Political Life in Dark Times: A Call for Renewal (Faith and Politics: Political Theology in a New Key) 179363453X, 9781793634535

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Political Life in Dark Times

Political Life in Dark Times A Call for Renewal

Fred Dallmayr

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2021 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Control Number: 2020949049 ISBN 9781793634535 (cloth: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781793634542 (epub) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Preface vii 1 Introduction: Political Education in Dark Times

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2 Loyalties in Tension: A New Socratic Apology?

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3 Nation-State and Ethical Community: Divorcing Statecraft and Soulcraft? 25 4 Liberating Remembrance: Politics and Recollection

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5 Ethics and Modern Politics: Humanism and Orthopraxis

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6 Twilight of Modern Idols: Lessons of the Global Pandemic

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7 Conclusion: Renewal of Virtue

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Bibliography 87 Index 93 About the Author

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Preface

The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is rightly considered the prototypical thinker of modernity and especially of the modern state. He appreciated the American constitution, particularly its institutional arrangements and its emphasis on civil rights. However, there was something that troubled him deeply: the so-called separation of power. What concerned him was not a friendly competition of institutions but the possibility that separation would give way to animosity and hostile conflict. His fear was not entirely unfounded. Every year the president of the United States offers a “State of the Union” message which is widely regarded as a yardstick of constitutional health. Yet, in recent years, many observers or listeners could not help but view the message as a gauge of disunity or division. What compounds this impression of institutional conflict and division is the growing disarray found in international affairs. Concern about the latter kind is again not unfounded. Wherever one looks today around the globe, one finds stirrings of animosity or hostility, often instigated by nationalist or chauvinistic movements and ambitions. This situation is quite different from conditions prevailing about a generation ago. At that time, a generation came of age which still carried the wounds and scars inflicted by World War II. I belong to that generation. I remember the decades after the war as decades of outreach and goodwill (although the latter was often put to the test by Cold War animosities). In any case, these were times of spectacular institutionbuilding and global innovation. The United Nations was founded in 1945 and by the end of the century had nearly 200 members in its assembly. The European Union and European citizenship became effective in 1993 and after some fifty years included nearly all the European countries. The Latin American Free Trade Association was founded in 1960, followed by numerous similar organizations. vii

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As a member of the postwar generation I participated in global relations and the practical strengthening of global good will. At the end of nearly sixty years of college teaching my colleague Ruth Abbey published a book in my honor titled Cosmopolitan Civility: Global-Local Reflections with Fred Dallmayr (SUNY Press, 2020). The book contains contributions of colleagues and friends from nearly every continent and every facet of human civilization. This collection naturally made me happy and proud, but it also made me painfully aware of the changes in the global temper that are occurring in the present century. It so happened that the UN General Assembly proclaimed 2001 as the “Year of Dialogue among Civilizations.” However, this global climate was dramatically challenged or dashed by September 11 (the attack on the New York Trade Center). Since that event, the wartime system of interstate or international rivalry was reinstated and its potential renewed. Politicians began to grow fond again of the old habit of political hostility and interstate enmity. In any case, the spirit expressed in Abbey’s book gave increasingly way again to the non-spirit of “chauvinistic incivility” manifest in the sway of terrorism and “terror wars.” This book is written and presented in the midst of the spreading mood of incivility, aggravated by the global pandemic. But it carries a different message: the message of Socratic debate, of Thomas More’s disloyal loyalty, of Erasmus’s civic humanism, of Gandhi’s resolute “orthopraxis,” and of Benjamin’s and Adorno’s notion of redeeming hope in the future. Hence the subtitle: A Call for Renewal.

Chapter 1

Introduction Political Education in Dark Times

Politics is not always a harmless enterprise; it is not like playing a card game or solving a mathematical puzzle. Rather, it is an enterprise involving the whole human being in thought and action, in its relation to life and death. For this reason, the ancient Greeks included politics in a broad field of studies called “ta anthropina” (the human things).1 Accordingly, any serious involvement in politics would seem to presuppose a fair acquaintance with human nature or with the character of humanity broadly conceived. Unfortunately, this is not the case, such acquaintance usually being left to arbitrary chance. In fact, one finds here a surprising negligence. If someone were to choose plumbing as a professional occupation, one would expect this person to serve for several years as apprentice to a master plumber. If someone wishes to enter the medical profession, one would expect this person to undergo thorough training and to pass several examinations. However, no such preparation is required for an aspiring politician. Often, a sudden fling of interest or confidence in one’s personal aptitude seems sufficient to start a political career. To be sure, politics is not a professional specialty; as indicated before, it involves human beings as a whole. Still, we can obtain some cues from the name of the enterprise. As the term reveals, politics is connected in some fashion with the affairs of the city or polis, that is, the affairs of a civic community beyond the limits of a family, tribe, or clan. Simply put, it is in the polis or city that people show what they are like as human beings, and not simply as family or clan members. In more philosophical and ethical terms one can say that civic members or “citizens” are supposed to be elevated (at least to some degree) above the level of parochial selfishness or self-interest and thus able to catch a glimpse of the whole. Catching such a glimpse means that citizens are exposed (however partially) to the rays of justice, an 1

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exposure which leads to an understanding of the need for ethical “good life” or the “common good.”2 I should add that, in modern times, the confines of the “city” have been expanded to larger ensembles such as the “state” and the global “interstate” community. As one can see, politics is actually a demanding affair—and so is political education. Elevating oneself (however partially) above parochial self-interest is a difficult ethical task, probably the most difficult labor of a lifetime. Clearly, political education from this angle is not a parlor game. Viewed from a transpersonal (or trans-selfish) angle, the city or polis reveals itself as a complex ensemble of relationships, as a set of interlacing and criss-crossing trajectories, all of which require and deserve proper attention. Catering to these interlocking relationships is the task of politics and political education. Under the influence of Cicero, the Romans had a viable definition of the meaning of “justice” which captures the ensemble of relationships: “neminem laedere, suum cuique tribuere”—“harm nobody, accord to everyone his/her due.” From this perspective, maybe politics can be called a “harmless” or non-harming enterprise. But how often do politicians, do political regimes fall short of this motto! And when they fall short, politics inevitably becomes an enterprise which inflicts harm on relationships, and with harm comes destruction and death, ultimately the destruction of the city itself. In previous eras, the relation between justice and civic well-being, and injustice and civic harm was still more vivid and widely recognized. It was also clearly perceived by notable artists and this for good reasons. For all observers—even those not directly tied to politics as a métier—there is a connection between politics and public “power,” a connection that tends to result in either the fortune or the misfortune of peoples. In the Italian city of Siena, there is a town hall which contains a series of medieval frescoes that are both beautiful and pertinent. Painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the early fourteenth century, the frescoes depict on the one side “The Allegory of Bad Government” and “The Effects of Bad Government in Town and Country,” and on the other side “The Effects of Good Government in Town and Country.” The centerpiece is called “The Allegory of Good Government.” The allegorical depiction of bad government portrays rulers obsessed with greed and personal lust for power; the effects in town and country are shown to be violence, strife, and destruction. The allegorical image of good government by contrast depicts rulers dedicated to justice and the observance of cardinal virtues; the effects of this regime are “good life,” public happiness, and flourishing people. In line with these good effects, the entire room is appropriately also called “Peace Hall.” The artwork in Siena speaks a “truth” which political rulers often try to disguise or neglect. The “Peace Hall” is also important for politics and political education in a broader sense: namely, simply as an artwork. In general terms,

Introduction

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art (of any kind) has the ability to lift artists and viewers or listeners beyond the level of petty impulses and selfish interests to a point where contrasts are both presented and at the same time mediated or reconciled. If justice in a city, as previously indicated, involves an ascent beyond selfish interest, then art has (or should have) a major influence on politics and political education. This goes for all forms of art. In painting one perceives the differential symbiosis of a great variety of colors and compositional elements. A similar remark can be made about architecture seen as a visual art form. Of course, music illustrates beautifully the symbiotic relationship of diverse elements: think of the difference of tonalities (major and minor), the difference of tempi (from lento to prestissimo), and the variety of sounds (from piano to fortissimo). And think of the great diversity of instruments (from violin and flute to tuba and drums) coming together in a symphony. To be sure, similar comments can be made about the variety of literary genres (from prose narrative to lyrical poetry). What a vast field of artistic art forms from which politicians and students of politics could—and should—learn and benefit!!3 To be sure, I am quite aware of the unusual character of my view of political education here. I am quite familiar with the need for empirical (often statistical) information that students of politics are expected to master. This need is underscored in our time by a renewed emphasis on scientific “positivism,” where only “positive” or empirical knowledge is recognized as “knowledge” (preferably expressed in numbers). Yet, although valuable for some purposes, celebration of positivism can be stultifying. First of all, such information can today be readily obtained from the internet and encyclopedias. There is no shortage but actually a glut of available information. More importantly, factual information as such does not interpret itself; left to itself, in the absence of critical scrutiny, information can turn into stifling dogmatism. Still more importantly, collecting information by itself does not lead to character formation; above all, it does not lead to self-scrutiny and thus does not encourage the move beyond parochial self-interest which is required in a just city. Unperturbed by positivist objections, I shall continue my own reflections. I want to turn to another implication of art and artworks for politics and political education, namely in the field of practical life. Art is distinguished by a kind of praxis which is sidestepped or ignored in other areas. In all its forms, art results from the action of an artist which is called “creation” or “creative work.” Now, such creation is not an individual act which is instrumental for the reaching of a self-chosen goal or selfish benefit. Nor is it simply the result of external forces or the reaction to natural causation. Thus, creative work hovers between necessity and selfish freedom. In philosophical terms, this kind of action can be traced to Aristotle’s notion of praxis; in more recent times, it has been developed mainly by philosophical hermeneutics and interpretive and aesthetic theory. Neither a causal effect nor a whimsical

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invention, artwork here is seen as a kind of “co-doing,” that is, as an action or praxis responsive in multiple directions: toward nature, the social life-world, and more elusive sources of “inspiration.” For this reason, great artworks appeal to people from very different walks of life, establishing a kind of human “solidarity” opposed to external control or managerial designs. HansGeorg Gadamer, the great practitioner of hermeneutics (and an Aristotelian) has expressed this point very well in a text on the meaning of praxis: “Praxis is conducting oneself and acting in solidarity—which is the basis of social [or communal] reasoning.” As he adds: “There is a saying of Heraclitus, the ‘weeping’ philosopher: The logos is common to all, but people behave as if each had a private reason. Does this have to remain this way?”4 As one can see, politics and political education have much to learn from art and artworks. But of course, with artworks goes their interpretation in hermeneutics and many other texts. As I stated at the very beginning: politics is not a narrow specialty, but involves the human being as a whole in a multitude of relationships. But this wholeness is in turn not stagnant or fixed; human “nature” (so-called) is not a narrow field protected by high walls against other dimensions. Thus, political education needs to be generously open in many directions. One major field to which political education needs to be open is the broad arena of nature or the natural environment. As we know, this arena today is in a condition of turbulence (quite in contrast to the customary equation of “nature” with permanence). We are quite familiar with signs of this turbulence: from global warming to ecological mutation to global natural disasters (as predicted in dramatic doomsday scenarios). Can political education simply ignore these dangers? I am not speaking here of purely scientific matters: analysis of the causes of ecological disasters and their scientific prevention. I am speaking of the philosophical interpretation of ecological events, of the basic relation between humanity and nature. For surely there are many direct implications of ecological events for social and political life, both presently and in the time to come. Human civilization and especially Western civilization are put to the test by the inroads of ecological changes. Political education has to ponder the range of possible social responses, especially the question of how to avoid harmful politics which increase the danger of destruction.5 Here we are back to the motto “neminem laedere, suum cuique tribuere.” As one can see, non-infliction of harm applies both to ecological change and the relation between human beings and societies. The Latin motto expresses a standard which has been discussed in ethical philosophy through the ages. This is why I believe that political education should be closely allied with philosophy, and especially with the tradition of philosophical ethics. If justice in society depends on members being able to move beyond the self to the vision of the “good life,” then familiarity with the large ethical tradition—both in

Introduction

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the West and the non-West—should be a required part of political education.6 However, a further dimension should also not be forgotten. Human beings are located not only on the cusp of self and non-self (or other), they are also situated at the intersection of life and death, of immanence and transcendence, of finitude and infinity. For this reason, students of politics should also be exposed to the religious and spiritual traditions which point human life to the great “otherness” of infinity. To some extent, these traditions are cultivated in theology and religious studies—although their spirit can never be academically pinned down and implies a process of constant renewal.7 Basically, if all the fields I mentioned are taken into account, it becomes clear that political education deals, a Socrates held, with everything that concerns or elicits the care of human beings (ta anthropina). To avoid misunderstanding, let me add this reminder. Openness to the broad field of “human things” does not mean the pretense of expert knowledge. Thus, the proximity of politics to art does not require political educators to teach skills of artistic performance (in music, visual arts, and poetry). What education aims to instill in students is a sensitivity to the meaning and intrinsic wisdom of art. With even greater force, this caveat applies to the closeness of political studies to philosophy and especially to philosophical ethics. What is important for students of politics is to be familiar with the basic questions or issues raised by the philosophical tradition, without necessarily subscribing to one or the other ethical doctrine or school of thought. What is crucial here is the need to avoid the temptation of pontificating about doctrines or particular “solutions” to ethical problems. In this domain again, it is good to remember Socrates and to embrace Socratic doubt and the Socratic mode of questioning which is far removed from doctrinaire skepticism and relativism. By contrast, pretended knowledge and pontification are a deterrent to further inquiry, and thus stifle the life of the spirit. Needless to say, similar considerations apply to the recommended closeness to spiritual or religious teachings. In this field, educational openness cannot possibly mean the preaching of a particular religious tradition or set of beliefs. What students can be expected to nurture is sensitivity to the perennial call of spiritual, possibly sacred questions and demands, and also alertness to the perennial danger of idolatry.8 In order to sketch the trajectory of this book, I want to return briefly to the Peace Hall in Siena and to the pictures of good and bad government in town and country. Unfortunately, our time—locally and globally—seems to lean massively in the second direction. This book gives examples of such bad effects and of social conditions which produce these effects. Generally speaking, the book depicts political life “in dark times”—but always with an eye toward possible improvements. To be sure, political disarray or “badness” is not a recent invention, but has accompanied human life through many centuries and ages. Chapter 2 examines the tension or conflict of loyalties which

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usually arises when politics is in disarray. The chief example examined in the chapter is the trial of Socrates as presented in Plato’s Apology. As should become obvious in my presentation, Socrates was not just an alienated individual but a great educator or teacher of politics—whose teachings got him into trouble with the city he loved. His death at the hands of a doctrinaire or indoctrinated multitude was not a mark of futility or despair but offers a shining lesson of the dignity of a virtuous life and a “life well examined.” Another example taken from early European modernity is that of Sir Thomas More in his conflict with the British crown. What links More with Socrates is his life of ethical self-examination and genuine piety. Although deeply committed to the “polis” of his homeland, More suffered death on orders of King Henry VIII who believed that royal power gave him the license to act as he pleased. More’s memorable words on the scaffold: “I die the king’s loyal servant but God’s first.” The chapter concludes with reflections on the “two cities” invoked in these words and also obliquely at play in the trial of Socrates. As I try to show, the two cities—the “real” and the “ideal” city, the city of power and the city of justice—are distinct but not completely separate from each other. Even when shunned, justice is always implicated in the city of power as its promise, justification, and ultimate sublimation. In an effort to explicate this close relation I rely on arguments by the French philosophers Jacques Maritain and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, both eminent thinkers of differentiated relationships, that is, relations which go beyond “monism” or “dualism,” beyond convergence and conflict. Chapter 3 examines the predicaments troubling the modern city called the “state” or “nation-state.” As the chapter recalls, the modern state emerged after the Reformation from the ruins of the medieval religious empire. At that juncture, the nascent states were “confessional” in character, in the sense that the confession of the ruler determined the confession of the citizens (cuius regio eius religio). During the ensuing centuries, the religious quality of political life gradually receded, giving way instead to more worldly and humanistic dispositions (this was the “classical” form of the modern state as celebrated in the work of Hegel). In the nineteenth century, this broadly humanistic outlook was pushed into the background, making room for the sway of materialistic and financial-pecuniary tendencies which, in the end, spawned the rise of ethnically or racially determined modes of nationalism. Bereft of all ethical and spiritual motivations, the past hundred years finally witnessed the emergence of the nation-state, that is, a state devoted completely to national power and “absolved” from deeper human loyalties. At this point, what comes into view is a pervasive conflict between state and society, between government and “people,” with the former being reduced to technical control and the latter to the remnant of an ethical community. Figuratively speaking, I deplore this

Introduction

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contrast as the “divorce between statecraft and soulcraft.” The chapter ends with a plea for the progressive transformation of the state by movements committed to ethical solidarity, civility, and respect of differences. Chapter 4 examines the situation of absolutized “statecraft” under the influence of rightwing nationalism in Europe. The focus of the chapter is on ideas and writings conceived during the first part of the last century, that is, during the Weimar period and World War II. At that time, the steady upsurge of fascism in many European countries cast a dark shadow on public life and political imagination, disabusing many intellectuals of hopeful dreams still prevailing at the turn of the century in the Belle Epoque. For thinking people, the basic question became the possibility of radical renewal: how the bitter experiences of social despair and domination could serve as waystations for the recovery of civility and an ethical public life. The question was particularly alive in the German Frankfurt School during the Nazi period, when some of its members were driven into exile or else an early death. A prominent example was Walter Benjamin, a victim of Nazi persecution who found intellectual support and sustenance in recollection or “memory-work” as an antidote to the dark experiences of his life. What attracted his interest particularly was the Baroque period and especially the legacy of German Baroque theater which he interpreted as a “passion play.” The lesson he derived from that period was the rise of an eschatological “promise” containing a redemptive spark for the future. Benjamin’s literary initiative was continued and fleshed out by Theodor Adorno, especially in his writings on “natural history.” In these texts, history was interpreted not as an arsenal disclosing an ideal purpose or teleology but rather as an emblem of contingent transition which ultimately opens the vision toward a redemptive and more peaceful world. This vision was further deepened in a study undertaken by Adorno and Max Horkheimer during the war years and subsequently published under the title Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). In somber language, the study examined the course of modern Western history, portraying it not as a unidirectional process, but as a fateful collusion of advance and regress. Under different auspices, the theme of recollection or remembrance was also examined by a number of other thinkers. Thus, in his “Letter on Humanism” (1946), Martin Heidegger turned specifically to the role of “recollective” or “commemorative” thinking (Andenken) as a mode of prospective disclosure and relief.9 The chapter ends with reflections on broader social and political implications of recollection. One implication is in the prominent field of ecology and ecological change. Another implication (developed mainly by theologians) is the need for an “anamnestic solidarity” or solidarity of remembrance in opposition to universal types of managerial control and exploitation. Chapter 5 returns to the basic question pervading this entire book: the relation between ethics and modern politics, more specifically, how ethical

