
One
form of interpretation or analysis of texts that is associated with Derrida
and the so-called Yale school of Paul de Man, Harold Bloom, Hillis Miller
and Geoffrey Hartman is deconstruction. It has had more of an impact on
philosophy and literary theory in Continental Europe, but its influence has
been felt widely. It can be traced back to Nietzsche but the problem with
explaining or understanding it is that its proponents often insist that
there is no deconstructionist method; that is, it isn't just another
systematic approach to be applied that can be defined by explicit steps or
principles. Even so, we can list some general guidelines that will help:
Add nothing to the text: The piece (it
could be anything) under consideration should fall apart from its own flaws
without needing to look outside it.
Look for unstated assumptions: By
reading closely, we may be able to find presuppositions that the author
relies on implicitly but doesn't argue for or explain; by pointing these out
and criticising them, the purpose of the text may fail.
Reverse the terms: It may be that by
changing some of the terms in a piece to their polar opposites, exactly the
reverse argument is made. For example, a racist text may be just as sound
(or otherwise) with "white" swapped for "black" (or
vice versa); but if it applied to any group, it wouldn't be making a point
at all.
Look for multiple interpretations:
Rather than allowing one reading of the text to be privileged, try to find
others—particularly those that may contradict or be entirely opposed to
others. If a piece can support so many, perhaps its conclusions or premises
should be called into question?
Look for limitations: What can the text
not include or describe? What has been explicitly or implicitly excluded
from it in order to make the points or arguments therein?
A
major criticism levelled at deconstructionism is that its proponents seldom
attack their own work in the same way; why not deconstruct a
deconstruction, for instance? There are also obvious limitations to which
texts can be deconstructed: although some think it can apply to anything,
it is hard to see how it can address mathematical or (some) scientific
papers without the knowledge of these areas that most deconstructionists
lack or without tackling the philosophical problems associated with them
first.
Another
objection to deconstruction comes from a different perspective on language.
According to Wittgenstein, rather than representing a correspondence
between propositions and reality (cf. our tenth article), language is a
series of games or practices that enable us to achieve whatever goals we
have in a situation; thus, as we said earlier, meaning is defined by use.
On these terms, deconstructionism is simply beside the point: language
adapts to its use and pulling a text apart fails to take account of this.
Queer
and feminist theory
"Queer"
was originally a derogatory mode of address for homosexuals but was adopted
in a positive sense in the 1990s by some militants. Based partly on
Foucault's writings on sexuality, queer theory is concerned with sexual
identity and particularly the idea that fixed categories (such as
"masculine" and "feminine") are insufficient to
describe the diversity we see in our world. Foucault noted that a vague
grouping of actions were replaced by a group of sexual categories and
questioned whether this was justified or meaningful; is it enough to speak
of heterosexual and homosexual or is this binary either/or not enough to
account for the varieties of human behaviour? Even if we add other
designations, the same question remains: are we describing divisions that
actually exist or instead forcing individuals into moulds that they do not
fit? What are the consequences of the latter, especially for those
questioning their sexuality? Queer theory studies these and other similar
questions.
In
a similar way, feminist theory considers the role and influence of gender
and of ideas defining the role of women in society. For instance, is
knowledge asexual? Some propose a radical feminist epistemology wherein
knowledge claims depend on who is making them? Did biological differences
determine, wholly or in part, the historically restricted role of women or
were social and other prejudices to blame? Does the portrayal of women in
the media, art or literature have a positive effect or does it merely
reinforce old stereotypes? Should women work for equality or the
celebration of difference? Whatever the answers to these questions, the
main point raised by feminist theory is that the relationship between the
sexes is not one of fairness and equal standing but instead a narrative of
oppression and inequality. Whether this is so, who or what is to blame and
how to remedy it is still the subject of much discussion today.
Postcolonial
theory
Although
influenced by Edward Said's early work, postcolonial theory is relatively
recent and seeks to study those cultures affected by colonialism. One way
to define it is as those political, economic, social and cultural practices
that evolve as a result of or response to colonialism. A potential problem
for any look at a former colony is seeing it from a Western perspective and
judging accordingly; when people from within the culture decide to describe
it for themselves, why should they adopt this perspective instead of their
own? What is the effect of using the former colonial language, say, as
opposed to the native tongue(s)? Does self-description come naturally or is
it a reaction or resistance to being discussed on another's terms? How did
the interaction between coloniser and colonised affect both?
One
consequence identified related to the Western use of the term
"Orient" (or, today, the "Middle East"); according to
some theorists, this had the connotation of "exotic" or different
and hence instilled a view whereby other parts of the world were talked of
as "us and them" or "here and there", a practice that
continues today and which prevents or makes it difficult for the
"us" to understand "them". In addition,
"they" might have had to alter their feelings of identity as a
result of the pressures of colonisation. Postcolonial theory looks at these
issues and tries to increase our appreciation of our history and its impact
on our ability to learn about others if we implicitly suppose them to be
different before we even start.
Criticisms
Postmodernism
(and its related aspects) is not without its critics, of course. Several
different complaints have been raised, the importance of which depend on
how a particular idea has been stated:
Although postmodernism focuses on
irrational tendencies and appears to celebrate them, it still uses reason
as a tool.
Postmodernists mock the inconsistencies
of modernism but are not consistent themselves.
Rejecting criteria for judging
questions is not enough; alternatives have to be provided.
Postmodernists call for
interdisciplinary work and not taking subjects in isolation, but they do
this themselves in their own criticisms and fail to learn enough about
other subjects to be in a position to do so.
The
first three are often forms of ad hominem tu quoque, a logical fallacy in
which an argument is questioned because the proponent doesn't seem to hold
him or herself to it; if the positions are explained carefully, though,
there is no requirement for a postmodernist to be consistent if his or her
objective is only to show that an idea is flawed. One way to think of this
is as a substantial shrug of the shoulders: if someone demands to know what
we have to offer instead of their suggestions, we can say "I don't
know, but yours are still wrong"; afterwards we can ask what we need
to conclude from this (for instance, is it better to have bad ideas than no
ideas at all?). There are some thinkers, of course, that do offer explicit
statements that can be addressed by the above criticisms (such as saying
"we should not use reason to decide things" and then offering
argument in support), but our discussion in the eighth article entreats us
to be careful and not to avoid interesting postmodern ideas that are not
beaten so easily.