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considerations can tame or rein in the corrupting effects of sheer power politics. To tackle this issue, the chapter turns to the tradition of the “virtues,” mainly as this tradition was recovered in early modernity in the “mirror of princes” literature. My main focus here is on Erasmus of Rotterdam, the great Dutch humanist and friend of Sir Thomas More. As it happens, Erasmus’s age was in many ways similar to ours in its turbulence and bent to destruction. Throughout his life, Europe was seething with violent or potentially violent conflicts: between nascent nation-states, between religious factions or denominations, and between social classes and groups. In the midst of this turmoil, Erasmus managed to preserve his goodwill and moral and intellectual sanity, showing him to be a “man for all seasons” (like his friend Thomas More). A chief testimonial of his ethical outlook is the text The Education of a Christian Prince (of 1516), which reveals his determined effort to curb or uplift the power-political tendencies of the political rulers of his time. The main resource invoked in this effort is the classical (and partly medieval) legacy of the virtues, their educational training, and their habitual display in practical situations. With this text, Erasmus served as moderator or bridgebuilder between the ancients and the “moderns,” and more importantly between philosophical wisdom and practical application. The same chapter takes up the issue of the compatibility of virtue with political life, more generally speaking, of the convergence or basic contrast between ethics and modern politics. To probe this issue I turn to the Italian political philosopher Norberto Bobbio and particularly his book In Praise of Meekness. In that book, Bobbio offers a very insightful (and largely sympathetic) reading of Erasmus’s work, differentiating that work clearly from the outlook of the champions of realpolitik. As he insists, a hard-nosed defense of power politics (as one occasionally finds in the texts of Machiavelli and his followers) is ultimately self-defeating because it undermines the well-being of the political community. To this extent, the dichotomy between “idealism” and “realism” has to be re-formulated more carefully and judiciously. Given his nuanced treatment of this dichotomy, one is surprised at Bobbio’s ultimate endorsement of another dualism: that between private and public conduct, where the former is largely nonpolitical. In lieu of this contrast, I opt for a different distinction: between pure power politics and “another” kind of politics, where the latter makes room for ethics and the virtues. To illustrate the second type, I invoke as a prototype the Gandhian kind of self-rule (swaraj) which includes a resolute affirmation of ethical praxis and which may be called “orthopraxis” (or in Gandhi’s case satyagraha and karmayoga). Chapter 6 addresses a calamity which has imposed itself relentlessly and with growing ferocity on humanity or the world as a whole: the so-called Covid-19 or coronavirus pandemic. My intent is not to explore the origins or causes of this pandemic or to assess the adequacy of the chosen political

Introduction

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responses (although there is surely much room for moral judgment). My more modest aim is rather to distil some possible lessons from the calamity. To be sure, great caution here is imperative. In the United States alone, the virus has so far killed some 220,000 people, while the number of the infected reaches millions. In the face of this magnitude of misery, any talk of possible benefits is likely to be charged with callousness or insensitivity. The only response that appears appropriate in this context is the ritual prayer for the dead (kaddish), and this refusal to treat the pandemic as a pretext for party-political agendas. Mindful of this sobering context, the chapter offers some reflections on what one may call the “twilight of modern idols,” that is, of deeply entrenched conceptions which are bound to lead us astray. One of these deeply cherished myths is human self-sufficiency and self-idolatry, that is, the belief that human beings are completely in controls of their lives and destinies. The rise and rapid spread of the virus has completely demolished this kind of “homocentrism”—which is vastly different from a generous and open-minded kind of “humanism.” Closely connected with this type of idolatry is the prevailing secular materialism, the idea that money and material possessions can offer a secure protection against disease, suffering, and death. Most importantly, the global expanse of the pandemic is evidence of the deep interconnectedness of humanity as a whole, in opposition to the persistent idols of aggressive nationalism, chauvinism, and ethnic self-enclosure. Ultimately, the method of “social distancing”—the preferred strategy for containing the virus—seems to reflect a suspected self-irony of the pandemic which finally must be abandoned with the disease. In our time, the basic issue is not simply the compatibility of virtue with politics, but rather the large-scale erasure of the legacy of virtue from public memory (even the memory of the academically educated). In chapter 7 I invoke the testimony of Alasdair MacIntyre who in his book After Virtue started with a “disquieting suggestion”: namely, that the moral culture today is in the same state of disarray as civilization would be after a wholesale holocaust. But I also invoke some contemporary political thinkers who take this suggestion as a call for renewal; my main witnesses here are John Milbank and Adrian Pabst with their study The Politics of Virtue: Post-Liberalism and the Human Future. To help with this renewal I return again to the “Peace Hall” in Siena whose frescoes offer a clear pictorial presentation of all the virtues which today are so largely forgotten, but which continue to haunt our memory and consciousness. To round out my call for renewal, I turn to the “Peace Memorial Park” in Hiroshima. Together with Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Nagasaki, Hiroshima represents the epitome reflecting the naked pursuit of power. If any place, the park issues a global call for change and renewal for contemporary humanity.

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NOTES 1. Compare “Apology,” in Irwin Edman (ed.), The Works of Plato, Jowett translation (New York: Modern Library/Simon & Schuster, 1956), p. 61. 2. See, e.g., Fred Dallmayr, In Search of the Good Life: A Pedagogy for Troubled Times (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2007). 3. See, e.g., Fred Dallmayr, Marc Chagall—The Artist as Peace-Maker (New York: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2020). 4. Hans-Georg Gadamer, “What Is Praxis?” in his Reason in the Age of Science, trans. Frederick G. Lawrence (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981), p. 87. Compare also Fred Dallmayr, Polis and Praxis: Exercises in Contemporary Political Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984). 5. Compare, e.g., Fred Dallmayr, Return to Nature? An Ecological Counterhistory (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2011). 6. Compare, e.g., Fred Dallmayr, Critical Encounters: Between Philosophy and Politics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987); G. W. F. Hegel: Modernity and Politics (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002); Being in the World: Dialogue and Cosmopolis (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2013); Integral Pluralism: Beyond Culture Wars (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2010). 7. Compare, e.g., Fred Dallmayr, Spiritual Guides: Pathfinders in the Desert (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017). 8. Compare, e.g., Fred Dallmayr, The Legacy of the Barmen Declaration: Politics and the Kingdom (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019). 9. Compare in this context also Eric Voegelin, Anamnesis, trans. and ed. Gerhart Niemeyer (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966/1978).

Chapter 2

Loyalties in Tension A New Socratic Apology?

What is one to do when habitual loyalties decay? More specifically: What is a citizen supposed to do when the fabric of the political life or the “city” is corrupted or falls apart? What remedy is available for citizens in this situation? The issue might be less grievous in the case of radical individuals who care about nobody else—but one might wonder about the possibility of a regime of individual egos. In the case of ordinary citizens, several remedies present themselves. The most important remedy is that of political reform, available especially where governments depend on popular elections. In case of severe repression, revolution offers itself as a viable alternative—as long as care is taken that the target of revolt are the rulers and not the people or co-citizens themselves. Where both reform and revolt are blocked or rendered unfeasible, exile into other countries may be a tempting solution—except for the fact that such countries may suffer from the same or worse ills than the homeland. Thus, corruption of one’s city ultimately leads to a life or death situation. Philosophers celebrate the legacy of Socrates who was condemned to death in Athens—but offered a powerful “apology” to his accusers. In later centuries, the Greek’s ethical retreat was supplemented by a religious retreat into a “holy” city away from worldly ills—which gave rise to the tradition of the so-called two cities. In the following, I want to remember both the Socratic and religious responses. By way of conclusion, I shall offer some thoughts on the relations between cities or regimes in our time. THE TRIAL OF SOCRATES In our memory, we are now in Greece, in the city of Athens. The time is 399 BC. There is a trial in process held before a large assemblage of people, 11

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very likely numbering in the thousands: the final verdict is to be decided by a group of 500 judges. The chief accusers are three Athenian citizens, Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon, who charge Socrates with having committed two main offenses: corrupting the youth of Athens and adopting an atheistic attitude toward the gods of the city. As recorded by Plato in his Apology, the accused is expected to carry forward his own defense and to examine directly his main accusers before the assembly. In Plato’s account, Socrates first of all addresses the assembled crowd by profiling his own position. Confronted with the avalanche of accusations, he confesses that he is “anything but a great speaker”—unless by eloquence is meant the persuasive “force of truth.” Instead of resorting to flamboyant and/ or esoteric rhetoric, his own speech (he says) “shall use the words and arguments which occur to me at the moment,” since he is “confident of the justice of my cause.” In addition, he refers to the advanced stage of his life: “For I am more than seventy years of age and appearing now for the first time in a court of law.” What is important is that he is “quite a stranger to the language of the place,” and therefore should be regarded really as “a stranger, whom you would excuse if he spoke in his native tongue and after the fashion of his country.”1 As it turns out in the course of his trial, the native tongue of Socrates is philosophy and ethics, and his “fashion” is philosophical questioning going beyond unexamined opinions. In his defense, Socrates distinguishes between two levels of accusations: older, amorphous, and widely shared charges, on the one hand, and, on the other, newer, more specific charges (especially those brought against him by Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon). Among these accusations, he considers the older ones more pernicious and dangerous because they arose “when you were children and took procession of your minds with their falsehoods.” These charges, he says, are “most difficult to deal with” because, being widespread, there is no one who could be interrogated or cross-examined. The gist of these charges is that Socrates is a “wise man who speculated about the heaven above and searched into the earth beneath” and “made the worse appear to be the better cause.” In addition, Socrates is said to be “an evildoer” who denies the existence of the gods and teaches his doctrines to others (thus corrupting the youth of Athens). Of these charges, the claim of wild speculations about natural phenomena is the easiest to rebut (the charge had famously been raised by Aristophanes in his comedy Clouds). “The simple truth, O Athenians,” Socrates states briskly, “is that I have nothing to do with physical speculations,” having rather spent long years reflecting about human life, its tasks and vicissitudes. As for the implication that Socrates has taught this knowledge of phenomena to students, “the assertion has no more truth in it than the other.”2 More difficult issues are raised by the claim of Socrates’s alleged superior wisdom above other human beings. At this point, Socrates informs the

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assembly of a strange encounter he had with the Delphic oracle or the god of Delphi. A somewhat impetuous citizen of Athens had traveled to Delphi and had asked “whether anyone was wiser than I was,” and the oracle had answered that “there was no man wiser.” This answer had given him, Socrates, a bad reputation or an “evil name” because it made him appear arrogant and superior in knowledge to all other men, when—in actuality—“I know that I have no wisdom, small or great.” In order to test the oracle of Delphi, he proceeded to interrogate many other people in the city, in an effort to find someone with truly superior wisdom. “I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity I provoked.” But the result was strange and disconcerting: “I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better.” The people he interrogated were of diverse backgrounds and occupations, including poets, artisans or craftsmen, and rhetoricians. Those inquiries caused Socrates to having “many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind,” for he seemed to arrogate to himself supreme and almost divine wisdom. But here comes his own conclusion: “The truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise, and by the oracle he intends to show that the wisdom of [worldly] men is worth little or nothing.” And so, in his inquiries he, Socrates, “goes about the world obedient to the god” (of Delphi); in fact; “I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god.”3 Perhaps, at this point, it is appropriate to interrupt briefly Plato’s account of the trial; for, on the face of it, Socrates seems both to downgrade wisdom and to celebrate it. He professes to think little or nothing of the wisdom of himself and his fellow citizens, but he upholds firmly the wisdom of the gods. Thus, he holds in low esteem ordinary human insight, saying that such insight is “in truth worth nothing,” but he upholds and even venerates a “transmundane” insight claiming that in truth “God only is wise.”4 By speaking in this way, Socrates clearly takes wisdom out of the range of human property or appropriation—a range occupied by his accusers—while at the same time placing wisdom on the level of aspirations, of infinite searching or longing. Perhaps one can compare wisdom here to a beloved person, who can never be owned or appropriated but can only be adored, cherished, and cared for. (This would account for the large number of Plato’s dialogues which can only be seen as waystations on a perennial search.) The second part of Socrates’s defense turns to more recent charges or accusations, especially the charges of Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon. The central figure here is Meletus, a “good man and lover of his country, as he calls himself.” In a nutshell, his accusation against Socrates is as follows: he is “a doer of evil who corrupts the youth, and someone who does not believe in the gods of the State, but has other divinities of his own.” By itself, the charge of corrupting the youth is not very grievous and acquires its gravity only in

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connection with the second charge (of impiety). The discussion of corruption starts from the query whether Socrates is the only one in Athens who corrupts, in contrast to all other citizens: “Thus every other Athenian improves [the youth] and elevates them, all with the exception of myself, their only corruptor?” The query being confirmed, the issue next turns to the question of intention: “Do you allege that I corrupt them intentionally or unintentionally?” This issue ends in a stalemate, for if the corruption is intentional, it would lead to harmful revenge (which nobody wants); however, if the offense is unintentional, “the law has no cognizance of unintentional offenses.”5 As Socrates quickly recognizes, the issue of corruption is a mere smokescreen until the deeper charge is brought into play, namely the objective of corruption. Paraphrasing Meletus, Socrates offers this formulation: “I teach youth not to acknowledge the gods which the State acknowledges, but some other new divinities or spiritual agencies in their stead.” Here he discovers instantly a contradiction: that between belief and unbelief in gods. For, on the one hand, he is charged with teaching young people “to acknowledge some gods,” and therefore he does believe in gods (though not the same gods which the city recognizes) and thus is not an “entire atheist”; on the other hand, he is accused of being “an atheist simply and a teacher of atheism.” Socrates has no trouble in denouncing these double charges as a “facetious contradiction” or “facetious riddle” which ultimately is bound to undermine itself. Nobody would raise the two accusations simultaneously as long as he speaks “in earnest.”6 Perhaps, to clarify the entire issue of impiety, it is good to revisit the previous comments regarding wisdom. Like wisdom, gods or spiritual beings cannot be appropriated or treated like worldly property. Compared with empirical “things” of this world, gods or deities are indeed “no-things” or “non-entities,” and to this extent the claim of their worldly nonexistence is appropriate (although it may be misconstrued as “atheism”). Again like wisdom, the gods are not instruments to be used and manipulated; nor can they be fully known by human minds. They are more like horizons or aspirations to be searched and explored. Again, they can be compared to beloved beings who cannot be grasped but solicit us from beyond our finitude. At this point, in the account of Plato, Socrates fully acknowledges the gulf separating the finite world and infinity, a gulf marked by the figure of death. Reflecting on his situation, Socrates admits the many “enmities” he has incurred in life saying that they will be his “destruction,” if he is condemned. So putting aside Meletus and the others, his undoing will be “the envy and detraction of the world” which has been “the death of many good men and will probably be the death of many more,” including himself. And here is one of the stellar phrases which have earned Socrates (and Plato) the admiration of generations of people around the world:

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A man who is good for anything [or has virtue] ought not calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong, acting the part of a good man or of a bad.

Comparing himself to a soldier placed by his general in a dangerous position, he adds: “If now, when (as I believe) God orders me to fulfill the philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death or any other fear, that would indeed be strange” and inexcusable. In fact, such fear would involve a “pretense of wisdom,” namely the pretense of knowing the unknown when, in truth, nobody knows the nature of death, whether it is a curse or a blessing. Socrates concludes his defense with these words: Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone I meet after my manner.7

Following these concluding remarks, Socrates adds some afterthoughts which deserve to be briefly mentioned. In performing his mission, he insists, he is not acting as the state’s enemy, but rather as its faithful servant (although some people might attack him). “For know,” he addresses his fellow citizens, “that this is the command of God, and that no greater good has ever happened to the State than my service to the God.” At this point, he even depicts himself as “a sort of gadfly, given to the State by God”; for while the state is a “great and noble steed” but tardy in its motions owing to its size, the philosopher has been attached to it for the purpose of reminding people of the point of their life and their need for virtue. Regarding the specific commission given to him by the gods, Socrates reveals a detail which is of a personal or transpersonal character: there is a “sign” or a kind of “voice” which has spoken to him since his childhood, always forbidding him from doing an unjust act, while not commanding him directly what to do.8 Despite his elaborate pleadings, the outcome of the trial is clear: condemnation to death by majority vote. Realizing the gravity of his situation, Socrates refuses to plead with his judges or jury to procure his acquittal. For, the duty of judges is “not to make a present of justice, but to give judgment,” and to do so according to the laws, and not according to private preference or pleasure. Yet, just in order to acknowledge a possibility held out to him by his judges, Socrates considers briefly the alternative of leaving Athens and going into exile. However, he rejects this option on brief inspection. By considering exile, he notes, he must indeed be “blinded by the love of life.” For, “am I so irrational to expect that when you, my fellow citizen, cannot endure my discourses and words,” other people in different lands are likely to endure

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me? This is very unlikely. Moreover, “what kind of life should I lead, at my age, wandering from city to city, ever changing my place of exile and always being driven out?” The suggestion that he should just stop his discourses and keep his silence runs into the grave problem of impiety.9 There is another alternative to death, namely, the expectation of new experiences after death. In the common opinion, Socrates ponders, death is either “a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness,” or else there is “a migration of the soul from this world to another.” In the first case, if there is but a deep sleep undisturbed by any dreams, death will be an “unspeakable gain.” On the other hand, if death is a journey to another place where all the dead abide, “what good could be greater than this?” There, one would be delivered of false pretenses of justice and encounter true judges like Minos and Rhadamanthus. Would such a pilgrimage not be worthwhile and rewarding? “I myself,” Socrates confesses, “have a wonderful interest in meeting there and conversing with Palamedes and Ajax and other ancient heroes” who “suffered death through unjust judgment”!10 But on closer inspection, one wonders whether such speech is offered just as consolation (for himself and his accusers). Is death just a “journey to another place” where one encounters familiar people like in Athens? Is the meeting place of ancient heroes not only a city of dead people but a dead city? Thus, can one really migrate from a real city to a non-city? There is another consideration, however. For clearly, the death sentence imposed on the philosopher does not remove the influence of his teachings in his city and elsewhere. Fortunately, at this juncture, Socrates—and Plato with him—remembers the persistence of his work as a source of inspiration and educational transformation. At the conclusion of Plato’s text, Socrates issues a plea or request to the assembly—which, in fact seems to be addressed to people everywhere and especially in our affluent, neoliberal world today. He says: When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, my friends, to punish them and to trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches or anything more than about virtue. Or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, then reprove them as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care. And if you do this, both I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.11

A TALE OF TWO CITIES As we know, the influence of Socrates’s words was not limited to Greece and the ancient world as a whole; with numerous variations and modifications it

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persisted in medieval theology and even in the partially secularized European world. Among the early church fathers, the work of St. Augustine clearly stands out due to its eloquence and its classical erudition. Although not a great friend of Rome, his treatise City of God deliberately employed one of the key terms of Greco-Roman culture: that of city, polis or civitas. In several of its pages, the work refers to Greek philosophy and also to the trial of Socrates, as reported by Plato. However, in contrast to Plato’s Apology, the role of the contestants is nearly reversed: while the realm of divine justice appears to act as accuser, the worldly realm of power—represented by Rome—ocucpies the place of the accused or condemned. What is most noteworthy in Augustine’s work is the sharp dichotomy or dualism between two cities, called respectively the “heavenly city” or “city of God” (represented by the church) and the earthly city or “city of man.” Notwithstanding its many profound insights on many topics, it is chiefly this antithesis—often called the “tale of two cities”—that has marked its influence or reputation. What remains clearly appealing in City of God is that the dualism is not traced to different types of knowledge or rationality, but rather to different kinds of love. While in the one city termed “heavenly” people are said to love what is truly lovable, namely God, justice and virtue, people in the other city love what is despicable, namely vice, unjustice, and corruption. In the former, people are moved not only by fleeting emotion. Using biblical language, Augustine reminds us of a “good” which we are meant to love with our whole heart, our whole mind, and all of our strength. It is toward this “good,” Augustine says, that we should be led by those who love us, and toward this “good” we should lead those whom we love.12 As one can see, this love is largely synonymous with “worship of God,” with “true religion,” and the right kind of “piety.” On the other hand, the “city of man” teems with greed, aggression, and other kinds of vices. Although acceptable on first blush, these descriptions leave open a basic question: why either of these options should be called a “city” properly speaking. For as Augustine writes, respect for justice is constitutive of a city: “Wherever true justice is lacking, there cannot be a multitude of men bound together by mutual recognition of rights.” Thus, in the absence of justice “there is no commonwealth.”13 On the other hand, represented purely by the church, the “heavenly city” shows some of the deficiencies of the community of ancient heroes invoked by Socrates: lack of active citizenship, absence of a civil code, and certainly lack of a “mutual recognition of the rights” of all members. Perhaps the most dubious aspect of the work is the stark opposition of the two societies of good and bad people. Although Augustine recognizes the possibility of the co-existence of good and bad dispositions in the same human being, and thus also in the same society, little or nothing is said about the possible and even likely clash of dispositions—as illustrated in the trial fo

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Socrates.14 More importantly, the different loves seem to have a fated and genealogical origin, with little room for transformative change. In City of God, the difference is first traced to the time of creation and “two societies of angels.” A later chapter titled “Development of the Two Cities” invokes the clash between Cain and Abel, where Cain is assigned to the “city of man,” whereas Abel is said to inaugurate the “City of God.”15 In his Foreword to the study, Etienne Gilson rightly notes the role of fate or predestination. Historically, he writes, the conflict between Cain and Abel foreshadows the rift between “two radically distinct societies.” Accordingly, “as men follow the example of Cain or Abel, they place themselves in the ranks of one or the other of two people: of which one loves the good, the other evil.” The social and political implications are profound. “There is, on the one hand, the society or city of all men who, loving God in Christ, are predestined to reign externally with God. On the other hand, there is the city of all those men who do not love God and who are to suffer eternal punishment.” What is clear from this account, Gilson adds, is that St. Augustine has “never conceived the idea of a single universal society, but of two, both of which are universal—at least in the sense that every man whatsoever is necessarily a citizen of one or the other.”16 The Augustinian opposition of cities has dominated or overshadowed much of the ensuing European history. I cannot, in the following, discuss many details of the evolving “tale of two cities.” Just two points should be noted: first, the dualistic construal which allows for little or no interactive changes; and secondly, the often church-related definition of justice and goodness which can be at odds with Socratic questioning or doubt. For present purposes I want to limit myself to a dramatic episode of the “two cities” in early Western modernity, an episode which recalls some of the isuses found in the trial of Socrates: I refer to the conflict between Sir Thomas More and the British king Henry VIII. Although stirring precisely for its Socratic overtones, the encounter also illustrates the two points mentioned before. Born into a distinguished family of lawyers in London, Thomas More (14751535) attended one of the best secondary schools where he became proficient in Latin and Greek. Even as a teenager he served as a page to the Lord Chancellor of England, thus being introduced early on into British court life. In 1492, he began his studies at Oxford, concentrating again on the classics. At his father’s insistence, however, he switched soon to the London Inns of Court to complete his legal training. In character and personal desposition, More was both highly intelligent and deeply pious. As a young man he was strongly drawn to the “New Learning” (later called “humanism”) which then was spreading through Europe. According to his friend Erasmus, a leading humanist, More once considered leaving his legal career to become a monk; he also continued ascetic practices for the rest of his life. Being elected to Parliament in 1504, he married his first wife a year later and entered a public career.

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The division of his life between prayer and court life is reflected in More’s writings or publications. Probably his best known work is Utopia—more elaborately titled Concerning the Best State of a Commonwealth and the New Island of Utopia—which deals with a distant land far removed from European courts and court practices.17 As one should note, reflecting its author’s political caution, a Latin version of the book was first published by Erasmus in Holland in 1515, and thus remained nearly inaccessible to British readers; later it was translated into English and published in his home country in 1551—sixteen years after More’s execution. Clearly, the distance between “real” and “ideal” worlds could not have been greater. Basically, Utopia contrasts the belligerent, class-divided and corrupt condition of European states with the perfectly orderly and harmonious arrangements prevailing on the island. One of the most prominent and provocative ideas of the book was the proposal of “communal” rather than private ownership of goods. Another prominent feature was the defense of widespread religious toleration—an idea strongly favored by humanists (but which More himself had difficult observing in his later polemics against Protestant Reformers). As we read at the very end of the book: “There are many things in the Commonwealth of Utopia which I wish our own country would imitate—though I do not really expect it will.”18 Despite the author’s circumspection, More’s final clash with the ruling regime was probably inevitable. In the 1520s More was knighted and advanced to the position of secretary and personal advisor of Henry VIII. In 1525 he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and a few years later he assumed the office of Lord Chancellor. From this time forward, things began to heat up quickly. Despite extreme royal pressure, More continued to support the supremacy of the pope over the king. In 1531 a royal decree required all officials to take a loyalty oath acknowledging Henry VIII as supreme head of the Church of England. More refused to sign the oath and also refused to support the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon—although he kept his actions private. In 1534 he again refused to support the king’s supremacy and also to sign an “Oath of Succession” confirming Queen Anne. Charged with high treason, More was imprisoned in the Tower of London where he was tried and found quilty. The execution took place on July 6, 1535. While on the scaffold, he is reported to have declared, “I die the King’s good servant, and God’s first”—after which, kneeling, he recited the Miserere. IN PRAISE OF PHILOSOPHY Whenever spirit and worldly power collide, the result is bound to be painful and deeply disturbing. Maybe for this reason, the “two cities” have

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historically been kept far apart in theory and practice, in order to minimize the chances of collision. However, how feasible is this dichotomy? How can the “real” and “ideal” realms be kept strictly apart, when both continuously interact and seem to exist basically for each other? How can a “separate” interaction be conceived? As it happens, this conception has been one of the most innovative philosophical insights during the last hundred years. Despite its reputation of static continuity (philosophia perennis), philosophy in many contexts has of late experienced a suprising seechange upsetting the longstanding antithesis of monism and dualism. What emerges at this point is the notion that two phenomena can be separate from each other and yet be interacting or closely connected in their difference. In other words, phenomena can be closely related without collapsing into identity or drifting apart into enmity. With regard to the “tale of the two cities,” this means that the cities are not mutually distant lands (with few people migrating between them), but rather that, without being assimilated, the “ideal” city inhabits the “worldly” realm as its intrinsic aspiration or meaning. Differently put: the worldly city cannot be fully collapsed into power politics, while the aspired or ideal realm must be seen as a genuine “city” of God. The new turn or paradigm shift was initiated by a number of thinkers in the past century. For the sake of brevity, I select here two French philosophers whose work ably profiles the new outlook. The first is the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, especially in his writing on “integral humanism.” What for Maritain was involved in this expression was basically a rejection of the humanism dominant in preceding centuries: a humanism which was in essence secular, egocentric and anthropocentric. In his words, it was a perceptive where human nature was seen as “self-enclosed and self-sufficient” and human beings as “shut up in themselves and exclusive of everything not controlled by themselves.” At the same time, the phrase did not inaugurate a mere “counter-humanism,” that is, a view deprecating human life as utterly corrupt, sinful, and beyond redemption. As he argued, a new conception was needed, one which is able to “rehabilitate and dignify” human life not in isolation but in its “openness to the world (of others) and the divine.” The basic intent was “a work of sanctification of the profane,” an effort of transformation directed “toward an ideal of brotherly love.”19 As it seems to me, this outlook concurs with Martin Heidegger’s account in his famous “Letter on Humanism” where he distanced himself from Sartre’s anthropocentric “existentialism” and portrayed Dasein as an “ecstatic” creature standing out into the solicitation of the world and the transcendent call of “Being.” What the new conception implies is also a shift in terms of social and political philosophy. As previously indicated, modern Western thought was largely anchored in a number of “dualisms”—between self and community, freedom and solidarity, secular immanence and sacred transcendence.

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The shift points in a new direction. Thus, what is emerging into view is a “relationality” without synthesis or antithesis, that is, a gathering “difference.” The new outlook might be tamed “post-modern” or “post-liberal,” provided that these terms do not dismiss liberty in favor of autocracy but rather endorse the rise of a publicly shared freedom in society. For Maritain, the favorite expression was “integral humanism” because this expression heals (or seeks to remedy) the divorce between mundane politics and the preparation for God’s kingdom. In his view, the expression should not just be treated as a mundane ideology or partisan slogan, because it is located at the edge of temporality. While seeking to evolve “within the movement of history,” the phrase points to a post-historical or meta-historical horizon. As he writes in his book Integral Humanism, “The point is this: You only transform the social regime of the world by effecting at the same time and first of all within ourselves, a renewal of spiritual and moral life, by digging down to the spiritual and moral foundations of human life . . . which govern the life of society as such.”20 In many ways, Maritain’s arguments were continued and fleshed out by his compatriot Maurice Merleau-Ponty, philosopher of “difference” par excellence. In one of his early books, titled Humanism and Terror (1946), Merleau-Ponty sought to correct a simple dualistic opposition between “humanism” seen as an “ideal” regime and “terror” identified with political realism. As he writes: Whatever one’s philosophical or even theological position, a society is not the temple of value-ideals that figure on the front of its monuments or in its constitutional scrolls; the value of a society is the value it places upon man’s relation to other men.

Thus, it is not a question of knowing only what political leaders have in mind, but what in reality is “done by the [modern] State within and beyond its borders.” This means that one should not simply trust ideology but examine carefully the interaction of ideas/values and practices: “To understand and judge a society [or regime], one has to penetrate its basic structure to the kind of human bond upon which it is built—which depends upon legal relations, but also upon forms of labor, ways of loving, living and dying.” This attention is particularity required in turbulent times when ideas are betrayed and when things seem to be falling apart. In Merleau-Ponty’s words: “When one is living in what [Charles] Péguy called an historical period when people are content to ‘administer’ a regime, one can hope for a politics without struggle or violence.” However, when one lives in a turbulent “epoch,” then people must themselves reconstruct human relations, because “the liberty of each man becomes a mortal threat to the others.”21

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Written under the direct impact of World War II, the cited text soon gave way to calmer and more uplifting reflections. I turn to his Eloge de la philosophie (In Praise of Philosophy, of 1953). Referring to the work of Henri Bergson, Merleau-Ponty notes that his compatriot properly defined philosophy as a “semi-divine” state which always hovers between affirmation and negation, thus never coming to full rest. For Bergson, genuine philosophy, if it is entirely “positive,” already discovers in its naïve contact with the world the “apparatus of negation” which puts everything in flux. Basically Bergson wanted to be done with positive doctrines or solutions, not in order to eliminate problems but in order to revive or “revivify” them in the light of new reflection. “A philosophy of this kind,” the text remarks, “understands its own strangeness, for it is never entirely in the world and yet never fully outside the world.” Hence, it cannot be a judgment given “from on high on life, the world or history,” as if the philosopher was “not part of it.” Nor can it substitute an internally held belief for any exterior experience or evidence. Thus, the philosopher searching for truth cannot simply abscond into a remote spiritual realm; for the burden of inquiry or questioning cannot simply be shed. But the real problem is this: If truth is not a philosophical idol, the others in society are not gods: “There is no truth without them, but it does not suffice to attain the truth to be with them.”22 The differential or “in-between” character of philosophy also extends to theology or the thinking about God. Merleau-Ponty in this context invokes the work of Jacques Maritain and especially his opposition to idolatry. According to Maritain, he writes, “the saint is a ‘complete atheist’ with respect to a God who would be only the guarantor of the natural order, a God who would consecrate not only all the world’s goodness but all the world’s evil as well,” thus justifying slavery, injustice, the tears of children. Seen along these lines, the divine is simply “the absurd Emperor of the world.” For Merleau-Ponty, as for Maritain, genuine religious faith—expressed in prayer and aiming at the redemption of the world—is indeed a close ally of “atheism” seen as the critique of idolatry. In fact, a philosophy which presses this critique to the limit canot help but reflect the kind of spirit that Christianity has introduced into history. “Yes,” the text adds, “where will one stop the critique of idols, and where will one ever be able to say the true God actually resides if, as Maritain writes, we pay tribute to false gods ‘everytime we bow before the world’?”23 In this context, Merleau-Ponty almost inevitably encounters the trial of Socrates. “The life and death of Socrates,” he writes, “are the history of the difficult relations that the philosopher faces . . . with the gods of the city, that is to say, with other men and with the fixed ideas they extend to him.” For the French thinker, Socrates is clearly a “differential” philosopher who cannot be pinned down to either affirmation or negation. “Socrates,” we read, “believes in religion and the City, in spirit and in truth”; his judges and fellow citizens

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believe in them “to the letter”; thus, he and his judges “are not on the same ground.” What Socrates sought to do was to give these beliefs “a new sense; he was interpreting them.” What contemporary readers have to realize—in this éloge de la philosophie—is that ultimately “philosophy limps: it dwells in history and in life, but it wishes to dwell at their center, at the point where they come into being with the birth of meaning.” Thus, the limping of philosophy is “its virtue.”24

NOTES 1. See “Apology,” in The Works of Plato, Jewett translation, selected and edited by Irwin Edman (New York: Modern Library/Random House, 1956), pp. 59–60. 2. “Apology,” pp. 60–62. 3. “Apology,” pp. 63–66. 4. “Apology,” p. 66. 5. “Apology,” pp. 67–69. 6. “Apology,” pp. 70–71. 7. “Apology,” pp. 72–74. 8. “Apology,” pp. 75–77. 9. “Apology,” pp. 81, 83. 10. “Apology,” p. 87. 11. “Apology,” p. 88. 12. St. Augustine, City of God, with Foreword by Etienne Gilson, ed. Vernon J. Burke (New York: Image Books, Doubleday & Co., 1958), p. 191. Compare also the later statement (p. 321): “The two societies have issued from two kinds of love. Worldly society has flowered from a selfish love which dared to despise even God, whereas the communion of saints is rooted in a love of God that is ready to trample on self.” 13. City of God, pp. 468–469. As Gilson writes in his Introduction (p. 24): “Taken in its strict meaning, this thesis implies that there exists and can exist but a single city worthy of the name, one which is truly a city, because it observes the laws of true justice; in short, the City whose head is Christ.” 14. For a discussion of the trial of Socrates, see City of God, pp. 146–148. 15. City of God, pp. 205–240, 323–360. 16. City of God, pp. 26–28. 17. Sir Thomas More, Utopia, trans. and ed. Robert M. Adams (New York: Norton & Co., 1957). Compare in this genre also Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), and Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the 19th Century Philosophers (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959). 18. Utopia, p. 91. 19. Jacques Maritain, “Integral Humanism and the Crisis of Modern Times,” The Review of Politics, vol. 1 (1939), pp. 15–16.

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20. Maritain, Integral Humanism: Temporal and Spiritual Problems of a New Christendom, trans. Joseph W. Evans (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1973), pp. 28, 93. 21. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Humanism and Terror, trans. John O’Neill (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1947/1969), pp. xiv, xvii. 22. Merleau-Ponty, In Praise of Philosophy, trans. John Wilde and James M. Edie (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1953/1963), pp. 12, 14, 30–31. 23. In Praise of Philosophy, p. 47. 24. In Praise of Philosophy, pp. 34, 37, 58, 61.

Chapter 3

Nation-State and Ethical Community Divorcing Statecraft and Soulcraft?

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, . . . and he looked for justice, but behold bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold a cry! —Isaiah 5:7

The prophet Isaiah compared the country (or house) of Israel with its inhabitants to a “vineyard,” a “pleasant planting” which needs to be nurtured with good teachings and good deeds. He himself had spent his own life providing such nurturing soil—but he was disappointed. When he looked for the vineyard to yield fruit, alas, it only produced sour or wild grapes. Isaiah knew the reason very well: “For the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness” (5:10). When this happens, then “the lambs shall graze in their pasture,” and everything will be well. But behold violence and bloodshed! The prophet’s words seem to be spoken in particular to our time. Wherever we look, we find hatred, animosity, and violence, and the enmity between peoples is so strong that it clouds humans’ hearts and minds and obscures the vision of justice and righteousness which alone can sustain the social vineyard. In modern times, the highest aspiration of a territorially delimited people is to acquire “statehood,” that is, to be recognized as a “state” within the framework of international or interstate relations. This status has a number of benefits. As a recognized entity, the state enjoys a certain autonomy or independence vis-à-vis competing units and can enter into legal relations and obligations with them. As a rule, the state is endowed with a comprehensive legal or constitutional structure, a structure which embraces a series of public institutions and regulates the relation between rulers or public office-holders 25

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and the population at large.1 But how far can the structure of the state ultimately be trusted to resemble a well-tended vineyard sustained by justice and the care for the “good life” of all inhabitants? How far has this structure in our time decayed, to make room for injustice and violence? As sketched here, the modern state is basically the result of the Reformation which put an end to the earlier idea of a comprehensive community of peoples wedded to the prospect of a divine “kingdom.”2 At the beginning, it is true, the emerging states were all confessional in character, that is, defined by the religious confession of their rulers (cuius regio eius religio). However, in the course of subsequent developments, states progressively lost their confessional moorings and steadily revealed themselves as engines or instruments of mundane agendas. Divorced from clerical and moral authorities, these agendas were increasingly placed into the hands of mundane, especially ethnic or national, political leaders—which accounts for the fact that the state became largely identified with the notion of the “nation-state.” Entrusted to the hands of worldly rulers, states were steadily reduced to instruments for the pursuit of mundane goals or goods: above all the goals of national power, wealth, and prosperity. Whenever this trajectory prevails, Isaiah’s vision is abandoned in favor of the growing divorce between “statecraft” and “soulcraft.” To be sure, modern states also are meant to provide a number of nonmeasurable goods: such as a stable public order (“rule of law”) and the guarantee of human rights. Yet as it appears today, these goods are more limitations on the state than a part of its intrinsic nature. To a large extent, the rule of law and human rights depend on available cultural-ethical legacies which the state may or may not coopt without being their source or author. This is the reason why states—even if functioning well (or rather: in order to function well)—need to be buttressed or supplemented by cultural and ethical resources deriving from tradition or ongoing creative imagination. Unlike technical instruments, these resources transcend and are not completely at the disposal of the whim or will power of state rulers. The fact of non-disposal is underscored by an important aspect of cultural, ethical, and spiritual resources: their intrinsic diversity, fluidity, and multivocity. This open-ended and unregimented character has been recognized by important thinkers in different historical and political contexts, thus showing the rootedness of ethical beliefs in popular cultures. In many ways, ethical resources reveal their prime significance in the critique of prevailing modes of state domination or political abuse. For present purposes, I choose as historical exemplars three critical voices from different cultural and political settings: Mahatma Gandhi from India (or South Asia); Muhammad Iqbal from the Islamic world; and John Dewey from modern Western civilization. In all three cases, we find the invocation of popular ethical resources as a possible antidote to state power. Emerging from the sway of colonialism,

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both Gandhi and Iqbal were faced with the question of whether to adopt the model of the “state” as practiced in the West. This they could not or were not inclined to do, seeing the bad example provided by the British state government in the process of colonization. Accordingly, they tried to modify the Western model by insisting on the need for an ethical community or the cultivation of ethical and spiritual resources (in order to humanize the modern state). In the West, the pitfalls or shortcomings of the state were only slowly recognized—and at first only by marshaling the impulses of radical individualism (which could easily be coupled with the will power of a secular state). The first major thinker to recognize the need for alternative ethical resources was John Dewey who reconceived public life along pragmatic and populardemocratic lines. In doing so, Dewey was led to invoke the remedy of ethical resources which, in different contexts, had been invoked by Gandhi and Iqbal before him. I shall conclude with some reflections on our present situation. GANDHI AND SWARAJ As is well known, Gandhi’s voice achieved its great influence at the time of the Indian struggle for independence from the British empire. The goal of the struggle was India’s freedom or autonomy from foreign rule, that is, India’s “home rule” or swaraj. Gandhi by no means rejected or sidelined this goal; as he realized, the central goal of all modern “states” is adequate autonomy or freedom. However, he deplored the narrowly restricted meaning of this goal. As he pointed out in his Hind Swaraj (1909), the term of self-rule was given by most politicians a purely strategic or instrumental cast. It was the momentous merit of his booklet to raise the idea of swaraj from purely strategic concerns to the level of public ethics and the vision of the “good life.” In doing so, he elevated the emerging Indian “state” from the level of a technical instrument or engine to the vision of democratic self-rule transcending self-centered goals or purely selfish aims. Thus, addressing himself to an interlocutor, Gandhi observes that “you and I and all Indians are impatient to obtain swaraj, but we are certainly not agreed as to what it is.” In the opinion of many politicians, swaraj consists simply in driving the British out of India. But for Gandhi, this was misguided. These people wedded to the policy of expulsion, he wrote, seem to want “English rule without the Englishman” or “the tiger’s nature but not the tiger.” Successful pursuit of this policy would “make India English in the sense that it will be called not Hindustan but Englistan. This is not the swaraj that I want.”3 For Gandhi, the mistaken use of swaraj was not accidental, but can be traced to a deeper source: the condition of British and modern Western civilization. In stark terms, the text portrays the latter as “a civilization in name