The
remark that much of postmodernist thinking demonstrates a lack of knowledge
of other disciplines—leading to weak criticisms thereof—is one we could
make about most subjects but has more importance in this context. Is it
sensible to complain at the relationship between power and knowledge, say,
without knowing how physicists and biologists claim to come by the latter,
particularly given the diversity of approaches even in these (cf. our sixth
piece)? A situation to be avoided if possible is one in which no-one really
knows what anyone else is doing but criticises them all the same. The
problem of realism that we looked at before is very significant to the
kinds of ideas postmodernists have put forward, which is why we find it
being addressed by some of them. Opponents of postmodernism find it
doubtful that the search for facts or truth need oppress anyone; although
it is possible to use knowledge as power, they say, this has nothing to do
with the facts themselves and everything to do with interpretation and the
people doing the interpreting.
Another
telling criticism is to note that to be anti-theory is still to have a
theory; that is, the theory that we shouldn't have a theory. Rejecting the
need for criteria (whatever their purpose) is still a criterion. Is it
possible to be as playful as some suggest, not holding beliefs or
methodological approaches and instead refusing to define or pin down
narratives? How lightly can we hold our ideas before we end up either holding
nothing at all or become certain of them without realising it?
One
point raised against postmodernism concerns the language used in many
works, which can seem tangled and obtuse at the best of times. Are long,
complicated words being used as part of a specialist language or because
postmodernists have nothing of consequence to say and want to hide this
fact behind their rhetoric? Often the answer is a matter of opinion, or of
saying that even a difficult writer can sometimes offer a comment clearly enough
to raise an eyebrow before plunging back into a thicket of terminology.
Since a key assumption of this series is that anything worth saying can be
said clearly, it may be that some people are reluctant to wade into
postmodernist thinking for fear that their time will be wasted; unless the
writer is composing his thoughts merely for the amusement of himself and a
few select friends, this is a difficulty that still restricts the impact
that postmodern ideas can have.
The
limits of interpretation
One
thinker critical of the idea that meaning is forever deferred or that
interpretation can go on and on without ever reaching an end is the
semiotician Umberto Eco. In his work Interpretation and Overinterpretation
he asked if instead there are limits to how much interpretation we can do
with a given text. For example, suppose we take Dostoevsky's novel The
Brothers Karamazov, the tale of a father's murder, apparently by his own
son, and with much discussion of philosophical and theological issues. We
can each read it in a different way, understanding some lines, sections or
characters in disparate ways and maybe even disagreeing vehemently about
the moral of the story (if any); however, it seems ridiculous to say that
we could interpret it as a manual explaining how to survive on Mars in the
event of a global shortage of apples—some readings are too far beyond the
text to be able to claim much (or any) support from it.
In
addition to apparently baseless interpretations, we can also overinterpret
and see things that aren't there. An especially rich source of examples can
be found in conspiracy theory, wherein the search for links between events
and the hidden motivations of individuals or groups can result in
speculations that, while they have some basis in fact, go too far. We see
this also in the hunt for codes in Shakespeare and Marlowe: the former is
believed by some to have left clues to the real authorship of his work
while the latter was a spy and peppered his writing with anti-masonic
comments. Eco himself gives the instance of the "Followers of the
Veil" who read Dante's erotic references as coded criticism of the
Church. Too much interpretation can lead us to see what we want to, rather
than the (sometimes) quite specific intention of the author.
Eco's
main point is not that a text can tell us how it should be read but that it
restricts what we can say. Even if we can take an infinity of different
understandings, they are not equal: some of them will be supported by the
text while others will not. In this respect, his remarks are much like the
criticisms that were raised against older forms of empiricism (cf. our
fifth and sixth pieces): we can't just appeal to our own ideas of what
there is in the world but neither can we test them against that world without
further ado; instead, we have to accept that our assumptions, goals and
hopes can influence what we see but we still check our thinking to see if
it has any support in the very thing we are trying to understand. Thus we
can accept that there may be no final reading or fact to be found without
giving up the possibility that some readings are more
"far-fetched" than others. In terms of metanarratives, it may be
the case that none of the possibilities yet or to come can succeed
entirely, but we can still say that some are better than others.
To
summarise, postmodernism is made up of too many elements and thinkers who
very often disagree with each other to permit any simplistic assessment of
it. We have to take each idea as it comes and treat it on its own merits,
even while it remains fashionable to employ "postmodern" as a
synonym for muddleheaded.
Dialogue
the Ninth
The
Scene: The next day. Trystyn and Steven are walking beside the river,
discussing the previous night's events. Both seem down.
Steven:
Why didn't you tell me she was already taken?
Trystyn:
She isn't "taken".
Steven:
What? Of course she is.
Trystyn:
You should think about the consequences of the words you use, even when
upset. She's not an object; she's in a relationship.
Steven:
Which you failed to tell me about.
Trystyn:
What could I have said? It's not for me to define what she has and what she
means by it. Perhaps she views it differently to me, or to you?
Steven:
You know very well what I mean.
Trystyn:
Perhaps, but not what she means.
Steven:
(Exasperated...) What? Meaning is fixed.
Trystyn:
No, it isn't. Lots of people use words in different way, or understand them
differently to how you might. Meaning is flexible this way, according to
how you want to use a word. Maybe her relationships are flexible, too?
Steven:
Mine are not. In any case, if you intend to use a word in conversation or
anything else—if you want to communicate—then it has to be the same or
nearly the same as the other party. I'm sick and tired of this postmodern
nonsense where people avoid any kind of responsibility by claiming that
there are just too many interpretations to call any of them valid. If you
talk to someone then you have to consider what they'll think or feel; look
at their behaviour, the situation you're in and the circumstances. It's
just like taking a bunch of theories and testing them; it's not enough to
take your own interpretation and call it equally valid to any other, or
better because it's yours.