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only,” a mode of life under which Western nations “are becoming degraded and ruined day by day.” Hind Swaraj details a number of developments that testify not to steady progress but to spreading decay. As central feature of these developments Gandhi saw the upsurge of self-centeredness and selfindulgence, at the cost of lateral commitments or interhuman engagements. As a result, modern freedom is tarnished by its misuse, its equation with selfindulgence; what is lacking is any sense of self-transcendence and ethicalspiritual responsiveness. In the language of Hind Swaraj: This civilization takes note neither of morality (niti) nor of religion (dharma). Its votaries calmly State that their business is not to teach religion. . . . Civilization seeks to increase bodily comforts, and it fails miserably even in doing so. This civilization is irreligious (adharma), and it has taken such a hold on the people of Europe that they appear to be half mad. They keep up their energy by intoxication; they can hardly be happy in solitude.4

The remedy proposed in the text for this spreading malaise is self-rule or swaraj—provided the terms are properly understood. As Gandhi points out, self-centeredness or self-seeking is contrary not only to moral and spiritual rightness (one sense of dharma) but to the teachings of practically all the great religions of the world—including, next to Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. What all these religions try to teach us is “that we should remain passive about worldly pursuits and active about godly [or spiritual] pursuits, that we should set a limit to our worldly ambition and that our religious ambition should be illimitable.” Between the two courses of action our endeavors “should be diverted into the latter channel.” Despite differences of accent, all religious and spiritual paths can thus be seen as “different roads converging to the same point.” People following these paths or teachings are able to achieve not “civilization in name only” but genuine or true civilization fitting for free human beings. Here is Gandhi’s terse formulation: “Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to people the path of duty (dharma). Performance of duty and observance of rightness (niti) are convertible terms. To observe morality means to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves.”5 The chief implication of this view of civilization is a new and transformative meaning of self-rule or swaraj. For Gandhi, the term never supported or endorsed the unlimited pursuit of self-interest and the imposition of this interest on others; rather, it always signified human conduct in accordance with intersubjective, spiritual standards of social life. Although composed relatively early in his career, Hind Swaraj remained a firm guidepost illuminating his work. Although willing to revise minor details, Gandhi never disavowed his early text. A few examples should be sufficient to show this point. In his

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“constructive program” submitted to the Indian National Congress in 1941, he strongly reaffirmed his commitment to swaraj, pinpointing its meaning as “complete independence through (adherence to) truth and non-violence” and “without distinction of race, color or creed.” A letter written to Nehru a few years later made explicit reference to the text of 1909, stating: “I have said that I still stand by the system of government envisaged in Hind Swaraj. These are not mere words.” This means that ethical and spiritual rules are the necessary backdrop and basic precondition of political power wielded in pursuit of national or sectional interests. The most dramatic and direct application of swaraj came in Gandhi’s “Quit India” speech delivered in Bombay in 1942. Now the leader of a nationwide independence movement, Gandhi at that point contrasted his vision of self-rule with the kind of freedom and political rulership found in Britain and many Western countries. As he sharply observed, countries wedded solely to the goals of national power (or greatness) and material wealth do not deserve to be called “free” in the proper sense; they cannot be seen as traveling on the road to genuine self-rule or swaraj—or in the direction of a social vineyard.6 IQBAL AND MUSLIM COMMUNITY Although addressed to Indians of all stripes (and even to world citizens), Gandhi’s reflections on self-rule were most favorably received and applauded by fellow Hindus. Apart from Abdul Ghaffar Khan (sometimes called the “Muslim Gandhi”) in the Northwestern Frontier Province,7 most political Muslim leaders sought to chart their own paths to independence or autonomy from the British empire. In pursuing their goal, Muslim leaders tended to prefer a combination of sectional freedom (or swaraj) with adherence to the broader framework of cultural end ethical community values prevailing in South Asia. In the present context, I choose for purposes of illustration Allama Muhammad Iqbal, sometimes called the “spiritual father of Pakistan.” Born in 1877 in the Punjab Province, Iqbal as a young man was educated at the Government College in Lahore with a focus on philosophy, English literature, and Arabic. To broaden his horizons, he went to Europe in 1905, first to Trinity College in Cambridge where he studied philosophy while at the same time qualifying as a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn in London. In 1907, he moved to Germany to pursue his doctoral degree in philosophy, which he received from the University of Munich, while also attending courses at the University of Heidelberg. During this time, he came under the strong influence of Nietzsche, Bergson, and Goethe. After his return from Europe, Iqbal rejoined the Government College in Lahore as a teacher of philosophy and English literature. In the same period

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he also began practicing law at the Chief Court in Lahore; however, he soon abandoned his legal practice in order to devote himself entirely to “soulcraft,” that is, to his literary and poetic work, a work conducted mainly in the Persian and Urdu languages. In terms of his social commitments. Iqbal devoted himself strongly to the reform and uplift of the Muslim communities in South Asia. Even before his visit to Europe, Iqbal’s writings affirmed a version of Indian nationalism, seen as response to the repressive British colonial rule. This outlook was strengthened by his experiences in Europe, especially his encounter with Nietzsche’s stress on individual agency and radical self-assertion. Nietzschean influence continued after his return from Europe, although Iqbal soon managed to give to self-assertion a more communal and socially responsible cast. Thus in a speech delivered in Aligarh in 1910 under the title “Islam as a Social and Political Ideal,” Iqbal placed the need for agency and struggle against domination into a more Pan-Islamic and intercommunal context. As he came to see, Islamic reform was indeed possible, but only through resolute human and communal effort nurtured by self-control and acceptance of the maxim that every agent is basically an assistant or “vicegerent” (mu’min) of God. The point of the speech was corroborated and flashed out in 1915 by a long cycle of poems written in Persian under the title Asrār-e Khūdī (The Secrets of the Self). In a nutshell, the cycle presented a condemnation of traditional Islamic quietism and, above all, a critique of the passive surrender of Muslim peoples to the vagaries of the “powers that be,” including the vagaries of Western imperialism and colonialism. In a way, one can say that the poet sought to inspire Muslim peoples with the desire for freedom and autonomy which Gandhi came to call genuine swaraj.8 What one needs to remember, however, is the fact that “Nietzscheanism” was only a part, and never the dominant feature of Iqbal’s work. This aspect was illustrated by another long poem penned by the poet in 1918 under the title Rumūz-e bīkhūdī (The Mysteries of Selflessness). As a counterpoint to the stark individualism preached in the earlier cycle, the new poem basically called for selfless communal solidarity. The opening “Prelude” celebrated the close “bond” between self and community holding that “the individual a mirror holds to the community, and they to him.” As Iqbal conceived it at that point, a genuine Muslim community ought to teach and encourage generous service to the goals of brotherhood and justice of humankind. Seen in this light, the mystery of “selflessness” for Iqbal was the hidden strength and real meaning of Islamic faith. Ultimately, the only justifiable mode of active selfrealization was the surrender of the self in the service of causes greater than the self—as the Prophet Muhammad and the first believers had demonstrated in exemplary fashion. And for Iqbal, the chief cause greater than the self was not so much the “nation” or nation-state but the “spiritual” community.9

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Iqbal did not express his commitment to reform only in poetic cycles, literature, and theological tracts but extended his agency also to the social and political realm. When the All-India Muslim League (a competitor to the Indian National Congress) expanded its role to the province of Punjab, he joined that move and become one of the secretaries of the League. While still dividing his time between legal practice and poetry, he became an influential voice in Muslim affairs nationwide. In that capacity he was a frequent critic of the National Congress which he regarded as one-sidedly dominated by Hindus, while also often challenging petty rivalries and disputes in the League. Eventually, Iqbal came to realize that only some kind of Islamic public autonomy would be able to fulfill the goal of Muslim political empowerment and self-rule (swaraj). At this point, he became an ally of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the political leader who actively pursued the goal of Muslim selfgovernment (partially accomplished with the creation of Pakistan in 1947). It is questionable, however, that Iqbal agreed with Jinnah on the complete “separation” of Muslim governments from India as a whole. As he wrote to Jinnah in 1937: A separate federation of Muslim provinces reformed along the lines I have discussed above, is the only course by which we can secure a peaceful India and save Muslims from the domination of non-Muslims. Why should not the Muslims of North-West India and Bengal be considered nations entitled to selfdetermination just as other nations in India and outside India are.10

In any case, it is doubtful that the two Muslim leaders were in accord on the meaning of self-rule and self-government. As it happens, Iqbal spelled out his view on these matters in a series of lectures presented in 1928–1929 in several cities and published under the title Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. The lectures elaborated on the role of Islam not only as a religion but also as a political and legal philosophy in the modern age. What Iqbal criticized were not only the presumptions of Western imperialism and colonialism but also the attitudes and conduct of many Muslim politicians whom he saw as morally misguided, attached purely to power politics (statecraft), and divorced from the better aspirations (soulcraft) of Muslim peoples. The lectures clearly expressed his support for the autonomy of Muslims provinces, but at various points denied the need for a central Indian government (which might turn out no better than British colonial rule). The main emphasis of the lectures, however, was on ethical-religious culture and on the role of cultural communication as a bulwark against excessive governmental control and a network of possible intercultural engagements. This means that, for Iqbal, the diversity of cultural and religious communities had to be nurtured and preserved—within the limits of a moderate political framework.11

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According to the lectures, the pursuit of both political and religious reforms requires great effort and diligence. One aspect of this effort is the exercise of creative interpretation (ijtihad) which permits the blending of traditional wisdom with present-day experiences and needs. Another domain is the cultivation of mutual consent or understanding (ijma) which allows for the articulation or different views, but also for their reconciliation within a context of genuine, non-domineering faith. At one point, the lectures articulate a kind of dialectical vision which allows progress through different stages of maturation. This is what Iqbal says about “the trend of modern Islam”: For the present, every Muslim nation must sink into her own deeper self, temporarily focus her vision on herself alone, until all are strong to form a living family of republics. A true and living unity is not so easy as to be achieved by a merely symbolic over-lordship. It is truly manifested in a multiplicity of free independent units whose ethnic rivalries are adjusted and harmonized by the unifying bond of a common spiritual aspiration. It seems to me that God is slowly bringing home to us the truth that Islam is neither nationalism nor imperialism but a League of Nations which recognizes artificial boundaries and ethnic distinctions for facility of reference only, and not for restricting the social horizons of its members.12

DEWEY AND GREAT COMMUNITY Doubts about the ultimate value of nationalism and the nation-state have been raised not only in colonial contexts but also in Western countries, the homeland of the modern “state.” A prominent example is the American pragmatic philosopher John Dewey (1859–1952). As is well known, Dewey’s work was strongly influenced by the idealist philosophy of Hegel who had placed the highest normative standard in the modern “state” and its institutions. Dewey never rejected Hegel’s “holistic” outlook and especially his aspiration to overcome or reconcile existing conflicts through a dialectical philosophy of right(ness). However, in the course of his development, an important transformation happened: namely, the relocation of the normative standard from the height of the “state” to the experience of the people and its ongoing maturation. This means that the acme of ethical rightness was no longer a self-enclosed knowledge system imposed by the state from above but rather a popular “inquiry” in which all members of society participate “from the ground up.” Basically, this relocation of rightness amounted to a replacement of traditional hierarchy by democracy—which explains why Dewey has widely been celebrated as a major “mentor” of democracy. However, in line with the Hegelian legacy, democracy for him was not a battleground of egos

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for power and wealth but rather an arena of communication and the ethical quest for excellence. As is well known, Dewey has written a good deal about democratic politics as an experiential search for the “good life.” Several of his writings reflect explicitly on the character of democracy as a “potentiality” rather than a finished structure—in accord with the pragmatic view of philosophy as an open-ended inquiry. As we read in “Philosophy and Democracy” (1919), the pragmatic outlook is linked with a conception of the world in which “there is real uncertainty and contingency,” a world that in some respects is “incomplete and always in the making.” This outlook stands in necessary opposition to a mode of philosophizing claiming to yield absolute and trans-temporal truth, a truth often buttressing a rigid rank order of people and things. As Dewey writes sharply, much of traditional philosophy was committed to a “metaphysics of feudalism,” that is, a foundational doctrine assigning to people and things fixed grades of value and significance. Wittingly or unwittingly, such a philosophy always tended to work “on behalf of a regime of authority,” for it was held to be right and morally correct that “the superior should lord it over the inferior.” Without necessarily rejecting all differences of rank, pragmatism for Dewey has no truck with this foundational conception. For a philosophizing seen as inquiry, “any notion of a perfect or complete reality, existing always without regard for vicissitudes of time, will be abhorrent.”13 To a thinking nurtured by ongoing experience the traditional notion of the “state” as a fixed structure was necessarily suspect or alien—even if that notion was modified by the hyphenated idea of the “nation-state.” What, for Dewey, was suspect about the state was mainly its aloofness from ongoing experience, and especially from the creative diversity of participating citizens and civic groups. Basically, the state was one of those “top-down” conceptions which, in a democratic period, had to be supplemented or replaced by a “bottom-up” or civil perspective. In many of his writings, the perspective which Dewey proposed as a substitute for traditional statism was democratic “community”—a term not to be confused with an undifferentiated collectivity where creative innovation is stifled. A good example is the essay “Search for the Great Community” (1927) which relies on the distinction between “democracy as a social idea and political democracy as a system of government.” As Dewey emphasizes, the idea of democracy in a social sense is “a wider and fuller idea than can be exemplified in the ‘State’ even at its best.” The social idea must affect “all modes of human association, the family, the school, industry, and religion.” By contrast, governmental institutions of the state are “but a mechanism for securing to the idea channels of effective operation.” For Dewey, it is a mistake to focus on machinery or the mechanism of the state if possible shortcomings of

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democracy need to be cured. In his words: “The old saying that the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy is not apt if it means that the evils may be removed by introducing more machinery,” but the phrase is correct if it stresses the need “to return to the idea itself and to clarify and deepen our understanding of it.” For Dewey, the issue is not simply one of tinkering with mechanical details; rather we are faced with “an intellectual problem”: the search for conditions under which society may become “the Great Community,” a community animated not only by statecraft but by soulcraft.14 This step requires intelligence, communication, and semantic understanding. In Dewey’s words: “A community presents an order of energies transmuted into one of meanings which are appreciated and mutually referred to by each to every other on the part of those engaged in combined action.” Yet such a shift or transmutation of energies is in short supply. The prime condition of a democratically organized society, for Dewey, is “a kind of knowledge and insight which does not yet exist.” Despite all the obstacles standing in the way, however, Dewey was unwilling to abandon his vision of democratic society manifesting itself as a “Great Community.” What this community signifies, he said, is “a society in which the ever expanding and intricately ramifying consequences of associated activities” would be manifest in the full sense. At that point, democracy would really come into its own, for “democracy is a name for a life of free and enriching communion. It has its seer in Walt Whitman.”15 Beyond its domestic borders, Dewey also cherished the horizon of broader intercommunity relations as an antidote to interstate rivalries and as the guidepost to a peaceful world order. “A genuine democratic faith in peace,” he wrote at the onset of World War II, “is faith in the possibility of conducting disputes, controversies and conflicts as cooperative undertakings in which parties learn by giving others a chance to express themselves, instead of having one party conquer by forceful suppression of the other.”16 What Dewey here intimated or foresaw was the possibility of a global “dialogue of civilizations” in which all participants are able to speak as well as to be listened to, and thereby regain their freedom and authenticity.17 ABSOLUTE STATE AND SOCIAL COMMUNITY In the meantime, the tension between nation-state and community has been further deepened and aggravated. After the interlude of state-sponsored “totalitarianism” (of various kinds), a new danger or dangerous possibility has emerged, namely, the possibility of a “total or absolute state” or the state as self-contained technocratic apparatus. To be sure, in the modern, quasidemocratic context, this state also needs some popular support or endorsement. Thus, this state still may rely on the support of a privileged ethnic or

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racial group; to this extent, the state may retain an important feature of the “nation-state.” But it would be a mistake to assume that the political apparatus would really and seriously be wedded to the well-being of a particular ethnicity. In the same manner, the state may depend on the support of a wealthy elite, but again, it would be a mistake to assume that this state would be genuinely devoted to the well-being of a particular economic class. What emerges here is the possible divorce between state and society, between government as technical instrument and society as an ethical fabric. What absoluteness means or can mean here is that the state is not only legibus solutus but relationibus solutus, that is, free not only from formal laws but also from all ethical loyalties or societal commitments.18 We know that the major existential dangers in the present time are nuclear destruction, global warming, and the health “pandemic.” But what about the divorce of state and society? What will happen when the “absolute” state is abandoning or threatens to abandon its care for the people at home and around the world? Who will care? Luckily we may still find some responsible and farsighted individuals like Jimmy Carter and Martin Luther King Jr. and their followers. But surely more is needed. Ultimately, there will have to be the recovery of a broad ethical community, of the ethical resources of peoples at home and around the world. Only then can the looming divorce be healed or overcome. Only in this way can we find again the “vineyard” where, as Isaiah says, “the lambs can graze freely in their pastures.”

NOTES 1. See, e.g., John Dryzek, Theories of the Democratic State (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); John P. Plamenatz, Consent, Freedom, and Political Obligation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968). 2. Compare, e.g., Bettina Koch and Cary J. Nederman, eds., Inventing Modernity in Medieval Thought, ca. 1100-ca.1550 (Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University, Medieval Institute Publications, 2018). 3. M. K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj and Other Writings, ed. Anthony J. Parel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 20–28. Originally composed in Gujarati, the text was translated into English by Gandhi himself. See also Dallmayr, “What Is Swaraj? Lessons from Gandhi,” in Parel, ed., Gandhi, Freedom and SelfRule (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2000), pp. 103–118. 4. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj, pp. 33, 37. In this and subsequent passages, one needs to note the difficulty of rendering dharma in English. Gandhi himself translates it as “religion,” but it clearly denotes neither a revealed nor an organized religion but more a path of rightness (akin to the Arabic “zirat al-mustaqim”). 5. Hind Swaraj, p. 67.

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6. These and similar statements are collected in the “Supplementary Writings” attached by Parel to his edition of Hind Swaraj, pp. 140–150, 171, 185. 7. See Robert C. Johansen, “Radical Islam: A Case Study of Religious Empowerment and Constraint,” in Fred Dallmayr, ed., Border Crossings: Toward a Comparative Political Theory (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999), pp. 145–171. 8. See Muhammad Iqbal, The Secrets of the Self, Asrar-i Khudi, trans. Reynold Nicholson (Chicago: Forgotten Books, 1920), esp. pp. 18–20 (“The System of the Universe Originates in the Self”). Also see Mustansir Mir, ed., Tulip in the Desert: A Selection of the Poetry of Muhammad Iqbal (London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000), pp. 132–142; and Arthur J. Arberry, Classical Persian Literature (New York: Macmillan, 1958). 9. Muhammad Iqbal, The Mysteries of Selflessness: Rumuz-i Bekhudi, trans. with introd. Arthur J. Arberry (Kuwait: Bar al-Islamiyya, 1969), pp. 5, 32. Compare also Annemarie Schimmel, Gabriel’s Wing: A Study into the Religious Ideas of Sir Muhammad Iqbal (Leiden: Brill, 1963). 10. Khurram Ali Shafique, Iqbal: His Life and Our Times (Lahore: Iqbal Academy, 2014), p. 62. Compare also Mustansir Mir, Iqbal (Lahore: Iqbal Academy, 2006), pp. 137–139, and Iqbal Singh, The Ardent Pilgrim: An Introduction to the Life and Work of Muhammad Iqbal, 2nd ed. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 94–96, 152–154. 11. Muhammad Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 1974), lecture: “The Spirit of Muslim Culture,” pp. 126–127. Iqbal in this context even adds some proto-democratic sentiments, guided by the perception that “life cannot be forever kept in leading strings, that in order to achieve full selfconsciousness, man must finally be thrown back on its own resources. The abolition of priesthood and hereditary kingships in Islam, the constant appeal to reason and experience in the Qur’an are all different aspects of the same idea of [progressive] finality.” 12. Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, lecture: “The Principles of Movement in the Structure of Islam” (p. 159). The conception of Islam not as a rational legal instrument (shariah) but as a communal-ethical faith has recently been affirmed by M. A. Muqtedar Khan in his Islam and Good Governance: A Political Philosophy of Ihsan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) where we read: “In my research I have discovered that Muslims by pressing Islam in the service of politics and the State have allowed realist precepts (considerations of power) to systematically subvert the highest ethical, normative and compassionate aspirations of Islamic scripture. [In particular] global Islamic revivalism has reduced Islam to a [fixed] identity. . . . Over a century of Islamic revivalism and the emergence of political Islam have reduced Islam from being a fount of civilization, ethics, values, norms, culture to an essentially political identity” (pp. 4, 6–7). 13. John Dewey, “Philosophy and Democracy,” (1919) in Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M. Alexander, eds., The Essential Dewey, vol. 1; Pragmatism, Education, and Democracy (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), pp. 76–77. Compare in this context Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962).

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14. Dewey, “Search for the Great Community,” (1927) in The Essential Dewey, vol. 1, pp. 293–294. 15. Dewey, “Search for the Great Community,” pp. 301–302, 307. Compare also Martin Luther King’s notion of the “beloved community.” See especially Kenneth L. Smith and Ira G. Zepp, eds., Search for the Beloved Community: The Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Valley Forges, PA: Judson Press, 1998). 16. Dewey, “Creative Democracy—The Task Before Us,” (1939) in Jo Ann Boydston (ed.), Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953, vol. 15 (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 1988), p. 228. A not always sufficiently noted feature in Dewey’s work is his incipient cosmopolitanism, manifest especially in his engagement with Asian culture and philosophy in his later years. 17. See Dallmayr, Dialogue Among Civilizations: Some Exemplary Voices (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). 18. Compare Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study of Moral Theory, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).

Chapter 4

Liberating Remembrance Politics and Recollection

“The earliest appearances in our lives of a person who is destined to take our fancy later on assume retrospectively in our eyes a certain value as an indication, a warning, a presage,” writes Marcel Proust in Remembrance of Things Past; he adds, “It was in this fashion that Swann had often reverted in his mind to the image of Odette encountered in the theatre on that first evening when he had no thought of ever seeing her again.” In a subtle and philosophically suggestive way, Proust points to the complex intertwinement in human lives of action and circumstance, purpose and contingency. Without in any way denying the role of human freedom, the passage signals the embeddedness of choice in a welter of happenings that by no means determines deliberate goals but retains the status of an obscure indication or “presage.” The lines are suggestive, however, for another reason: for unsettling the notion of a linear temporal sequence in favor of an embroilment of temporalities. Despite its overt title, Proust’s novel is not simply backward looking or nostalgic; far from denoting merely a “lost time” (temps perdu), the past for Swann remains a reservoir of sedimentations and hidden trends that actively permeate the present casting their shadow (or their light) on the future.1 This chapter probes the philosophical implications of Proustian remembrance, particularly in the domains of ethics and cultural politics. Remembrance or recollection occupies a prominent and indeed preeminent place in philosophical reflection, because it adumbrates the genealogy or oblique beginning of such reflection. The same holds true for ethics or ethical thought. If it is true—as some philosophers claim—that ethics deserves primacy as a “first philosophy,” then this status can be warranted only in terms of remembrance, and not by virtue of any “foundational” privilege. Approaching ethics from a Proustian angle brings a new impulse to ethical theory, which today is 39

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impaled on the proverbial horns of a dilemma: “descriptivism” and “prescriptivism,” naturalism and deontology, inclination and duty.2 In steering a course beyond naturalism and prescription, this chapter draws inspiration from a number of diverse though cognate perspectives, including early critical theory, post-Freudian psychoanalysis, and Heideggerian philosophy. In the context of early critical theory, remembrance or recollection first surfaced as a remembrance of suffering (what Johann Baptist Metz has called a memoria passionis).3 For Walter Benjamin, historical remembering served mainly as an antidote to the constraints of positivist reality and prevailing power structures—an antidote which, by recovering hopes buried in past sufferings, is able to illuminate the present while casting a redemptive light on the future. Directly or indirectly, Benjamin’s notion of “redemptive remembering” became an important tributary to the critical theory program of the early Frankfurt School, especially to Adorno’s conception of “natural history” or the retrieval of nature in civilization. The link between Adorno’s argument and psychoanalytic theory was articulated chiefly by Herbert Marcuse, with an accent on the utopian potential of memory or remembrance. In a different register, the theme of transformative memory-work was explored by Martin Heidegger in his discussion of recollective or “anamnestic” thinking (Andenken), which is attentive to the embeddedness of reason and action in the “happening” of being and language. Without asserting any historical or intellectual filiation, my presentation will follow the sketched sequence of perspectives. Thus, after reviewing some of Benjamin’s writings, the second section examines the treatment of recollection in early critical theory and post-Freudian psychoanalysis. The third section turns to the role of recollection in Heidegger’s evolving opus, from Being and Time to What Is Called Thinking. The conclusion ponders some of the implications of recollection for contemporary ethics and politics, keeping in mind the possibly redemptive or liberating potential of remembrance in the context of an emerging global democracy. BENJAMIN AND MEMORY-WORK As a philosophical category, recollection has itself a distinct history. There is no need here to “recollect” or retrace its complex trajectory, as this has been done quite well by a number of writers.4 For present purposes, a few comments must suffice. Apart from serving as a mainstay of empirical (sensualist) psychology, remembrance has occupied a fragile or tenuous place in modern times. From the vantage of rationalist or idealist philosophy, the past appears as a prelude to the present, which, in turn, is a mere stepping stone to the future within the confines of an overarching teleology. Seen in this light,

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remembered experience is at best an obscure or corrupted mode of awareness destined to be superseded by, or “sublated” in, higher and more transparent forms of reflection. This view of recollection as an antechamber to knowledge was challenged in the last century by a number of philosophical initiatives, especially by the moves to language, historical contingency, and “worldliness” (i.e., a precognitively experienced lifeworld). In the aftermath of these changes, the past began to emerge as a fabric of deeply sedimented traces and clues, as a memory-work that permanently resists “sublation” into cognitive analysis without losing any of its significance as a portent for the present and the future. One of the first thinkers to adopt this perspective and to explore its implications was Walter Benjamin (1892–1940). After having participated in debates on “historicism” during the middle years of the Weimar period, Benjamin articulated an experiential but nonteleological sense of past suffering in his study on the origins of German tragic theater or of the German “mourning play” (Trauerspiel). Shortly before his death, Benjamin dramatically reformulated this outlook in his “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” designed as an introduction to his sprawling work on the Paris arcades (Passagenarbeit).5 The historicism discussion had been triggered by some writings of Ernst Troeltsch, Wilhelm Dilthey, and others. The central issue was whether history could be seen as a positivist record of “actual” events or whether its meaning could be distilled into a transparent teleology or else a set of a priori principles. For Benjamin both approaches were unsatisfactory, since they ignored the crucial role of memory-work. His alternative view of history was outlined in his study on the origin of German Baroque tragedy (Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, published in 1928). According to Benjamin, German drama of the Baroque era allowed history directly to enter the stage and permeate the plot or story line. However, history at this point was not a sequence of glorious deeds, a repository of profound purposes, or a steadily unfolding teleology; instead, it was an arena of non-meaning and nontransparency, where historical occurrences are marked by finitude, radical contingency, and suffering. Seen from this angle, history was close to the domain of nonpurposive nature, the domain of natural mortality, entropy, and physical decay. In Benjamin’s words, history in the Baroque tragedy surfaced as a passion play, as a “story of the suffering of the world” (Leidensgeschichte der Welt). Far from revealing an intelligible purpose, it was occluded by and even synonymous with contingency and mortality. To capture or memorialize this historical non-meaning, Baroque tragedy took recourse to allegory, a literary device uniquely suited to transitoriness and natural finitude. While symbolism—Benjamin notes—tries to transcend decay by revealing a higher, transfigured meaning, allegory presents the troubling image of history as a

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“congealed prehistorical landscape”; thus allegory preserves traces of whatever is “untimely, painful, and unfulfilled” in time and pinpoints the “peculiar entwinement of nature and history.”6 As Benjamin elaborated, the Baroque focus on natural contingency and mortality was radically opposed to classical standards of beauty and harmony, especially to the notion of sensual reality as simple “appearance” of the divine. Classical art or aesthetics, he writes, was congenitally unable to perceive the “unfreedom, incompleteness, and brokenness” of sensual nature. Despite certain affinities with the Baroque period, later romanticism tended to abandon Baroque sobriety, namely, by favoring subjective empathy and spiritual revivalism. By contrast, Benjamin notes, the accent of Baroque tragedy was on “mortification”: its goal was not “Romantically to revive consciousness in living [works],” but rather to “settle thought among works of decay.” In entering the Baroque stage, history bears the legible imprint of finitude and transitoriness; hence, the “allegorical physiognomy of nature-history” is portrayed or represented in the form of ruins. With this preference for fragmentation and decay, allegory occupies a place “beyond beauty”: “allegories are in the realm of thoughts what ruins are in the realm of things,” which explains the “Baroque cult” of the latter. Still, this cult or preference was the outgrowth of memory-work, not merely the result of positivist description. More importantly, the Baroque accent on transitoriness and decay was not simply a recipe for pessimism or bleak despair. In Benjamin’s account, Baroque theater shifted attention from a redeemed nature, and an intelligible history, to an eschatological promise; while denying an existing harmony or purpose, remembrance of decay uncovered a redemptive spark pointing to the future: Just as the ruins of large edifices reveal the architect’s design more powerfully than do well-preserved small structures, the German Baroque drama has a claim to interpretation. In the spirit of allegory this drama is conceived as a ruin or fragment from the beginning. While other arts are resplendent as on the first day, this art form keeps the image of the beautiful for the last day.7

While the role of memory-work was still left somewhat obscure in this historical study, its character was soon more fully delineated in Benjamin’s essay on Proust or the “image of Proust” (composed barely a year later). Turning to Remembrance of Things Past, Benjamin noted that Proust obviously did not seek to describe a life “as it actually was,” but rather a life “as it was remembered by the one who had lived it.” But even this statement needed to be amended. For the important thing was not the course of experience but this course as filtered and distilled through remembrance. What concerned Proust was not the past as such but “the weaving of his memory,

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the Penelope work of recollection.” Memory-work was not a deliberate act seeking to expose experience to the searchlight of awareness. Implicit in memory was also a mode of non- or counterintentionality intent on concealing traces of the past. Instead of speaking of the work of recollection, Benjamin asks, should one call it, rather, a Penelope work of forgetting? Is not the involuntary recollection, Proust’s mémoire involuntaire, much closer to forgetting than what is usually called memory? And is not this work of spontaneous recollection, in which remembrance is the woof and forgetting the warf, a counterpart to Penelope’s work rather than its likeness? For here the day unravels what the night has woven.8

In contrast with Penelope’s labors, nighttime forgetfulness weaves the intricate “tapestry of lived life.” As Benjamin adds with some insistence, memory-work for Proust was not backward-looking or nostalgic. While an experienced event may be “finite” by occupying a distinct place in the past, a remembered event is “infinite,” since it serves as “a key to everything that happened before it and after it.” For Proust himself, remembrance was always saturated with pain and melancholy—but it was also an escape from despair. By submitting to the ordeal of recollection, Benjamin writes, Proust “conquered the hopeless sadness within him” and “from the honeycombs of memory he built a house for the swarm of his thoughts.” His relentless pursuit of remembering revealed in an oblique way his “blind, senseless, frenzied quest for happiness.” This quest “shone from his eyes; they were not happy, but in them there lay fortune as it lies in gambling or in love.”9 During the years following this essay, Benjamin began collecting materials for his large-scale study on the Paris arcades, which he conceived as a memorial of the “European capital of the nineteenth century.” As a corollary of this study he also wrote his compressed and lapidary “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (completed in early 1940). In these reflections, the role of memory-work looms large—with an accent on the redemptive quality of remembering. One of the opening theses refers to the theme of happiness as a longing embedded in recollection. This longing, Benjamin notes, has a temporal quality by being closely tied to our existential time frame; this time frame, however, is not a closed clock-time but harbors an emancipatory opening or cleft. Our view of happiness is “indissolubly bound up with the image of redemption.” This is particularly true of the remembered past that is the concern of history: “The past carries with it a secret index which points to or adumbrates redemption”; to this extent, every previous generation was endowed with at least a “weak messianic power” to which our present is heir.10

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As on earlier occasions, historical memory-work is sharply distinguished from positivist description as practiced by historicism. “To articulate the past historically,” one thesis asserts, “does not mean to know it ‘as it really was’”; rather, it means “to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger,” a moment of lived need or provocation. Only a historian attentive to this memory-work will have the gift of “fanning the spark of hope in the past.” Accentuating a point only implicit in earlier writings, Benjamin’s theses consign redemptive hope not to a futuristic end-time, but make room for an instantaneous eschatology, an irruption of hope in the lived moment. “History,” we read, “is the topic of a construction whose site is not homogeneous, empty time, but time filled by the presence of the ‘now’” (Jetztzeit, the equivalent of the mystical nunc stans). This lived moment, or Jetztzeit, is the sign or emblem of a “messianic suspension of [ordinary] events”; it is the paradigm of a “messianic time” comprising “the entire history of humankind in an enormous abridgment.” From the angle of this “now,” the experienced present is seen as “shot through with chips of messianic time”—a view that concurs with the Jewish tradition of recollection (Eingedenken), in which every second functions as “the narrow gate through which the Messiah might enter.”11 ADORNO AND NATURAL HISTORY Among the founding members of the Frankfurt School, Benjamin’s views on history and memory-work most strongly influenced Theodor Adorno (1903– 1969). This influence or affinity is not surprising given the prolonged interaction of the two thinkers during the Weimar period, especially in the debates revolving around historicism. Benjamin’s outlook was at least in part responsible for Adorno’s abandonment of transcendental idealism, and his progressive turn during these years toward a nonmetaphysical outlook focused on finitude and natural contingency. In programmatic form, this change was reflected in a paper titled “The Idea of Natural History” (composed in 1932, shortly before his departure from Germany). Faithful to Benjamin’s initiative, the paper aimed to steer a course beyond historical teleology, wedded to a transparent purpose, in the direction of “nature” seen as an arena of nonmeaning, transitoriness, and fragmentation. As Adorno commented, paying tribute to the writings of his friend, it was under Benjamin’s radical gaze that historical reality was transformed “into a panorama of ruins and fragments, into a golgotha of experience where the key to the nexus of history and nature lies buried.” According to “The Idea of Natural History,” the key could be uncovered neither by a historicist description of “actual” events nor by their integration into an idealist formula or telos, but by a recollection of nature

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in history, a memory-work seeking to retrieve both the historical transitoriness of nature and the contingent sedimentations of the past in progressive or future-oriented historical projects.12 On a larger scale, this effort of retrieval was the hallmark of a work jointly undertaken by Max Horkheimer and Adorno during the war years and subsequently published as Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947). In dramatic and somber language, the study reexamined the trajectory of modern Western enlightenment, portraying it not as a unidirectional process, but as a fateful collusion of advance and regress. In relentlessly seeking to emancipate human mind from nature, modern history progressively succumbed to instrumental-technological constraints (a corollary of the mastery of nature). To this extent, enlightenment was neither a purposive teleology nor a causal series of events but a manifestation of “natural history.” Again, recollection, immune from backward-looking nostalgia, was needed to unravel this intrinsic ambivalence: Enlightenment must reflect upon itself, if men are not to be wholly betrayed. What is at issue is not the mere conservation of the past, but the redemption of the hopes of the past. Today, however, the past is preserved only in the form of a destruction of the past.13

Although refined and modified in many ways, the accents on natural history and recollection were not put aside in Adorno’s later writings. In extremely nuanced fashion, these accents permeate his magisterial Negative Dialectics (of 1966), especially the chapters “World Spirit and Natural History” and “Freedom: Toward a Metacritique of Practical Reason.” Devoted to a searching review of Hegel’s historical teleology, the former chapter offered a trenchant critique of the idealist stress on the advancement of spirit and the concomitant neglect of nature and the countercurrent of historical contingency. In tracing the unfolding of spirit through successive national cultures, Adorno argued, Hegel had tied history’s movement to the intentional designs of collective agents, thereby sidestepping or ignoring the broad arena of non-meaning, fragmented meaning, and counterintentionality. Moreover, the celebration of spirit’s “march” through history amounted to an endorsement of a long-range project of domination: the mastery of Western reason or spirit over amorphous nature and the contingency of particular events. According to Adorno, the progressive ascendancy of reason to a position of dominance carried a price: its growing entanglement in instrumental calculation and technological fabrication. The postulated trajectory of emancipation was offset by the counterdialectic of steadily tightening disciplines (reflecting the reign of causal-empirical necessity). As an antidote or corrective to Hegelian teleology, Adorno counseled a mode of recollective reflection

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recovering nature’s presence in reason, a memory-work retrieving traces of natural contingency in historical development. From the angle of “critical theory,” he observed the difference between mind and nature, contingency and purpose cannot simply be erased; yet, a self-critical inquiry can yield access to their differential entwinement or nexus—which is the emblem of “natural history.” Stepping beyond the confines of idealism, it was the province of recollective reason to “perceive all nature as history and all history as nature.”14 Moving beyond the particular confines of Kantian idealism, Adorno’s chapter at this point articulated a tensional view of freedom that, without relinquishing rational agency, remained attentive to the limiting constraints of rational identity structures. Again, recollection played a crucial role in this conception: specifically, recollection of the pre-rational substrate of reason itself. In Adorno’s words, what was needed at this point was remembrance of the “untamed impulse” antedating Kant’s noumenal self, that is, memory-work recovering an “archaic freedom” not yet governed by the dictates of rational identity. As one should note, “impulse” in this context was not simply a blind force or a synonym for causal necessity, but rather a recollected impulse harboring in its obscure promptings a liberating promise. What was contested or called into question by these promptings was not rational autonomy and responsibility as such but their privileged or dominating status; in revoking this privilege, the chapter made room for the “diffuseness of nature” and the “multiplicity of non-identity” behind the streamlining effects of enlightened reason. Proposing self-transgression as a further step in human emancipation, Negative Dialectics stated: Human beings become properly human only where they do not act or posit themselves as (self-identical) persons; the diffuseness of nature which overreaches such personhood resembles the lineaments of an intelligible creature, of a self delivered from the constraints of the ego. . . . Properly human would be someone who, by means of the strength deriving from identity, would have cast off the encasing of identity.15

Although keenly interested in psychology and Freudian thought, Adorno did not explore in detail the link between recollection and psychoanalysis. Among members of the Frankfurt School, the connection was articulated most eloquently by Herbert Marcuse (1889–1979) in his Eros and Civilization (1955). In Marcuse’s treatment, the amorphous freedom or “archaic impulse” invoked by Adorno was located squarely in the “unconscious” seen as a welter of drives and inclinations not yet regulated by the ego and its rational imperatives. From the Freudian angle, civilization and rationalization were so many sources of “discontent” for the human psyche and its striving for happiness and fulfillment. For Marcuse the unconscious domain was inhabited

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by the “drive for integral gratification,” by the striving for a genuinely “free” fulfillment (free from want and repression). It was at this point that recollection showed its psychic importance, for its task was to preserve “the memory of past stages of individual development where integral gratification was obtained.” As Marcuse emphasized (echoing Adorno and Benjamin), memory-work was not an outgrowth of nostalgia or a recipe for regression. On the contrary, remembrance was said to serve a “progressive function,” with the recollected past yielding critical utopian standards for the present and future: The past continues to claim the future: it generates the wish that the paradise be restored on the basis of the achievements of civilization. . . . The liberation of the past does not end in its reconciliation with the present. Against the selfimposed restraint of the discoverer, the orientation to the past tends toward an orientation to the future. The recherche du temps perdu becomes the vehicle of future liberation.16