Trystyn:
You can see, though, that she might've assumed you knew?
Steven:
Why would I? How easy it'd be if we all accepted that nothing can be known
at all; we can't pin meaning down because it always eludes us or remains
indeterminate. You know who does that? People who are afraid to say
"this is what I mean, and nothing else". You can read a book any
way you like but there are boundaries to it forced upon you by the author's
intentions, the characters and their goals, possibilities in the story; you
can add to it, but the structure is already there to build on. If you move
too far away from the context then you're just talking to yourself, making
yourself look ridiculous.
Trystyn:
I guess the point of it all is to prevent one perspective from gaining
power over others, or to stop it from being considered correct at the
expense of all others. We know what happens when people are certain of
themselves and decide to convince everyone else.
Steven:
(Shaking his head...) This kind of tyranny isn't associated with
everything. I just wanted to walk her home. An author pens a story and
doesn't necessarily intend to subvert the human condition or hide his
motives so that some guy with no knowledge of his subject can pull it to
pieces and coin a few words while he's at it. The way around problems with meaning
isn't to render everything meaningless.
Trystyn:
Wow.
Steven:
(Under a full head of steam...) Of course I know that perceptions differ;
that meanings vary between theories; that sometimes pinning something down
can kill it. What's the solution? We have to be a lot more careful. We can
take account of the problems and try to be clearer, or more cautious, but
what we can't do is take our toys and go home. What does that achieve?
Trystyn:
Not much, I guess.
Steven:
Suppose it can't be done—that we can't find all the answers. Suppose even
that every attempt to do so is tainted by our biases or the use we hope to
make of it, or even that meaning will forever elude us. Won't we still try?
Trystyn:
I'm sorry I didn't.
Steven:
I didn't expect to know her mind, or for her to fall at my feet. It just
wasn't too much to ask that you both pay some attention to me—after all,
I'm hardly the most complicated of fools—and consider the consequences of
what I would find meaning in.
|
|
The Return of
Political Philosophy
Pierre Manent
It
could be said that the twentieth century has witnessed the disappearance,
or withering away, of political philosophy. An old–fashioned empirical
proof of this statement is easy to produce: certainly no Hegel, no Marx,
even no Comte, has lived in our century, able to convey to the few and the
many alike a powerful vision of our social and political statics and
dynamics.
However
highly we might think of the philosophical capacities and results of
Heidegger, Bergson, Whitehead, or Wittgenstein, we would not single out any
of them for his contribution to political philosophy. Heidegger, it is
true, ventured into some political action, including speeches, but it is a
matter for deep regret. Heidegger’s was the steepest fall; on a much lower
level, there was Sartre’s indefatigable vituperation against anything
rational or decent in civic life.
It
is true that contrariwise, authors like Sir Karl Popper and Raymond Aron
have been worthy contributors to both general epistemology and political
inquiry, always in a spirit of sturdy and humane citizenship. And some
modern representatives of that venerable tradition of thought, Thomism,
have offered serious reflection on moral, social, and political problems
within a comprehensive account of the world. But despite such
countervailing considerations, the general diagnosis seems to me to be
inescapable: no modern original philosopher has been willing or able to
include a thorough analysis of political life within his account of the
human world, or, conversely, to elaborate his account of the whole from an
analysis of our political circumstances.
To
be sure, the effort to understand social and political life did not cease
in this century. It even underwent a huge expansion through the extraordinary
development of the social sciences, which have increasingly determined the
self–understanding of modern men and women. It might be asserted that the
collective and multifaceted work of all those sociologists,
anthropologists, psychologists, economists, and political scientists has
shed more light on our common life than could the exertions of any
individual mind, however gifted; that, when it comes to understanding our
social and political life, this "collective thought" is
necessarily more impartial than even a mind as impartial as Hegel’s; that
in this sense political philosophy, including democratic political
philosophy, has an undemocratic character since it cannot be so
collectivized; and that accordingly its withering away is a natural
accompaniment to the consolidation and extension of democracy.
As
is the case with all collective enterprises, the social sciences have many
more practitioners than they do ideas and principles. I would even argue
that they rest upon one sole principle, the separation of facts and values,
which sets them apart from philosophy and testifies to their scientific
character. The demise of political philosophy is of a piece with the
triumph of this principle. I admit that generally such sweeping statements
are better avoided. Nevertheless it is a fact that the fact/value
distinction has become not only the presupposition of present–day social
science but also the prevalent opinion in society at large. In present
conditions, a teenager proves his or her coming of age, a citizen proves
his or her competence and loyalty, by making use of this principle. Nowhere
has the principle been set forth with more power and brilliance than in the
work of Max Weber. The limitless and tormented landscape of
twentieth–century social and political thought is commanded by Weber’s
towering presence and overwhelming influence.
Speaking
before students just after the end of World War I, Weber asks about his
duty as a teacher, about what his audience, and the public at large, can
legitimately require of him. He answers, in reflections later published as
Science as a Vocation, that they have a claim on his intellectual probity:
the teacher, as a scientist, has the obligation to acknowledge that to
establish the intrinsic structures of cultural values and to evaluate those
values constitute two totally distinct tasks. Weber rigorously
distinguishes between science, which ascertains facts and relations between
facts, and life, which necessarily involves evaluation and action.
This
proposition has become commonplace today, yet it is difficult to understand
what exactly it means. To give an example that is more than an example, how
does one describe what goes on in a concentration camp without evaluating
it? As some commentators have pointed out, Weber, in his historical and
sociological studies, does not tire of evaluating even when establishing
the facts; no, he ceaselessly evaluates so as to be able to establish the
facts. Otherwise how could he tell a "prophet" from a
"charlatan"?
However
that may be, it is clear that for Weber, intellectual honesty necessarily
prevents us from believing or teaching that science can show us how we
ought to live; and that this same intellectual probity necessarily prevents
us from believing, for instance, that a thing is good because it is
beautiful, or the other way around. But what are the causes of his peculiar
preoccupation with intellectual probity? In Weber’s opinion, modern science
exposes it to a specific danger.
Modern
science exhibits a singular trait: it is necessarily unfinished—it can
never be completed. It is open–ended, since there is always more to be
known. Weber asks why human beings devote themselves to an activity that
can never be completed, why they ceaselessly try to know what they know
they will never completely know. The meaning of modern science is to be
meaningless. Thus intellectual honesty requires that we not confer an
arbitrary meaning on science, that we be faithful to its meaninglessness by
fearlessly carrying on its enterprise. This necessary virtue is at the same
time inhuman, or superhuman; indeed it is heroic. Since heroism, however
necessary, is rare, many so–called scholars or teachers succumb to the
temptation to confer arbitrarily some human meaning on science, or its
provisional results. Weber believed that the scientist who thus lapses from
his duty transforms himself into a petty demagogue or a petty prophet.
What
characterizes the modern situation is that only science can be the object
of public affirmation or approbation. Other "values"—for
instance, esthetic or religious "values"—cannot be publicly
expressed with enough sincerity to hold their own in the public square. At
the end of Science as a Vocation, we read:
The fate of an epoch characterized by
rationalization, intellectualization, most of all by the disenchantment of
the world, led human beings to expel the most sublime and supreme values
from public life. They found refuge either in the transcendent realm of
mystical life or in the fraternity of direct and reciprocal relationships
among isolated individuals. There is nothing fortuitous in the fact that
the most eminent art of our time is intimate, not monumental, nor in the
fact that nowadays it is only in small communities, in face–to–face
contacts, in pianissimo, that we are able to recover something that might
resemble the prophetic pneuma that formerly set whole communities ablaze
and welded them together. . . . For those who are unable to bear this
present fate with manliness, there is only this piece of advice: go back
silently—without giving to your gesture the publicity dear to renegades,
but simply and without ceremony—to the old churches who keep their arms
widely open.
This
eloquent conclusion bears, and needs, rereading today. There is nothing
antiquated or quaint about it. On the contrary, the stripping down of the
public square and the flight into private realms have continued apace,
coupled with the ever growing power of science to mold every aspect of our
lives, including the most intimate. As a consequence, public life is more
and more exclusively filled with private lives: what remains of "the
public" is nothing but the publicization of "the private"—or
so it seems.
Of
course, this assessment could be said to miss the fundamental fact of
modern society which, under the appearance of meaninglessness, is the
coming–into–being of the noblest principles of all, democracy and
self–determination. There is no doubt that Weber, however friendly to its
political institutions, underestimates the strength and resilience of
democracy, perhaps its human meaning and range. In his eyes democracy is no
match—no remedy—for the disenchantment of the world, and for a good reason:
it results from it. It is unable to reunify modern human beings since it
ratifies and, so to speak, institutionalizes their intimate divisions.
If
we take seriously Science as a Vocation, we will say that there is a gaping
hole, a void, a meaninglessness at the heart of modern life since science,
the highest and sole truly public activity, is meaningless. At the same
time, if modern man wants to be equal to the task of science, he ought to
look this nothingness in the face without blinking. In this sense,
nihilism, at least this nihilism, is not only our curse but also our duty.
Weber’s eloquence aimed at keeping us awake and forcing our gaze toward
this central nothingness. Thus the most authoritative, nay, the only
authoritative voice in the realm of social and political thought in this
century was a desperate voice.
It
is impossible to put Max Weber behind us. Because he looms so large, it is
difficult for us to see how the human phenomenon appeared before he
separated science and life. But let us be alert enough to realize how
strange and lopsided our intellectual and moral life currently is. Each and
every human thing is fair game for science. Through separating facts from
values we are able to divert the mighty flow of reality into the bottles of
science.
But
there is no reciprocity: science is never allowed to come back to
illuminate reality and life. Democracy is predicated on the basic
intelligence of the common man, which in turn is predicated on the inherent
intelligibility of life, at least of the current occurrences of life. As a
result, democracy is the regime that has the least tolerance for nihilism.
(And nihilism breeds contempt for democracy.) To say that life is
intelligible is not to say that it is unproblematic or without mystery. It
is only to say that what we do is naturally accompanied by what we think
and say, or that we ordinarily give some account of what we do. Our actions
are many, and our accounts often conflicting, and so we reflect and
deliberate and debate. The life of the mind is inherently
dialectical—although, through the separation of facts and values, we have
often lost sight of that reality.
Weber
well understood that the separation between life and science was in some
sense unbearable for ordinary mankind, and he rightly noticed that the
attendant discomfort gave rise to fake monumentalism, spurious prophesying,
and pedantic fanaticism. Certainly Europe would soon experience all those
ugly phenomena on a scale that the desperate Weber had not anticipated even
in his most desperate mood. Very roughly, we could say that totalitarianism
was the attempt to fuse together science and life. In communism, the fusion
was forced through the despotism of "science"—understood
vulgarly. In Nazism, the fusion came through the despotism of
"life"—again, understood in an utterly vulgar way.
Totalitarianism
was the experimentum crucis for political philosophy in our century.
Through it political philosophy was radically tested, and was found
wanting. The mere fact that such terrible enterprises could arise was proof
that European thinkers had not developed and spread a rational and humane
understanding of modern political circumstances. This claim does not
presuppose the proposition, abstract to the point of meaninglessness, that
"ideas govern the world"—only the sound observation that human
beings are thinking animals who need tolerably accurate ideas and
evaluations to orient themselves in the world. This truism is the truer the
more intellectually active and able the person concerned. It would be
unfair to extend culpability for this century’s crimes into the past
indefinitely, but it is true that, after Hegel elaborated his synthesis, no
other philosopher was able to give a satisfactory, that is, an impartial,
account of the modern State and society. Political philosophy after Hegel
was not able to give a nearly satisfactory account of totalitarianism
during and even after the fact.