HEIDEGGER AND ANDENKEN In the context of recent Continental thought, the theme of remembrance has not been the sole province of critical theory and psychoanalysis. In novel and philosophically challenging ways, the theme has also been pursued by other intellectual perspectives, including phenomenology, existentialism, and hermeneutics. A central motive animating these strands was a concern with the precognitive underpinnings of reason and subjective identity, that is, with their embroilment in a matrix of experience that can never be transformed or foregrounded into a target of rational analysis. In the confines of phenomenology, an important early impulse was provided by Edmund Husserl in his studies of “internal time consciousness,” although in his treatment time and its various tenses were still seen basically as modalities of consciousness. A more radical turn was performed by Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), whose evolving opus steadily decentered consciousness in favor of a focus on its ontological and temporal moorings. This decentering move was incipiently manifest in Being and Time (1927) and its effort to articulate a “fundamental ontology” via an examination of human existence (or Dasein). According to this work, the most pressing philosophical issue to be explored and renewed in our era is the question of the “meaning of being,” the question of how and in which sense anything can be said to be or have being. This question, in turn, was closely linked with the status of time or temporality—the latter viewed not as an accidental property but as a constituent trait of being itself. From the vantage of human existence, the “being question” was accessible in the different temporalities of past, present, and future. For Heidegger, the

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past was not a closed arsenal of historical data, but a sedimented storehouse amenable to experiential retrieval or “repetition” (Wiederholung), always pregnant with anticipation and expectancy. Far from being an antiquarian relic, the past was “a reservoir of future possibilities or a portent of things to come.”17 The linkage of recollection and the being question became a dominant preoccupation in Heidegger’s later writings. In Letter on Humanism, the question cannot be approached straightforwardly intentione recta—which would reify being into a thing or object—but only through a roundabout kind of reflection mindful of the broader horizon that allows thought to proceed in the first place. This type of reflection was termed by Heidegger “recollective” or “commemorative” thinking (Andenken). As distinguished from technical reasoning—presented as the hallmark of Western logic and science—recollective thinking does not seek to grasp or master external objects nor exploit available resources; instead, it remains embedded in the matrix that sustains it, in the “element which enables it to be thinking.” Such thinking is “recollection of being and nothing else”; it does not claim or seek any palpable “result” or any external “effect.”18 By the time he wrote the Letter, Heidegger had already probed recollection from a number of angles, focusing on prospective remembrance and its insertion in different temporal modes. During the dark years of World War II, Heidegger offered a lecture course in Freiburg on Hölderlin’s hymn “Remembrance” (Andenken). There Heidegger interprets the poet’s admonition to “think well” about a recollected experience (a journey to Southern France) as an invitation to commemorative thinking or remembrance. In turning to a remembered experience, he observes that thinking seems to depart from the present in the direction of the past; yet, curiously, the past returns in a countermovement in the direction of the remembering thought. Still more curiously, the recollected past does not stop in the present or become stationary in its representation: If we respect and do not disturb the basic character of remembrance, we discover that, in its return, the recollected past does not make halt in the present in order merely to serve as a substitute for the past through its representation. Rather, the recollected experience leaps beyond the present and confronts us suddenly from the future; in this manner it approaches us from afar, as something still unfulfilled, as an unexplored treasure.19

Recollective retrieval for Heidegger does not simply involve the recovery of transparent meaning or a univocal purpose. Rather, given the latency of being and its withdrawal behind the screen of palpable things or “beings,” recollection also means attentiveness to the complex entwinement of

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presence and absence, of disclosure and concealment (resembling Penelope’s work of weaving and unweaving). This theme, together with many related issues, was developed at length in a lecture course that Heidegger offered in 1951–1952 in Freiburg. In the German original the course was titled Was heisst Denken?—a phrase that resists easy translation. The title has been translated as What Is Called Thinking?, but it may with equal legitimacy be rendered as What Calls for (or Calls upon) Thinking? As the opening lecture emphasizes, thinking is not merely a cognitive faculty of reasoning that we can exercise or not exercise at will any time. Thinking can only proceed by remaining attentive to what is “to be thought”—which sustains and enables our being and thinking prior to deliberate cognition. Being attentive to this enabling potency, reflection is mindful of what “calls forth” or “calls upon” thinking. This mindfulness or responsiveness to a call is the central emblem of recollection. In Heidegger’s words, memory or recollection is “the gathering of thinking. Gathering into or toward what? Toward that which sustains us insofar and inasmuch as we think or recollect it—recollect it precisely because it is what needs to be thought.” This kind of gathering or recollecting mode of thinking is largely atrophied in our time under the impact of media and the flood of “interesting” information. Yet, our age is also an extremely needful, troubled, and unsettling time. Many experiences seem to call for and even provoke thinking—but to little avail. According to the lecture, what is most troubling and “thought-provoking” (bedenklich) in our troubled time is the fact that “we are not yet thinking” (in a recollective mode).20 In probing the status and character of recollection, Heidegger’s lecture course returns briefly to Hölderlin’s poetry, specifically to a fragment of a hymn titled “Mnemosyne” (or “Remembrance”). As used by Hölderlin, the title invokes Greek mythology, the struggle between Olympians and Titans. In Greek myth, Mnemosyne was a female Titan and, as such, the daughter of heaven and earth; wedded to Zeus, in nine nights she became the mother of the nine Muses. Thus, “drama and music, dance and poetry” issue forth from the womb of Mnemosyne or remembrance. As Heidegger points out, remembrance or memory does not merely designate the psychological faculty to retain past events in thought. Instead, remembrance in the image of Mnemosyne thinks or ponders what is or needs to be thought. What needs to be thought, however, is not just some random or arbitrary idea. Remembrance as the mother of the Muses means the gathering of thinking into or toward that which everywhere and first of all demands to be thought. As such, remembrance is the gathering of recollection (Andenken); in this capacity, it safeguards and shelters that which everywhere and first of all needs to be pondered in the encounter with anything that is. As

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mother of the Muses, remembrance-Mnemosyne means recollection of what calls for thought; as such, she is the source and fountain of poetry.21

As previously indicated, however, recollection for Heidegger is not simply an act of disclosure revealing a transparent meaning or appearance. Elaborating on the legacy of Greek thinking (as articulated chiefly by the pre-Socratics) Heidegger turns his attention to the domain of “aletheia” or “unconcealment,” the matrix out of which presencing arises or which enables beings of any kind to be present. Presencing or being present, he notes, “arises out of unconcealment; it takes its origin from such an emergence into presence.” Yet, in this emergence into presence, the backdrop of unconcealment tends to drop out of sight, to withdraw behind the panoply of manifest appearances. It is part of presencing “to hold back these traits and thus to let come to the fore only that which is present”; even, and in particular, the domain of unconcealment in which this emergence takes place “remains concealed in difference or distinction from unconcealed present beings.” The crucial role of difference in thinking comes into view: the difference between absence and presence, concealment and unconcealment, being and beings. For presencing is not possible without the corollary of withdrawal, nor disclosure without the matrix of sheltering reticence. Thus, the emergence into presence is always combined and “gathered” together with the “ever-possible absencing into concealment.”22 LESSONS AND IMPLICATIONS As the preceding discussion has shown, the theme of recollection has been developed in recent Continental thought from diverse angles and with a variety of accents and connotations. Notwithstanding such divergences, however, the discussion has also revealed a strand of commonality or shared features. One commonality has to do with the status of recollection itself: far from reflecting simple nostalgia or antiquarian curiosity, recollection is a retrieval of past experiences for the sake of the present and future— with liberating and possibly redemptive implications. Another feature has to do with the “non-foundationalism” of recollection or remembrance. Recollection is not the return to a pristine origin or the recovery of an innate “logos” construed as a clear and distinct idea. Most definitely, remembering is not the deliberate act of a cogito or a rational ego bent on surveying and controlling the psychic field. One of the main implications of retrieved recollection is in the prominent area of ecology, ecological change, and “global warming.” Alarmed by the dramatic ecological mutation, that have occurred and are still occurring under

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our eyes, many scientists and concerned observers have proposed sweeping programs or policies meant to rein in the stampede of disasters and environmental challenges facing the world. Yet, although warranted by the urgency of the situation, many of these proposals suffer from one glaring defect: their purely instrumental or technical character. What tends to be forgotten at this point is that many natural abnormalities and catastrophes have happened as a result of humanity’s technological assault on nature, that is, in response to humanity’s policy of achieving total control or mastery over nature. Given this background, what is required in our time, apart from technical tinkering, is a wholesale rethinking of humanity’s relation and interaction with nature. This, in turn, requires a difficult change of human self-conception, hopefully generating human openness to a transformative recollection: namely, recollection of the differential “co-being” of humanity and nature. As one can see, this change goes well beyond technical or instrumental designs, pointing in a liberating way toward non-dominating freedom. The broader social and political implications of recollection have in recent times been explored by a number of writers from various angles. Proceeding from arguments of the early Frankfurt School, Christian Lenhardt has profiled the notion of an “anamnestic solidarity” or solidarity of remembrance, seen as an antidote both to unilinear domination and a narrow focus on class struggle. Drawing his inspiration chiefly from Benjamin, Lenhardt portrays recollection preeminently as a memoria passionis or remembrance of suffering which, immune to resentment, nurtures a forward-looking, redemptive glance. Past injustices and sufferings, in his account, cannot cancel the prospect of a future human solidarity—but they must also not be forgotten or erased. Challenging the narrow focus on class struggle, Lenhardt wonders whether Marxist-style revolution is not really a policy of “emancipation from remembrance” with all its defects. Taking his cues again from early critical theory, he insists on the “recollective sublation” (Aufhebung) of the past in the present and future, entailing a vision of solidarity devoid of uniformity in which presence and absence, teleology and natural history are entwined.23 In his exploration of remembrance, Lenhardt also reviews some religious themes, and especially the relation between forward-looking political change and traditional faith. This relation has been a prominent concern of “political theology” and “liberation theology” during the past several decades. Although occasionally inclined toward linear progressivism, he notes, both political and liberating theologies have also tended to pay tribute to and even to foreground remembrance. This is particularly true in the case of the theologian Johann Baptist Metz. In his Faith in History and Society, Metz speaks of the “risky” or “dangerous memory” (gefährliche Erinnerung) of Christian freedom in the context of prevailing social-political conditions. This remembrance, he emphasizes, is not merely a backward-looking recollection that “deceptively

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dispenses from the risks of the future”; on the contrary, it anticipates the future as an emancipatory promise for the oppressed and those without hope. To this extent, Christian memoria is a “dangerous and at the same time liberating memory” that challenges and “calls into question the present” in the name of an anticipatory remembrance. As one should note, liberative remembrance for Metz is not the exclusive province of Christians or Christian churches, but extends potentially to humankind at large, thus gaining global significance. In this broader context, Christian faith necessarily comes into contact with, and faces the challenge of, parallel aspirations, especially the socialist demand for an “international solidarity with the working class.” Christianity cannot distance itself from, or remain neutral in regard to, the struggle for “global solidarity of the underprivileged and needy.” Among the pressing problems today is the question of how Christianity handles “its own class problem, namely, the gaping contrast between the churches of the North and the South.”24 Metz’s comments on global solidarity expose the gulf between First and Third World countries, between development and underdevelopment. Even more than in the Christian West, liberative remembrance has a crucial place in developing societies. As pointed out by many observers, recollective emancipatory endeavors are present today in other world religions exposed to the pressures of modernization and First World hegemony; preponderantly, remembrance in these settings involves a retrieval of indigenous potentials as an antidote to regressive fundamentalism and Western-style secularism. In the context of Third World countries, recollection is bound to be not only redemptive-invigorating but also painful by keeping alive the memory of dislocation and the agonies of exile and defeat as observed by the Nepali poet Laxmiprasad Devkota.25 NOTES 1. Marcel Proust, Swann in Love, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Trent Kilmartin (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), pp. 265–266. 2. Regarding descriptivism and prescriptivism, see W. D. Hudson, The Is-Ought Question: A Collection of Papers on the Central Problem in Moral Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1969); for an overview of contemporary ethical theory, see my “Ordinary Language and Ideal Speech,” in Twilight of Subjectivity: Contributions to a Post-Individualist Theory of Politics (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981), pp. 218–254. 3. Compare Johann Baptist Metz, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology, trans. David Smith (New York: Seabury Press, 1980), p. 195. 4. Metz distinguishes two traditional approaches to remembrance in Western thought, one originating in Platonic metaphysics (anamnesis) and the other in

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Christian eschatology; both were ultimately fused in Hegelian philosophy. In the post-Hegelian era Metz again discusses two main perspectives: hermeneutics from Dilthey to Heidegger and Gadamer; and critical theory from Benjamin to Habermas. See Faith in History and Society, pp. 186–194. 5. Regarding the historicism debates, see Susan Buck-Morss, The Origin of Negative Dialectics: Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and the Frankfurt Institute (New York: Free Press, 1977), pp. 53–54. On Benjamin’s work generally, see Richard Wolin, Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982) Gary Smith, ed., On Walter Benjamin: Critical Essays and Recollections (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991); and Max Pensky, Melancholy Dialectics: Walter Benjamin and the Play of Mourning (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993). 6. Walter Benjamin, Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, in Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser, ed., Gesammelte Schriften, vol. I, Bk. 1 (FrankfurtMain: Suhrkamp, 1974), pp. 343–344. 7. Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels, pp. 352–355, 357, 409. 8. Benjamin, “The Image of Proust,” in Hannah Arendt, ed., Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968), pp. 204–205. 9. “The Image of Proust,” p. 207. 10. “Über den Begriff der Geschichte,” in Gesammelte Schriften, vol. I, Bk. 2, pp. 693–695, 701, 703–704; for an English translation under the title “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” see Illuminations, pp. 255–257, 263, 265–266. In the foregoing citations I have altered this translation in light of the original German text. 11. “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” p. 268. 12. Theodor W. Adorno, “Die Idee der Naturgeschichte,” in his Philosophische Frühschriften (Gesammelte Schriften, vol. I), ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt-Main: Suhrkamp, 1973), pp. 355–364. 13. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming (New York: Herder & Herder, 1972), pp. xiii–xv (translation slightly changed). 14. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York: Seabury Press, 1973), pp. 317–318, 356–359 (translation slightly changed for purposes of clarity). For a fuller discussion of Adorno’s chapter, see my “Adorno and Natural History,” in Twilight of Subjectivity (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981), pp. 211–219. 15. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, pp. 212–214, 221–222, 228–229, 256, 277 (translation slightly changed for the sake of clarity). For a fuller discussion of Adorno’s chapter, see my “Kant and Critical Theory,” in Between Freiburg and Frankfurt: Toward a Critical Ontology (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991), pp. 122–127. 16. Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (New York: Vintage Books, 1962), pp. 17–18. Marcuse in this context linked recollection and memory-work closely with the role of imagination and “phantasy,” though without specifying the relation between imagination and cognitive truth. 17. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 11th ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1967), pp. 1–5 (par. 1 and 2), 337–339 (par. 68). Heidegger refers explicitly to Kierkegaard who

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had articulated the notions of “temporality,” existential “moment,” and “repetition.” See Søren Kierkegaard, Repetition: An Essay in Experimental Psychology, trans. W. Lowrie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1941). Regarding Husserl, see his The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness, ed. Martin Heidegger, trans. James S. Churchill (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1964). 18. Heidegger, Über den Humanismus (Frankfurt-Main: Klostermann, 1949), pp. 7, 23, 42; trans. by Frank A. Capuzzi as “Letter on Humanism,” in David F. Krell, ed., Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), pp. 196, 215, 236. 19. Heidegger, Hölderlins Hymne “Andenken” (Gesamtausgabe, vol. 52), ed. Curd Ochwadt (Frankfurt-Main: Klostermann, 1982), pp. 54, 69–70, 164–165. The lecture course was presented in 1941–1942. For a fuller discussion of Hölderlin’s hymn, see my “Homecoming through Otherness,” in The Other Heidegger (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 149–180. The prospective character of recollection had also been thematized in Heidegger’s Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (first ed. 1929; 2nd ed. Frankfurt-Main: Klostermann, 1951), p. 211; trans. by James S. Churchill as Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1962). 20. Heidegger, Was heisst Denken? 3rd ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1971), pp. 1–3; trans. by J. Glenn Gray as What Is Called Thinking? (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), pp. 3–6. Compare also Fred Dallmayr, Mindfulness and Letting Be: On Engaged Thinking and Acting (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014). 21. Heidegger, Was heisst Denken?, pp. 6–7; What Is Called Thinking?, pp. 10–11. 22. Was heisst Denken?, pp. 143–145, 174–175; What Is Called Thinking?, pp. 227, 236–238. 23. Christian Lenhardt, “Anamnestic Solidarity: The Proletariat and Its Manes,” Telos 25 (Fall 1975): 136–138. He adds: “Even in this [future] society there are those who did not make it. Their presence is that of shadows. To pretend that these ancestral shadows have no place in the sun-lit world of solidarity is to be unkind, inhuman” (p. 138). Compare also Fred Dallmayr, Freedom and Solidarity: Toward New Beginnings (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2016). 24. Metz, Faith in History and Society, pp. 88–90, 133, 234–236. 25. Laxmiprasad Devkota, “Memory,” in David Rubin, ed. and trans., Nepali Visions, Nepali Dreams: The Poetry of Laxmiprasad Devkota (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), p. 100.