Michael
Oakeshott once remarked that great political philosophies are generally
answers to specific political predicaments. It is easy to document this
proposition from Plato and Aristotle, through Machiavelli and Hobbes, to
Rousseau and Hegel. As I observed at the outset, the twentieth century did
not elicit such comprehensive answers from political reflection, and this
despite the fact that its predicament was of the most extreme sort: devastating
world wars, murderous revolutions, beastly tyrannies. If there ever was a
time for writing a new Leviathan, that was it.
But
our most impressive documents are novels: which political treatise on
communism is a match for 1984 or Animal Farm or One Day in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich or The Yawning Heights? And what a strange commentary on this
situation that, for some readers at least, the most suggestive introduction
to Nazi tyranny is to be found in On the Marmor Cliffs (1939), a fable
whose author, Ernst Jünger, was a soldier and adventurer with more than a
passing complicity with the nihilistic mood that fomented Hitler’s rise to
power. Some will object that this indictment is unfair, that many
penetrating books on communism, fascism, and Nazism have been written by
historians, social scientists, and political philosophers; indeed, that the
notion of totalitarianism itself got its currency and credit more from
philosophy than from literature; and that at least one philosophical book
on the subject—Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)—won a
fame and exercised a power of fascination comparable to those of the literary
works I have just mentioned. The objection is valid as far as it goes. We
need to take stock of this momentous debate.
For
political philosophers, dealing with Nazism and communism was difficult.
These unprecedented political phenomena required a specific effort of
analysis, yet most of the interpreters no longer had much place in their
thought for political categories, especially the notion of regime. Their
natural reaction was to make sense of these new forms of politics by
subsuming them under nonpolitical categories with which they were more
familiar. For instance, communism came to be understood as the domination
of "bureaucracy," or as "bureaucratic state
capitalism," a Trotskyist mantra widely used in France and elsewhere.
As for Nazism, not a few on the left would see in it the instrument of
"the most reactionary strata of financial capital," while many on
the right saw just another avatar of "eternal Germany."
Of
course these definitions, however fashionable for a time, could not long
satisfy honest or discerning people, who eventually elaborated and gave
credit to the notion of totalitarianism as a new and specific regime. We
can be grateful to those who introduced this notion, because more than any
other it helped us to look at the facts, to "save the phenomena,"
so to speak, and accordingly to evaluate more adequately the thorough
ugliness of the whole thing. At the same time, however, totalitarianism
remained an ad hoc construct. The discussion of it mainly concerned the
marks, or criteria, of totalitarianism: whether "ideology" or
"terror" or both together were principal or necessary components
of any "totalitarian" regime. The proponents of the notion were
prone to try to outbid one another by concentrating attention on the most
extreme characteristics of these regimes, with the result that, as in
Hannah Arendt’s case, the notion is not even applicable to Nazism and
communism except in their most extreme fits of terror and murder. This
bidding war induced the mainstream of political scientists to renounce the
notion completely, or to dilute it until it became unrecognizable and
useless.
The
facts of Nazism and communism obliged honest and discerning observers to
elaborate the notion of a new regime. At the same time, this
"regime" was the opposite of a regime. The classical regime,
harking back to Plato’s and Aristotle’s first elaboration of political
philosophy, is what gives political life its relative stability and
intelligibility. The totalitarian "regime," on the contrary, was
characterized first of all by its instability and its formlessness. It
described itself, accurately, as essentially a movement: the
"international Communist movement," or die NZ–Bewegung (Munich
was called by the Nazis die Hauptstadt der Bewegung [the capital of the
movement]). Arendt herself was acutely aware of the paradoxical character
of totalitarianism. In a piece titled "Ideology and Terror,"
Arendt borrows from Montesquieu’s analysis and classification of regimes to
try to categorize the totalitarian regime. For Montesquieu, each regime has
a nature and a principle. The principle is the more important, since it is
the "spring" that "moves" the regime. Now, explains
Arendt, totalitarianism has no principle, not even fear—which is the principle
of "despotism" according to Montesquieu. For fear to be a
principal motive of action, the individual would need to think or feel that
he is able to escape danger through his own actions; under totalitarianism,
on the other hand, where the killings wax and wane without any discernible
reason, this sense cannot be sustained. Raymond Aron’s commentary on
Arendt’s analysis is severe but illuminating:
One cannot help asking oneself whether
Mrs. Arendt’s thesis, thus formulated, is not contradictory. A regime
without a principle is not a regime. . . . As a regime, it exists solely in
its author’s imagination. In other words, when Mrs. Arendt elaborates some
aspects of Hitlerite and Stalinist phenomena into a regime, a political
essence, she brings out and probably exaggerates the originality of German
or Russian totalitarianism. Mistaking this admittedly real originality for
a fundamentally new regime, she is induced to read into our epoch the
negation of classical philosophies and thus to slide into a contradiction:
defining a working regime by an essence which so to speak implies the
impossibility of its working.
This
sharp criticism undoubtedly hits the mark. But Arendt would probably hit
back that the "contradiction" is not of her making: it belongs to
the "contradictory essence" of totalitarianism.
It
is interesting to note that Alain Besançon, a distinguished French
historian who studied with Aron, rediscovered and trenchantly brought out
this difficulty twenty years later. In an article aptly titled "On the
Difficulty of Defining the Soviet Regime," Besançon tries and exhausts
Aristotle’s and Montesquieu’s classifications of regimes, concluding that
the Soviet regime does not fit into any of them. In his eyes it is an
"absolutely new" regime, and its newness lies in the part played
by "ideology." Besançon proposes that instead of
"totalitarianism" we simply classify communism as an
"ideological regime." In their different ways, Arendt, Aron, and
Besançon all draw our attention to the problem of relating totalitarianism to
the tradition of political philosophy. The totalitarian regime seems to be
the regime embodying the negation of the idea of regime, and accordingly
the irrelevance of classical political philosophy.
More
than any other thinker in this century, Leo Strauss tried to recover the
genuine meaning of political philosophy. Indeed, political philosophy as
originally understood owes its bare survival—fittingly unobtrusive to the
point of secretiveness—to Leo Strauss’ sole and unaided efforts. Without
him, the philosophy of history, or historicism of any stripe, would have
swallowed political philosophy completely. For Strauss, in seeming
contradiction to what I have just said, twentieth–century experiences were
motives for going back to political philosophy, specifically to classical
political philosophy: "When we were brought face to face with
tyranny—with a kind of tyranny that surpassed the boldest imagination of
the most powerful thinkers of the past—our political science failed to
recognize it. It is not surprising then that many of our contemporaries . .
. were relieved when they rediscovered the pages in which Plato and other
classical thinkers seemed to have interpreted for us the horrors of the
twentieth century." Thus modern tyranny—Strauss carefully avoids the
word "totalitarianism"—brings us back to ancient tyranny as
described and understood by Plato and other Greek thinkers.
At
the same time, Strauss makes clear that there is in modern tyranny
something specific, and terrible, that eludes the grasp of classical
categories. The return to the Greeks can only be a "first step toward
an exact analysis of present–day tyranny," he argued, for contemporary
tyranny is "fundamentally different" from the tyranny analyzed by
the ancients. How could Strauss offer such a proposition? Recall that he
devoted his life to establishing that classical philosophy elaborated the
true understanding of the world, founded on nature which does not change,
and that accordingly it does not need to be superseded or improved upon by
a new "historical" understanding. Given that, how could Leo
Strauss admit that communism and fascism are fundamentally new? How could
the political life of man undergo a fundamental change? He answers:
"Present–day tyranny, in contradistinction to classical tyranny, is
based on the unlimited progress in the ‘conquest of nature’ which is made
possible by modern science, as well as on the popularization or diffusion
of philosophic or scientific knowledge."
Strauss
was perfectly aware that such a change, or at least the possibility of such
a change, needs to have been taken into account by Greek philosophy if the
claim he raises on its behalf is to be upheld. He affirms that that is the
case: "Both possibilities—the possibility of a science that issues in
the conquest of nature and the possibility of the popularization of
philosophy or science—were known to the classics. . . . But the classics
rejected them as ‘unnatural,’ i.e., as destructive of humanity. They did
not dream of pre s ent–day tyranny because they regarded its basic
presuppositions as so preposterous that they turned their imagination in
entirely different directions." Thus, the Greek thinkers did not
imagine modern tyranny because they understood its principles and saw that
they would be so much against nature that there was no use dwelling on
them.
However
galling the affirmation that the Greeks understood us better than we
understand them, and ourselves, it is not what most impresses us in
Strauss’ assessment. It is rather that the two principles that make for the
specific evil of modern tyranny are part and parcel of the foundation on
which modern democracy was built. If this is true, modern tyranny would
have as much in common with modern democracy as with ancient, i.e.,
"natural," tyranny.
We
must not forget that these rare propositions of Strauss on contemporary
political circumstances were formulated in the context of an exchange with
Alexandre Kojève, one of the most influential interpreters of Hegel in this
century. The Russian–born philosopher and French civil servant held that
the conceptions of classical political philosophy have lost their relevance
because the modern regime, or rather State, precisely through the
transformation of nature and the reciprocal recognition implied in democratic
citizenship, has basically solved the human problem. The unpalatable traits
of modern "tyranny" must not blind us to the fact that
"history has come to its end."
Thus
Kojève is not much interested in the totalitarian phenomenon, the ugliness
of which disappears against the big picture. However shocking Kojève’s
benign neglect, even favor, toward Communist totalitarianism, he does draw
our attention to the disturbing fact that modern democracy shares with
totalitarianism the claim to have solved the human problem. Modern
democracy understands itself not as a regime among others, not even as the
best regime, but as the only legitimate regime: it embodies the final,
because rational, state of humanity.
Here
we encounter a topic as difficult and intricate as it is important. In the
classical understanding, the plurality of regimes was rooted in the
intrinsic diversity of human nature, in the heterogeneity of its parts:
human beings were soul and body, and the life of the human soul had its
springs in the specific motions of its different parts. In the modern
democratic understanding, a human being is first and foremost a self, and
mankind as a whole is simply the fulfilled self writ large, which is to
say, considered universally. This generalization is valid only if all the
selves of all the human beings are in some important sense the same. The
affirmation of the self, or the self–affirmation of humankind as composed
of selves, thus presupposes the homogeneity of human nature. For the modern
understanding, the solution of the human problem is one with the
homogenization of human life.
A
mighty task—an indefinite one—is contained herein, because that homogeneity
can never be complete, or it will be so only "at the end of
history," when nature, human as well as nonhuman, will have been
mastered. But in some sense, and this is Kojève’s point, we have already
reached a sufficient level of mastery. The science necessary for the
conquest of nature is without end, it is true, but that means that its power
is destined to grow without end, which means that reason allows us to
imagine ourselves all–powerful already. As for human life proper,
oppressive differences will long continue to arise, but they are in
principle already vanquished by the declaration and institutionalization of
the equality of rights. In brief, the miracles of science and the good
works of democracy are attested enough to legitimate faith that liberal
democracy has answered all the big questions of politics.
Of
course faith can be lost. When the good works of democracy are less
apparent, or when the delicate mechanisms of constitutional government,
necessary for guaranteeing rights, are not available in a certain
situation, the temptation arises to make good on the promises of democracy by
every means available, that is, even or especially by antidemocratic means,
to bring science to completion and achieve human homogeneity by overturning
democracy.