Chapter 5

Ethics and Modern Politics Humanism and Orthopraxis

The oral tradition of Islam—the so-called hadith—contains a statement by Prophet Muhammad regarding religious faith. In response to a question about the basic nature of such faith, the Prophet is reported to have said “selfrestraint and gentleness”—which is a surprising statement in many respects.1 For one thing, the statement does not refer to any specific content of faith, to any religious doctrine or creed. In the language of some contemporary theologians, the saying is not concerned with orthodoxy, but rather with a proper mode of conduct or orthopraxis. More importantly still, the saying conflicts with an image, popular in the West, of Islam as a basically aggressive or belligerent faith—an image which, among its sponsors, has triggered an equally belligerent Islamophobia. To be sure, the Prophet’s statement is not at all surprising if placed alongside central teachings of other world religions. Thus, in Buddhism, the path to liberation/salvation is said to be paved by self-abandonment or self-overcoming (anatman)—an effort which, in turn, ushers forth great gentleness or deep compassion (karuna), the willingness to assist “all beings however innumerable they may be.” On their part, Christians may recall the so-called beatitudes when Jesus praised “the meek or gentle [mites], for they shall inherit the earth” and also the “merciful or compassionate [misericordes], for they shall obtain mercy.” They may also recall the passage in Paul’s letter to Timothy where he states that “God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-restraint.”2 Sayings of this kind—which could be augmented by many others from different traditions—stand in sharp contrast with politics as practiced in most parts of the world today; in fact, an unbridgeable gulf seems to separate the two domains. The gulf is clearly evident in modern Western societies, where the process of “secularization” has tended to expurgate politics of any 55

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remnants of religious faith. The trend is particularly pronounced in modern liberal democracies, given their attachment to liberal “neutrality”: the doctrine that politics or the public realm must be completely neutral or indifferent vis-à-vis religious (and other substantive) beliefs. In some cases, as is well known, the doctrine has been constitutionally stylized as a “wall of separation” which needs to remain “unimpregnable.” The situation is aggravated by the invasion or colonization of the vacant public space by perspectives which are starkly at odds with, and even hostile to, religious as well as ethical teachings. Most prominent among these colonizing inroads is the equation of politics with private business or else with military warfare. Under the auspices of liberal market principles, politics or the public weal tends to be reduced to the dictates of economic self-interest, to the “maximization” of private benefits at the lowest possible cost—with little or no attention being given to ethical or religious concerns. Even more damaging to these concerns is the military colonization of politics. When politics is briskly defined as the confrontation between “friend and enemy,” public affairs are placed under the aegis of military campaigns—perhaps with the proviso that “outright” warfare is simply the continuation of politics by other (more violent) means. Similar results derive from the equation of politics with power or struggle for power. When a leading international expert declares power to be “the universal and everlasting essence of all politics,” he implicitly grants highest honors to the most powerful—while the sayings of Jesus and Muhammad are effectively expunged.3 The point here is not to call into question liberal democracy or the separation of religion and politics—as long as by “religion” one means an established church or an official religious doctrine. Given the diversity of churches and religious creeds in modern societies, the public square can surely not be monopolized by one doctrine or clerical institution. However, things are different on the level of practical conduct. How can a Christian—someone who sincerely follows Jesus’s teachings in his everyday conduct—be expected suddenly to forget about these teachings when entering the world of politics? Likewise, how can a Buddhist or a Muslim whose ordinary life is governed by self-restraint and compassion be assumed to switch suddenly in politics to rampant self-interest and belligerence? Strictly applied, “liberal” doctrine in this respect seems to lead to a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence, in any case to large-scale social schizophrenia. The danger is all the greater given the democratic component of liberal democracy: the fact that ordinary people at large are assumed to be the ultimate rulers and hence to function both as rulers and ruled, as politicians and private citizens. Particularly in democracies, there is an urgent need to synchronize modes of conduct: that is, to encourage and enable people to apply congruent

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standards in their public and private lives, both as rulers and as ruled. Earlier phases of Western political thought still exhibited a strong concern with the moral character of “rulers,” a concern manifest in an extensive literature dealing with the proper education of “princes.” This chapter, in its first section, reviews one prominent treatise taken from this literature: Erasmus’s The Education of a Christian Prince, a text which will be compared briefly with similar writings found in other cultural traditions. The second part turns to a discussion of Erasmus’s text by a leading contemporary democratic theorist (Norberto Bobbio) who concludes, regretfully, that some of its teachings are simply not applicable to “real-life” politics. By way of conclusion, I attempt to show that the teachings are indeed applicable to, and even required by, democratic politics, using as my chief witness the Mahatma Gandhi, whose lifework illustrates the linkage of self-rule and compassion, of politics and orthopraxis. ERASMUS ON THE EDUCATION OF POLITICAL RULERS Nurturing the moral character or fiber of rulers is a vital need, at all times and places; yet, it is often disparaged for various reasons. For one thing, skeptics may refer to the absence or shortage of agreed-upon norms of conduct—a point which derives some plausibility from the evidence of cultural variations. However, the same skeptics are prone to protest, irrespective of cultural differences, whenever their own rights or personal interests are unfairly curtailed—and they will do so not merely on the basis of dislike, but on moral grounds. Another point frequently heard is that moral conduct cannot be legislated or imposed (so to speak) from “on high”—which again has some plausibility given the difference between properly motivated conduct and legally sanctioned or coerced behavior. However, the real issue here is not legislation of morals but rather persuasion and education—an endeavor which is bound to be all the more effective if accompanied by the exemplary conduct of teachers. A further point often raised concerns the presumed traditionalism of the topic: the aspect that much of the literature in this field is tailored to the education of monarchs, princes, and other potentates. In a time of liberal democracy, one hears, this focus is basically obsolete—an objection which is profoundly mistaken. Precisely in a democracy where ordinary people are the ultimate rulers, the conduct and moral character of these rulers cannot be viewed as irrelevant. In fact, great vigilance on this score is needed at all times. Wherever the rulers of a regime are unjust, violent, or corrupt, the welfare and even survival of populations are in jeopardy; in a democracy whose

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rulers exhibit the same character traits, the fate of minorities and dissenters is inevitably at risk. In the traditional literature on the training of rulers—the so-called “mirror of princes” literature—Erasmus’s The Education of a Christian Prince (Institutio principis Christiani, 1516) stands out for its simplicity and its eloquent but sober style. In this treatise, Erasmus does not seek to propagate radically new or unfamiliar moral standards; many of the views expressed can be found in earlier texts on the subject (stretching from antiquity to the Renaissance). On this score, his treatise is sometimes criticized as being conventional and insufficiently innovative. However, this criticism is hardly judicious. The book and its moral instructions were addressed to actual, not imaginary princes, that is, to political rulers or professional politicians—who, by and large, can be assumed to be slow learners. Confronting such rulers with unheard of or unfamiliar principles would scarcely make a dent in their behavior; by contrast, the chances of education are improved if instruction appeals to customary moral teachings and especially to principles which political rulers, in their better moments, might themselves approve or at least seem to cherish. Erasmus was not unaware of the advantages of the latter approach and deliberately adopted it in his political writings. As he noted in one of his letters, it was his belief that no other way of correcting a prince is as efficacious as offering the pattern of a truly good prince under the guise of flattery to them, for thus do you present virtues and disparage faults in such a manner that you seem to urge them to the former while restraining them from the latter.4

The historical context of the treatise was turbulent and fraught with grave dangers. As previously indicated, this was the time of the emerging European nation-states, with powerful national monarchies competing for preeminence. In addition to political rivalries, the age was ripe with religious, social, and economic conflicts—which, a century later, would throw Europe into a paroxysm of destruction. At the time of the book’s first appearance, Spain was ruled by Philip I, to whose son, Prince Charles—the future Emperor Charles V—the text was dedicated. In England, Henry VIII was at the helm—an impetuous and headstrong ruler (to whom Erasmus, nonetheless, dispatched one of the first copies). France was under the reign of Francis I and Germany governed by a variety of princes. Barely a year after the book appeared, Charles was at war with Francis I. During the ensuing decades, England was steadily preparing for its decisive battle with Spain. In this context, educating political rulers was surely an uphill battle. As Thomas More wrote to his friend Erasmus: “How I wish Christian princes would follow good instructions! Everything is upset by their mad follies.”5

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Mindful of this sobering situation, Erasmus starts his book by appealing immediately to the most illustrious teachings on rulership, especially to Plato’s Republic and the Laws, which commend the greatest diligence in the training and education of rulers. In these writings, he says, Plato “does not wish them to excel all others in wealth, in gems, in dress, in statues and attendants, but in [philosophical] wisdom alone”—where wisdom does not mean being adept in disputing about abstract principles but rather having a mind “free from the false opinions and vicious predilections of the masses” and acting accordingly. Being free of false opinions and vicious impulses means not to be under their tyrannical sway—which also is a safeguard against becoming a tyrant or a ruler obsessed with lust for power or dominion. As Erasmus adds, addressing himself to Charles and other European rulers: If you want to make trial of yourself with other princes, do not consider yourself superior to them if you take away part of their power or scatter their forces, but only if you have been less corrupt than they, less greedy, less arrogant, less wrathful, less headstrong.6

As can be seen, Erasmus was not opposed to competition as such, to a genuine “agon” about excellence, but to unjust and senseless power plays. To be able to switch from the latter to the former type of contest, political rulers have to undergo training aimed at fostering self-restraint and self-overcoming—a training which was at the heart of traditional teachings about virtue and character formation. Following the classical canon, Erasmus maintains that rulers should be people who excel in “the requisite kingly qualities of wisdom, justice, moderation, foresight, and zeal for the public welfare.” In conformity with Seneca, the text distinguishes between three kinds of excellence or nobility—of which only the first one is truly admirable. This top kind is displayed in “virtue and good actions”; the second type reflects hearsay acquaintance with virtue, while the last one relies on kinship and the genealogy of wealth: “It by no means becomes a prince to swell with pride over this lowest degree of nobility, for it is so low that it is nothing at all, unless it has itself sprung from virtue.” For a Christian ruler, in particular, training in virtue and self-overcoming involves sharing not in the glory but in the cross of Jesus. What is this cross? Erasmus asks, and responds: “I will tell you: follow the right, do violence to no one, plunder no one, sell no public office, be corrupted by no bribes.” A ruler adhering to these maxims is bound to be not a scourge but a boon and a blessing to the people. In the words of Plutarch, such a ruler displays exalted, nearly divine qualities, for “his goodness makes him want to help all; his power makes him able to do so.” Employing similar language, Erasmus’s text compares a good ruler more to a “divine being” than an ordinary mortal; for such a ruler is “sent by God above to help the affairs

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of mortals by looking out and caring for everyone and everything,” holding the life of others “more dear than his own,” even “at great risk to himself.” Upon the moral qualities of such a ruler “depends the felicity of the country.”7 Given the title of Erasmus’s text, his admonitions are addressed first of all to the typical rulers of his time, that is, to “princes” or monarchs. In fact, in agreement with the dominant opinion of his age, Erasmus tended to view kingship or monarchy on balance to be superior to other regimes—provided the qualities of the ruler are adequate for the task. Lacking these qualities, however—he argued—monarchy is in grave danger of sliding into tyranny. The basic difference between these regimes resides in the ruler’s treatment of the common people; for whereas a good prince treats the well-being of citizens as his paramount concern, a tyrant turns everything to “his own personal gain,” thus subjugating and abusing his people. Moreover, the prince’s goodness cannot remain a private judgment, but must be endorsed as such by the common people, that is, elicit the “consent of the governed.” For “what is it which alone makes a prince,” Erasmus asks pointedly, “if it is not the consent of his subjects?”8 In another bold statement, reminiscent of the Stoics, the text affirms that “nature created all men equal, and slavery was superimposed on nature— which fact even the laws of the pagans recognized.” Christian people, in any event, cannot accept any ruler as absolute master, much less as slave master—because they recognize as their master only Jesus (whose lordship, however, is not based on subjugation, but on justice and grace). Heeding the teachings of the ancients as well as the example of Jesus, a good ruler must avoid being harsh, cruel, arrogant, and oppressive, and instead cultivate the virtues of kindness, equity, and mercy. The character traits which, in Erasmus’s view, are “farthest removed from tyranny” are the qualities of “clemency, affability, fairness, courtesy, and kindliness,” to which might be added “integrity, self-restraint, seriousness, and alertness.” Again, Plato is invoked as a reliable witness who, in his Republic, demanded “a quiet and mild nature in a prince” and stated that “men of sharp and excitable nature are suited to a military career,” but “entirely unfit for government.”9 Although addressed to a “Christian prince”—specifically Prince Charles— Erasmus’s instructions are neither narrowly confessional nor narrowly religious in character. On this score, as a learned “humanist,” Erasmus differed markedly from some of the religious reformers of his time who, reviving the older quarrel between Athens and Jerusalem, opted resolutely in favor of the latter. As he observes sharply: “To be a philosopher and to be a Christian is synonymous in fact; the only difference is in the nomenclature.” This statement concurs entirely with his view of the meaning of Christian faith—a conception which was far removed from doctrinal orthodoxy and basically centered on inner disposition, practical conduct, or orthopraxis. “Who is truly

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Christian?” the text asks, and responds: “Not he who is baptized or anointed, or who attends church. It is rather the man who has embraced Christ in the innermost feelings of his heart, and who emulates Him with his pious deeds.” In their practical conduct, princes or political rulers need to emulate the teachings of Jesus and the ancients—and not seek an alibi in the distinction between political affairs, on the one hand, and philosophy and religion, on the other. Notwithstanding certain occupational differences, rulers like other people—and more so because of their preeminence—should cultivate the qualities of equity, kindness, and self-restraint, rather than “slide back into the ways of Julius [Caesar] and Alexander the Great.” Moreover, the virtues of equity and kindness must be practiced by rulers not only toward their own subjects or citizens but also—and with particular diligence—toward outsiders or strangers. Again, Plato serves as witness: Although the prince must ever try to see that no one suffers any harm, still, according to Plato, in the case of strangers he should be even more careful than in the case of his own subjects to see that no harm befalls them; for strangers are deprived of all their friends and relatives and hence are more susceptible to mishaps. For this reason, they are said to have Jupiter as their special protector, who in this capacity is called Xenius [the wayfarer’s god].10

Given his nondenominational and truly ecumenical outlook, Erasmus’s observations on rulership can be readily compared with prominent views originating in different religious and cultural settings. In the context of Islamic civilization, it seems appropriate to turn briefly to the great al-Farabi (870–950)—both because of his closeness to Plato and Aristotle and because of his effort to reconcile his religion with classical philosophical teachings (or Athens with Mecca). Among al-Farabi’s numerous writings, the most pertinent here is a treatise called Aphorisms of the Statesman (Fusul al-Madani), which seems to present his own views on rulership (rather than merely commenting on the ancients). Morally commendable rulership is defined in the text as the practice and continuous cultivation of virtues whose goal or result is the well-being and happiness of all inhabitants. “The true king [or ruler],” al-Farabi states, “is one whose aim and purpose . . . are such that he affords himself and the people of the city true happiness, which is the end and gist of the royal craft.”11 The most prominent and important quality in a good ruler and a “virtuous city” is justice or equity, especially when the latter is joined with kindness, friendliness, and compassion. As the text states emphatically: when the segments or parts of the city are “united and bound together by sympathy” the city will be “controlled and maintained by justice and the actions of justice. . . . Justice follows upon sympathy.” These standards, al-Farabi stresses,

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are entirely incompatible with a rulership geared toward self-enhancement or self-glorification, that is, toward political domination and conquest. Although military action may sometimes be justified for limited purposes and as a last resort, just rulership must never be identified with warfare as such. Thus, if a ruler makes war “for nothing else but for the sake of conquest,” he engages in unjust war; similarly, “if he makes war or kills to appease rage, or for the pleasure he takes in sheer victory” he commits an injustice and forfeits the claim to just rule.12 Similar sentiments can also be found in East Asian traditions, especially in the long history of Confucian teachings. Among the many sayings ascribed to Confucius, one may recall the one about rulership, where he states that a good ruler “loves his people” and a wise ruler “knows or understand them.” At another time, the sage listed three requisites of good rulership: trust of the common people, adequate food, and sufficient weapons. When asked which of the three, if need be, he would forgo first, he responded “weapons,” and which to forgo second, he said “food”: “For from old, death has been the lot of all men; but a people that no longer trust its rulers is lost indeed.” Despite modifications in detail, the sage’s teachings were preserved intact through the centuries, finding a particularly strong resonance during the so-called “neoConfucian” revival at the time of the Sung dynasty.13 A prominent theme in this revival was the emphasis on self-restraint (or “self-rectification”) as a requisite of good rulership—a theme which was developed in a number of texts dealing with the “Learning of Emperors and Kings” (or similar titles). Among neo-Confucian scholars, a particularly impressive figure was Chen Te-hsiu (1178–1235), who lived in the interval between al-Farabi and Erasmus. Following in the footsteps of Confucius, Chen stressed the importance of combining knowing and loving (or “mind and heart”) and of placing both in the service of justice or equity. The basic standard of good rulership in his view could be summed up in this motto: “To cultivate fully one’s mind-and-heart, and to be fair-minded or equitable. In developing fully his mind-and-heart, the ruler will have no reason to be ashamed; if he is fair-minded, he will not be guilty of favoritism.”14 ETHICS AND POLITICS: CONVERGENCE OR CONTRAST? Classical teachings of this kind are no longer in vogue and have become nearly apocryphal in our time. Even people specializing in the study of politics are rarely, if ever, acquainted with traditional texts on rulership. As previously indicated, politics and political rule today tend to be equated with business affairs or with power plays, that is, with the private pursuit of economic

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self-interest or else with a struggle for power which treats opponents as “enemies” (in a quasi-military sense). Even political philosophers—the supposed guardians of a long tradition—often dismiss concern with the qualities of rulership, either out of an excess of moral skepticism or because of a misguided attachment to liberal “neutrality” (as stated before). Fortunately, neglect is not universal and one can occasionally find voices remonstrating against the prevailing state of affairs. For present purposes, I shift attention to a prominent contemporary voice: the Italian political philosopher Norberto Bobbio. What makes Bobbio appealing is both his immense erudition and his deep concern with the fate of liberal democracy, demonstrated in his numerous publications as well as his public life.15 On both philosophical and political grounds, his credentials as a defender of democratic principles and practices are unimpeachable. At the same time, he has never hesitated to hold up to democratic rulers the unflattering “mirror of princes,” that is, the basic standards of rulership and just conduct. For present purposes, one of Bobbio’s pertinent writings is titled In Praise of Meekness: Essays on Ethics and Politics. As the subtitle indicates, the book struggles with the basic issue of the relation between moral standards and politics, an issue which has been vexed throughout history but has reached unprecedented acuteness in recent times due to the experiences of totalitarianism and genocide. In a central chapter devoted to the topic, Bobbio discusses a broad spectrum of possible positions ranging from rigid “monism” all the way to rigid “dualism”—where “monism” means either the reduction of politics to ethics or of ethics to politics, and “dualism” the thesis of an unbridgeable gulf. For a number of reasons, Bobbio finds himself unable or unwilling to subscribe to the first kind of monist coincidence; one of the chief reasons is precisely the rise of “liberal” democracy with its differentiation between religion and politics, church and “state” (which carries over into the distinction between private and public domains and the espousal of individual freedom of conscience). At the same time, he holds no brief for the collapse of ethics into power politics or for the doctrine of liberal neutrality predicated on a radical gulf. What emerges from his deliberations is a highly nuanced mode of mutual correlation which, while respecting individual freedom, does not release democratic politics into moral indifference. As Bobbio writes, with a glance at fashionable defenses of realpolitik: “An efficient government is not of itself a good government”—the latter being defined by the moral end of rulership, that is, the well-being of the governed. An efficient government may also be corrupt, where corruption—in line with venerable teachings—means that a ruler “has placed his personal interest before the collective interest, personal benefit before the common good.” Wanton pursuit of “power for its own sake” is likewise corrupting, because it transforms a mere means into a final

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goal. Thus, even in liberal democracies, political action—which is “free or presumed to be so”—“does not escape the judgment whether it is right or wrong.”16 One of the writers repeatedly mentioned in Bobbio’s book is Erasmus, and especially his Education of a Christian Prince—a testimony to his own broadly humanist leanings. Although close to the Renaissance thinker in many ways, Bobbio is hesitant to endorse the former’s text wholeheartedly— mainly (it seems) because of an apprehension of appearing politically naïve or idealistic. In introducing Erasmus at one point, he refers to the German historian Gerhard Ritter, who argued that there were two basic tendencies at the beginning of the modern age: one was the “realist current” represented by Machiavelli and the other the “idealist” strand typified by Thomas More, who portrayed “the republican Utopia in which perfect peace rules with perfect justice.” As Bobbio adds, apparently endorsing the argument: It must not be forgotten that Machiavelli wrote The Prince, regarded as the unsurpassed example of realist politics, at the same time as Erasmus wrote The Education of a Christian Prince, which is considered a similarly perfect example of idealist politics.