Herein
lies what has been aptly called the "totalitarian temptation." In
this sense, as the French philosopher Claude Lefort has pointed out in
L’invention démocratique (1981), his acute analysis of democracy,
totalitarianism is the attempt to "embody" or
"incorporate" democracy, to transform "indeterminate"
democracy into a visible "body." Democracy is
"indeterminate" because, in the democratic dispensation, the
"seat of power" is "void"—occupied only provisionally
by succeeding representatives. The King’s presence was overwhelming; the
democratic statesmen’s is ordinarily underwhelming. As long as the citizens
have not accustomed themselves to the worthy but modest function of
choosing their representatives, the representatives will not be a match for
the majesty of the people. Some demagogue will explain to the people that
he will lead them to the empty place so that they themselves will occupy
the seat of power: "Totalitarianism establishes a mechanism which . .
. aims to weld anew power and society, to obliterate all the signs of
social division, to banish the indetermination which haunts democratic
experience. . . . From democracy and against it a body is thus made
anew." When writing those lines, Lefort had principally in mind the
Soviet regime, but it is clear that "race," no less than
"class," can offer the basis for the building of this new
homogeneous body.
Thus
Lefort, drawing part of his inspiration from the phenomenological
tradition, brings to our attention the bodily character of the political,
or the political character of the body. This close relationship, although
coming to the surface of speech in common expressions like "political
body" or "body politic," has long been obscured in our
democratic dispensation. Our forefathers, on the contrary, were well aware
of it. Indeed how best to define the predemocratic order? If we look for
one synthetic trait, then we will define it as an order founded on
filiation. Everyone’s place in society was in principle determined by his
or her "birth." One’s name and estate were determined through
heritage. There were only families, poor or rich, common or noble, but each
one governed by the head of family.
In
contradistinction to ancient cities, in which heads of families were
roughly equal politically and participated in the same "public
space," in Western predemocratic societies there was no public space.
Or rather, what was public was the family analogy, the logic of filiation
and paternity, the fact that the same representation of the human ties or
bonds circulated throughout the whole. Ultimately, what was public, that
is, what was sacred, was the person of the King, that is, the King’s body.
This
familial order, based as it was on the fecundity of the body and on
accidents of birth, strikes us today as bizarre and even disgusting. If we
are sophisticated enough, we will say with cool competence: it was the
value system of our forefathers, ours is different, and our grandchildren’s
will again be different from it and ours. I’m afraid I am not so
sophisticated. This familial order was not just a value system or a
cultural construct. It drew its strength, its durability, its
quasi–universal validity (before democracy) from the general awareness that
it was rooted not only in an undoubtedly natural fact, but in the fact
that, so to speak, sums up "nature," that is, birth and
filiation.
Even
among scholars, it is a common mistake to confuse any political reference
to "the body" with "organicism." It is then seen either
as a mere figure of speech, or, more ominously, as a "holistic"
representation fraught with oppressive potentialities. As a matter of fact,
a "body" is very different from what is generally understood by
"organism." In the latter, the part is strictly subordinated to
the whole. In the former, the whole is present and active in each part.
Thus the idea of the body is not at all a mechanical, or even a physical,
idea. It is, on the contrary, a spiritual idea: each part is at the same
time itself and the whole. In this sense, every society, every polity, is a
body.
These
very sketchy observations help us to understand the meaning and strength of
the order of the body, and by the same token to wonder at its swift and
nearly complete demise. Lefort describes the nature, and appreciates the
enormity, of the process as follows:
The ancien régime was made up of
innumerable little bodies that provided people with their bearings. And
those little bodies disposed themselves within a huge imaginary body of
which the King’s body offers a replica and the token of its integrity. The
democratic revolution, long underground, blows up when the King’s body is
destroyed, when the head of the body politic falls to the ground, when
accordingly the corporeity of society dissolves. Then something happens
which I would dare to call the disincorporation of individuals.
Extraordinary phenomenon. . . .
Why
was it such an "extraordinary phenomenon"? To put it in a
nutshell: while previous societies organized themselves so as to bind their
members together, while they extolled the ideas of concord and unity, our
democratic society organizes itself so as to untie, even to separate, its
members, and thus guarantee their independence and their rights. In this
sense, our society proposes to fulfill itself as a dis–society. An
extraordinary phenomenon indeed!
But
will not a society thus dissociating be unable to carry on, to say nothing
of prospering? That is the recurrent fear in modern society, voiced by
conservatives and socialists alike, with even a few liberals joining in at
times. But as a matter of fact, belying all the prophets of doom,
democratic societies have maintained their cohesion, they have prospered;
indeed, they offer today—the vast bulk of mankind agrees on this point—the
only viable and desirable way of organizing a decent common life. So we
must infer that their continuous decomposition has been accompanied by a
continuous recomposition. What is the principle of this recomposition? To
cut a very long story short: it is the principle of representation. As
Lefort emphasizes, the order of representation has succeeded the order of
incorporation. And the principle behind the principle of representation is
the will—the will of people—a purely spiritual principle. The ultimate
mainspring of democratic society is the fecundity of human will, or rather
the capacity of the will to produce desirable effects.
Let
us retrace our journey so far. I have argued that totalitarianism has been
the experimentum crucis for political philosophy in this century, and that
political philosophy, thus tested, was found wanting. We are able now to
give a more precise assessment. The perplexities that attend the inquiry
into the nature of totalitarian regimes do not arise solely from the
peculiarly enigmatic essence of those regimes. Or rather, their enigmatic
essence derives from another enigma or uncertainty, one that also concerns
democracy. The uncertainty is this: where, and what, is the people’s will?
How can a purely spiritual principle give form and life to a body politic?
The "totalitarian temptation" is made possible by, and takes
place in, the uncharted territory between the "body" of predemo
cratic society and the "soul" of democratic politics. There is
much more here than a glib metaphor. Indeed, we are at the heart of our
practical and theoretical difficulties: herein lies the task of political
philosophy, if it cares to have one.
We
need to return again and again to the contrast between predemocratic and
democratic societies, and to the dialectics between the two. This
insistence may seem odd to Americans, since the U.S. had no real experience
of predemocratic society and does not seem to be worse off for it: as
Tocqueville so memorably said, "Americans are born equal, instead of
becoming so." But my proposal is for a philosophical inquiry, not a
historical one.
We
begin with a paradox. We instinctively think that predemocratic societies
gave an advantage to the soul as opposed to the body, even as we
instinctively suppose that democratic societies have rejected the excessive
pretensions of the soul and have "liberated the body," or, in
Saint–Simonian parlance, "rehabilitated the flesh." These
impressions are not simply erroneous; there is much truth in them. But at
the same time we could say that the opposite also is true. We have seen
that predemocratic societies were "incorporated" societies, rooted
in the fecundity of the body, culminating in the King’s body. As for
democratic societies, while they are not particularly religious, they are
politically and morally spiritualist, even otherwordly. Electing a
representative, unlike begetting an heir, is the work of the will—of the
mind or the soul.
That
spirituality holds true not only in political relations, but in social and
moral life as well. Democratic societies typically insist that all our
bonds, including our bodily ones, have their origin in a purely spiritual
decision, a decision reached in full spiritual sovereignty. We reject any
suggestion that the body could create bonds by itself, that there could be
ties rooted essentially in the "flesh." The "new
family" results from the growing understanding of marriage and
parenthood as "continuous choice." Even bodily intercourse is no
longer supposed to create bonds by itself, to have meaning by itself: it
does so only as far, and as long, as the will makes it so. Such meaning the
will is free to confer and withdraw "at will." We increasingly
behave, and we increasingly interpret our behavior, as if we were angels
who happen to have bodies. Carnal knowledge is no longer such.
No
wonder, then, that what goes by the name of political philosophy or theory
today is rather angel ology. In an otherwordly space—perhaps separated from
this earth by a "veil of ignorance"—beings who are no longer, or
not yet, truly human deliberate over the conditions under which they would
consent to land on our lowly planet and don our "too solid
flesh." They hesitate a lot, as well they might, and their abstract
reasonings are complex and multifarious, if so hypothetical that they carry
little weight. Political thought cannot indulge indefinitely to live in an
atmosphere that is at the same time rarefied and vulgar. Totalitarianism,
it is true, has been defeated without much contribution from political
philosophy, and democracy seems to sail on unchallenged. But even in
practical terms, it is not prudent to lean exclusively on the workaday virtues
of the democratic citizenry.
We
need to recapture something of what democracy left behind in its march to
supremacy. Modern democracy has successfully asserted and realized the
homogeneity of human life, but it is now required to try to recover and salvage
the intrinsic heterogeneity of human experiences. The experience of the
citizen is different from that of the artist, which in turn is different
from that of the religious person, and so on. These decisive articulations
of human life would be hopelessly blurred if the current conceit prevailed
that every human being, as "creator of his or her own values," is
at the same time an artist, a citizen, and a religious person—indeed, all
these things and more. Against this conceit, political philosophers should
undertake to bring to light again the heterogeneity of human life.
It
might be argued that this heterogeneity is adequately taken care of through
the public acknowledgment of the legitimate plurality of human values.
Nothing could be more mistaken. As Leo Strauss once tersely remarked,
pluralism is a monism, being an –ism. The same self–destructive quality
attaches itself to our "values." To interpret the world of
experience as constituted of admittedly diverse "values" is to
reduce it to this common genus, and thus to lose sight of that
heterogeneity we wanted to preserve. If God is a value, the public space a
value, the moral law within my heart a value, the starry sky above my head
a value . . . what is not? At the same time, for this is confusion’s great
masterpiece, the "value language" makes us lose the unity of
human life—this necessary component of democratic self–consciousness—just
as it blurs its diversity: you don’t argue about values since their value
lies in the valuation of the one who puts value on them. Value language,
with the inner dispositions it encourages, makes for dreary uniformity and
unintelligible heterogeneity at the same time.
Certainly
Max Weber would look with consternation on a state of things he unwillingly
did so much to advance. As Science as a Vocation makes clear, he devoted
his uncommon strength of mind and soul to the task for which I have just
entered my feeble plea: to recover, or to salvage, the genuine diversity of
human experiences. He was undoubtedly right to underline that the Beautiful
is not the same as the Good or the True. But then, or so it seems to me, he
crossed the line. Why interpret this internal differentiation of human life
as a conflict, even as a "war"—the "war of the gods" attendant
to the "polytheism" of human "values"? Why say that we
know that some things are beautiful because they are not good? Why say that
we know that some beings are good or holy because and inasmuch as they are
not beautiful? It seems that Weber here let himself be carried away by the
restlessness of his spirit. How impatient we moderns have become! If two
things don’t match exactly, then they must be enemies.
Perhaps
we have been impatient and restless from the beginning. Was not Descartes,
the father of Enlightenment, as well the father of our impatience when he
deliberately equated what is doubtful with what is false? How much wiser in
my opinion was Leibniz, who tranquilly countered that what is true is true,
what is false is false, and what is doubtful is . . . well, it is doubtful.
We need Leibniz’s equanimity more than Descartes’ impatience, so that we
may sojourn within our different experiences, and draw from each its
specific lesson.
The
same human being, after all, admires what is beautiful, is motivated by
what is good, and pursues the truth. Sometimes he comes across a
"brave bad man," as it befell Lord Clarendon; or he meets a fair
treacherous woman. These complexities, sometimes even incongruities, of
human experience need to be described accurately. Generally, the more bold
the colors, the less exact the drawing. Human life does not warrant
despair, and the social sciences do not warrant nihilism, because human
life is humanly intelligible.
It
is possible, even probable, that the democratic regime could not have come
into being without the impatience of Descartes and others; it is possible
as well that democratic citizens would have fallen asleep if not for the
strident clarion calls of Weber and others. But victorious and mature
democracy would do well to temper these extreme moods and open itself to
the inner diversity of human experience as it claims to be open to the
outer diversity of the human species. This would seem to be a tall order:
for now, at least, few political philosophers have given it heed.
Pierre
Manent is Director of Studies at the école des Hautes Études en Sciences
Sociales in Paris. His books include Tocqueville and the Nature of
Democracy and The City of Man. This essay is adapted from a conference
paper delivered at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in June
1999.
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