Likewise, when presenting his spectrum of positions on the ethics-politics relationship, he offers Erasmus’s text as an exemplar of the “monistic” variety which levels politics into ethics—contrasting this type sharply with Machiavelli’s reverse monism. Almost a contemporary of Machiavelli’s The Prince, he writes, “Erasmus’s Christian prince is the reverse of the demonic face of power.” The virtues extolled by Erasmus as standards of rulership are light-years removed from Machiavelli’s robust and realist notion of virtú: the former’s “exclusively moral virtues have nothing to do with virtue understood in the Machiavellian sense.”17 As stated, the contrast is somewhat puzzling. For one thing, it lacks the kind of nuances which Bobbio otherwise commends and exemplifies. Surely, Erasmus was not unaware of the need of a prince—Christian or otherwise— to wield power and authority to preserve order and lawfulness in the country; moreover, his text made room for military action abroad, provided the latter was carried out for defensive purposes and as a last resort. At the same time, though not a traditional moralist, Machiavelli was not entirely averse to pronouncing moral judgments—as Bobbio recognizes. Despite all his justifications for political behavior deviating from common morals, he says, “a tyrant remains a tyrant” even for Machiavelli. Although asserting that, in the interest of public safety, considerations of “kind or cruel” must be set aside, he still “denounced Agathocles as a tyrant for ‘ill using’ his cruel actions.”18 The contrast, however, is more puzzling still for another reason: the theme

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announced in the book’s title, namely, the “praise of meekness.” As it happens, Bobbio’s praise of this disposition—his “elogio della mitezza”—is one of the finest tributes paid to religious and classical virtues in recent politicalphilosophical literature. In introducing the disposition, Bobbio immediately refers to Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, and especially to the “beatitude” which states “Blessed are the meek (mites) for they shall inherit the earth.” He also points to classical teachings about virtues, noting that meekness is “certainly an ethical virtue” (as distinguished from intellectual or “dianoetic” virtues) and, in fact, belongs among the “cardinal” virtues. In the same context, he refers again to Erasmus’s The Education of a Christian Prince, commenting that, in that text, we find “the supreme virtues of the ideal prince: clemency, kindness, equity, civility, benevolence, as well as prudence, integrity, sobriety, temperance, vigilance, generosity, and honesty”—qualities which clearly bear an affinity with meekness.19 Importantly, meekness for Bobbio is not simply a private feeling or idiosyncrasy, but rather a social attitude implying a relation to fellow beings. In this respect, he distinguishes meekness from “mildness,” which is more a “personal” attribute or private character trait. By contrast, he writes, meekness is a “social virtue”—in the sense in which Aristotle differentiated personal virtues, such as courage and moderation, from the highest social virtue of justice; it involves “a positive inclination toward others,” whereas courage and moderation are “only positive attitudes toward oneself.” Although clearly implying an “inward inclination” or inner disposition, meekness in Bobbio’s portrayal “radiates only in the presence of the other”; more specifically still, a meek person is someone “needed by others to help them defeat the evil within themselves.” In this connection, he refers to another Italian philosopher, Carlo Mazzantini—like him a teacher at the University of Turin—whom he singles out for his perceptiveness and “deep philosophical vocation.” In discussing meekness, Mazzantini advanced a remarkable thesis or proposition which underscores its social quality: namely, the thesis that meekness is “the only supreme power,” a power which consists in “letting the other be himself” (a phrase clearly resonating with Heideggerian “letting be”). “Note,” Bobbio elaborates, “how the word ‘power’ is used to designate a virtue that reminds one of the opposite, that is, powerlessness, but mind you: not resigned powerlessness.” As one can see, meekness—again in a quasi-Heideggerian vein—is identified neither with impotence or passive surrender nor with an aggressive will to power, but rather, with a kind of “power-free” potency Here is a citation from Mazzantini, together with Bobbio’s comment: “A violent person has no power, because by using violence he disempowers those who wish to give of themselves. Whereas power rests in those who possess the will that does not yield to violence, but is expressed through meekness.”

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“To let the other be himself,” therefore, is a social virtue in the intrinsic and original meaning of the term.20

To profile further the quality of meekness, Bobbio contrasts it with a number of counter-terms. The opposites of meekness, he writes, are “arrogance, haughtiness, and domination.” Arrogance here means an “exaggerated conception of one’s merits” which justifies (or pretends to justify) the abuse of power. Haughtiness, in turn, is a “showy arrogance,” a way of “flaunting one’s supposed virtues” in a blatant and impertinent way. Compared with the preceding terms, domination or aggressiveness is “even worse,” because it consists in “the abuse of power, not only feigned but effectively exercised.” Aggressive individuals, Bobbio observes, exhibit their domineering nature in manifold ways—“for instance, as if swatting a fly or squashing a worm”; they exercise their power over others through “all kinds of abuse and outrage, or acts of arbitrariness and, when necessary, ruthless domination.” To avoid misunderstanding, the text quickly adds that, in opposing such outrage, meekness does not simply coincide with submissiveness or passive compliance. While a submissive person is someone who “abandons the struggle due to weakness, fear, or resignation,” meek persons “do not yield” or submit because they basically repudiate and transgress the rules of the game governing domination. Being non-submissive, meek persons are also calm, serene, and even cheerful—the latter because “they are inwardly convinced that the world to which they aspire is better than the one they are forced to inhabit.” To this extent, Bobbio affirms, a meek person can be depicted “as the precursor of a better world” who anticipates that world by “effectively exercising the virtue of meekness” in daily living—as the herald of an “ideal city” where “the kindness in customs becomes universal practice.” Such kindness in customs also involves simplicity and charity or compassion—the first serving as the precondition of meekness and the second as its likely consequence.21 In light of this affirmation and even celebration of meekness, the reader is bound to be surprised and chagrined by the conclusion Bobbio draws for politics. After glimpsing an exalted vision of social life, what is one to make of this harsh statement: “Meekness is not a political virtue; rather it is the most apolitical of virtues.” As he elaborates further: “In the predominant meaning of politics, that is, the Machiavellian or the updated Schmittian version, meekness is exactly the opposite side of politics.” In this connection, Bobbio draws a distinction between two sets of virtues: “strong” or “highclass” virtues, on the one hand, and “weak” or low-class, on the other. Strong or high-class virtues—like courage, daring, and prowess—are “typical of the powerful” and cultivated by those who have the task of “governing, directing, commanding” people and of “creating and maintaining nation-states.” By contrast, weak virtues—like simplicity, gentleness, and meekness—are

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“inherent to private, insignificant or inconspicuous individuals”; they characterize that section of society where “the poor, the humiliated and hurt” are situated, that is, all those people “who will never become rulers, who die without leaving any other trace of their presence on this earth than a cross in a cemetery bearing their name and a date.” As Bobbio adds bluntly, summarizing this point: “In the political or even democratic struggle . . . the meek have no part.”22 What, the reader may ask, is happening here? How can the meek be unyielding and defiant and even possess a supreme, but non-domineering “power” (in Mazzantini’s sense)—and yet play no role in political life? How can they exhibit a “social virtue” and even herald or anticipate an “ideal city”—if that city can never be a polis, or if its public significance is absent or indefinitely postponed? After all, are “insignificant” common people not precisely called to be the “rulers” in a democracy understood as people’s rule? Is Bobbio here not leading us back into the dilemma of liberal democracy and liberal “neutrality” mentioned at the outset: that is, into the gulf between ethical standards and political indifference (or worse: immorality), into the schizophrenia of private versus public conduct? DEMOCRATIC ORTHOPRAXIS AND KARMAYOGA These questions are clearly at the heart of contemporary political life, especially life in a liberal-democratic regime. As previously indicated—and as Bobbio would rightly insist—the solution cannot be found in a simple fusion or synthesis, that is, in the merger of ethics and politics or of morality and public legality. In a liberal democracy wedded to individual freedom, ethical standards can no longer be erected into public dogmas or official creeds—at least not beyond certain limited constitutional safeguards. To this extent, liberal democracy remains heir to the central principles of Western modernity: freedom of conscience, freedom of faith, noncoincidence of religion and politics (“church” and “state”), morality, and legality. Moreover, it would be extremely odd and even counterproductive if some of the discussed virtues—like meekness or gentleness—would be erected into political ideologies, into instruments of public domination and (conceivably) oppression. The very nature of these virtues seems to run counter to and undermine any such attempt. From this angle, Bobbio’s concluding observations appear in a new and more favorable light—but only if politics is identified with sheer power politics or the pursuit of unfettered self-interest (in a “Machiavellian” or “Schmittian” vein). But why grant the latter a monopoly in the political domain? Could one not conceive of a politics where Bobbio’s preferred

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virtues—and the virtues/beatitudes of Jesus and the ancients—would function not as oppressive masters but as vigilant servants and custodians of public conscience? In this case, these virtues would not simply be “apolitical” but remain politically relevant as counterweights to oppressive tendencies, as guideposts of an ongoing democratic struggle: that is, as guideposts of right public conduct or a critical orthopraxis. Curiously, Bobbio himself provides clues pointing in this direction. Tucked away in a footnote of his text, we find a reference to another fellow Italian, Aldo Capitini, who is described as a “defiant philosopher” and “liberal-socialist thinker” whose opposition to political domination—especially fascist domination—was both morally and religiously inspired. He contended, the note states, that there was a need “to go beyond the contrast between capitalism and communism,” and “to use non-violence and noncooperation as the basis” for this struggle; in this respect, “he was deeply influenced by Gandhi’s thought and actions.”23 Despite its brevity and obscure location, one can hardly fail to recognize the direct import of this reference. By all accounts, Gandhi was one of the foremost practitioners of those “weak” virtues highlighted by Bobbio: gentleness, meekness, kindness, compassion. At the same time, he was a champion of those “insignificant or inconspicuous individuals,” of all “the poor, humiliated and hurt” people shunted aside and trampled upon by the powerful. Neither his engagement for the poor nor his cultivation of “weak” virtues, however, kept Gandhi away from politics or from involvement in political struggle. Like the “meek” described by Bobbio, he was non-submissive and unyielding, as well as calm and frequently cheerful; but he was particularly unyielding when dealing with abusive and oppressive political power. In his struggle for India’s independence, Gandhi did not shrink from inserting himself in the thick of politics—but a politics of a different kind, carried on in a different register, at odds with and in defiance of sheer power politics. As he stated at one point: Politics pervades all our activities; [and] I am not talking of retirement from politics in this broad sense. . . . But power politics should be kept out [of our proceedings]. We are taking that step not out of cowardice, but for the sake of self-purification. That is the way of non-violence. I know that in this country all constructive activities are part of politics; in my view this is true politics. [But] non-violence can have nothing to do with the politics of power.24

In his entire lifework, Gandhi provided crucial lessons for modern liberal democracy: the lesson of being involved in politics without being corrupted by power lust and self-seeking, and the lesson of how to cultivate moral and religious virtues without erecting them into public dogmas or

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official creeds. Apart from being a moralist in the footsteps of Ruskin and Tolstoy, Gandhi was also a deeply religious person in a broadly ecumenical sense but with special attachment to his native Vaishnava tradition; in the language of that tradition, he was above all a karmayogin, that is, one committed to purified action or orthopraxis. In this capacity, his entire life conduct exemplified the great teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, especially the following lines: Set your heart on work (karma), but never on its reward. . . . Do your work in the peace of yoga, free from selfish desires, unmoved by success or failure.” And these: “Offer to me all your works and rest your mind on the Supreme. Free from vain hopes and selfish thoughts, and with inner peace, conduct your struggle or fight.25

Deep religious commitments of this kind, however, never prompted Gandhi to sponsor an “established” religion or a religious “establishment” in India. Throughout his life he opposed the idea of an independent India governed by “Hindus” alone (an idea which today is promulgated as “Hindutva”). The guiding principle here was the distinction between public doctrine and practical conduct, between official dogma and orthopraxis. As he stated a few months before his assassination: “If I were a dictator, [organized, official] religion and the state would be separate. I swear by my religion; I will die for it. But . . . the state has nothing to do with that.” The situation was different on the level of practical conduct—where religion really is put to the test. If you were to watch my life, he added, “how I live, eat, sit, talk, behave in general—then the sum total of all this is my religion.” Such religiosity, for Gandhi, offered hope for the future—a future when religion would no longer be reduced to “a Saturday or a Sunday affair” but “lived every moment of one’s life”: “Such religion, when it comes, will rule the world” (though not in the manner of power politics).26 Even more than in his own lifetime, Gandhi’s exemplary conduct provides a beacon for our troubled period—a time when Gandhian-style virtues are almost entirely eclipsed by selfish interests and power plays (now under the auspices of neoliberalism and the struggle for planetary control). Under the aegis of globalized markets, democratic politics is almost everywhere surrendered to the dictates of economic advantage—dictates which usually privilege the rich over the poor, the affluent and arrogant over the “humiliated and hurt.” At the same time, under the impact of ethnic cleansing, terrorist acts, and campaigns against terrorism, politics is steadily being assimilated to warfare—with the result that the age-old longing for cosmopolitan peace is perverted into global militarism or militarization (now extending itself into outer space).27 In this situation, Gandhi’s approach—his option not for an

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exit from politics, but for another kind of politics grounded in nonviolence (ahimsa) and ethical action (karmayoga and satyagraha)—retains more than ever its instructive value. So does Bobbio’s embrace of meekness and related traditional virtues. As Bobbio makes it quite clear, his choice should be seen as “a reaction to the violent society in which we are forced to live.” This reaction, he adds, is not the result of a naïve belief that human history “has always been idyllic”; rather, it derives from the unprecedented magnitude of possible violence, from the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction which can “destroy the earth many times over.” This destructive potential, moreover, is not restricted to superpowers (or the only remaining superpower), but through a kind of contagion is steadily disseminated around the globe: “What terrifies me is those dreaded megatons combined with the persisting will to power,” a will which spreads from great powers to smaller states and even to private agents—such as “the lone assassin, the small terrorist group, or someone who throws a bomb into a crowd, or in a bank, a crowded train . . . where it can cause the death of the largest possible number of innocent peoples.”28 Probably the most significant lesson of Gandhi’s lifework has to do with the quality of politics in a modern democracy. As indicated, Gandhi’s conduct combined open-minded fairness with religious faith, liberal tolerance and commitment to freedom with ethical orthopraxis. To this extent, his conduct exemplified the qualities extolled by Erasmus in his instructions to a Christian prince: wisdom, justice, kindness, and zeal for the public good. These instructions, in turn, harken back to the teachings of the “divine” Plato, who commended a “quiet and mild nature” in princes (while relegating people with “excitable” tempers to a military career). As stated before, these teachings are particularly important in a modern democracy where ordinary people are the rulers—and hence are expected to display the qualities or virtues of rulership championed by Erasmus and the ancients. These virtues cannot be legislated or dogmatically imposed, but only be cultivated in a slow learning process, aided by good example, which gentles and transforms behavior. Such a learning process is at the heart of the future “ideal city” envisaged by Bobbio in his “praise of meekness”—a city where “kindness in customs becomes universal practice.”29 Given the immensity of possible destruction in our time, this future deserves to be cherished and fondly anticipated. To return to a point made earlier: unjust, vicious, or violent rulers place the welfare and even survival of populations at risk; by contrast, just and kind rulers are a boon and a blessing to people. In the words of Erasmus: on the good qualities of rulers “depends the felicity of the country”—we might add today: the felicity and survival of our world.

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NOTES 1. See Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, ed., Words of the Prophet Muhammad: Selections from the Hadith (New Delhi: Al-Risala Books, 1996), p. 3. 2. See Matt. 5:5, 5:7, and 2 Tim. 1:7. For the Buddhist notions of non-ego and compassion see, e.g., Masao Abe, Zen and Western Thought, ed. William R. LaFleur (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1985), pp. 176–178, 222–223. 3. See Samuel P. Huntington, “Culture, Power, and Democracy,” in Marc F. Plattner and Aleksander Smolar, eds., Globalization, Power, and Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), p. 5. The definition of politics in terms of a “friend-enemy” confrontation was introduced by Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schab (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1976). 4. P. S. Allen, Opus epistularum Desiderii Erasmi (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), Ep. 179; cited from Lester K. Born, ed. and trans., The Education of a Christian Prince, by Desiderius Erasmus (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), p. 6. As Born states, in view of the many traditional sources of Erasmus’s treatise, “we can readily state that great originality in political thinking was not his contribution. . . . [However,] the mere fact that Erasmus did not originate—in fact could not have originated—most of the doctrines he expounded in no way militates against his importance in the world of political theory” (pp. 24–25). In his “Introduction,” Born provides an overview of the “mirror of princes” literature from antiquity to the Renaissance (pp. 94–124). On this score, Erasmus’s text clearly differs markedly from Nietzsche’s goal of a radical “transvaluation of all values.” In the political domain, Nietzsche’s approach appears both too difficult (being accessible only to a select few intellectuals) and too easy—since many politicians naturally believe themselves to be “beyond good and evil” (without having made even the first step toward self-overcoming or “overman”). 5. Allen, Opus epistularum, Ep. 423; cited from Born, The Education of a Christian Prince, p. 27. Thomas More’s Utopia was published in the same year (1516). 6. The Education of a Christian Prince, pp. 133–134, 150–151. 7. The Education of a Christian Prince, pp. 140, 151, 154, 157, 162–163. 8. The Education of a Christian Prince, pp. 161, 177, 183. 9. The Education of a Christian Prince, pp. 209, 233. 10. The Education of a Christian Prince, pp. 150, 153, 220. 11. Al-Farabi, Fusul al-Madani (Aphorisms of the Statesman), ed. D. M. Dunlap (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), pp. 40. 12. Al-Farabi, Fusul al-Madani, pp. 53, 57. As he adds: “Similarly, if people have enraged him [the ruler] by some injustice, but what they deserve for that injustice falls short of war or killing, war and killing are undoubtedly unjust” (p. 57). For a somewhat different rendering of the text, see Alfarabi, The Political Writings, trans. Charles E. Butterworth (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), pp. 11–67. 13. The Analects of Confucius, trans. Arthur Waley (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 12:7, 12:22.

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14. See Wm. Theordore de Bary, Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 69, 85. Compare in this context also Roger T. Ames, The Art of Ridership: A Study of Ancient Chinese Political Thought (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994). Concentrating on the ninetieth book of the classical text Huai Nan Tzu (140 B.C.), Ames demonstrates the importance in classical rulership of the notion of “benefiting the people” (li min). 15. Norberto Bobbio was professor of legal and political philosophy at the University of Turin and senator-for-life in the Italian Senate. Among his many publications, the following seem most pertinent here: The Future of Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987); Democracy and Dictatorship (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989); Liberalism and Democracy (London: Verso, 1990); The Age of Rights (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996). 16. Bobbio, In Praise of Meekness: Essays on Ethics and Politics, trans. Teresa Chataway (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), pp. 68–70. 17. In Praise of Meekness, pp. 47–48, 79–80. The reference is to Gerhard Ritter, The Corrupting Influence of Power (Tower Bridge: Hadleigh, 1952). 18. Bobbio, In Praise of Meekness, p. 67. 19. In Praise of Meekness, pp. 23, 25, 27. Although Bobbio states (p. 27) that he “could not locate meekness” in Erasmus’s text, this seems to be more a terminological than a substantive issue. 20. In Praise of Meekness, pp. 24–25. Bobbio’s text does not give a citation for Mazzantini. For the distinction between power and violence, see also Hannah Arendt, “On Violence,” in Crises of the Republic (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), pp. 105–184. For Martin Heidegger’s treatment of power, see my “Heidegger on Macht and Machenschaft,” Continental Philosophy Review, vol. 34 (2001), pp. 247–267. 21. Bobbio, In Praise of Meekness, pp. 27–33. For Bobbio, meekness exceeds or transcends toleration or recognition because of their reliance on mutuality. As he states, in a passage evoking Derrida’s and Levinas’s praise of unreciprocated giftgiving (p. 32): “A meek person does not ask for or expect any reciprocity. Meekness is an attitude toward others that does not need to be reciprocated for it to be fully actualized. This is also the case with altruism, kindness, generosity, and mercy, all of which are social as well as unilateral values. . . . Meekness, instead, is a gift and has no predetermined or prescribed limits.” See in this context Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death, trans. David Wills (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995); Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1961). 22. Bobbio, In Praise of Meekness, pp. 25–26, 28. The text repeatedly criticizes Carl Schmitt’s “friend-enemy” concept; see especially pp. 73–74. 23. In Praise of Meekness, p. 35, note 4. 24. Speech in Malikanda, February 21, 1940; in Raghavan Iyer, ed., The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. I: Civilization, Politics, and Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 416.

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25. The verses are from Bhagavad Gita, Book 2, lines 47–48, and Book 3, line 30. See The Bhagavad Gita, trans. Juan Mascaró (New York: Penguin Books, 1962), pp. 52, 58–59. 26. Iyer, ed., The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. I, p. 395. 27. While the maintenance of lawfulness and order is a regular task of government—a part of its “police function”—the label “war on terrorism” unduly militarizes this function with detrimental effects on politics and the rule of law. In this regard, see Richard Falk, The Great Terror War (New York: Olive Branch Press, 2003). 28. Bobbio, In Praise of Meekness, pp. 34–35. 29. In Praise of Meekness, p. 33. Somewhat provocatively (but entirely correctly) Bobbio ascribes to this city a “feminine virtue,” adding (p. 34): “I am aware that, by saying that meekness has always seemed desirable to me precisely because of its femininity, I am disappointing all those women who stood up against centuries-old male domination. [But] I believe the practice of kindness is bound to prevail when the city of women is realized.” In this connection, one may recall not only the ending of Goethe’s Faust but also the assignment of certain feminine qualities to Gandhi by Ashis Nandy, who writes that “Gandhi’s androgyny sought to give back to femininity a part of the traditional sacredness and magic associated with it.” See “From Outside the Imperium,” in Nandy, Traditions, Tyranny, and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 144.

Chapter 6

Twilight of Modern Idols Lessons of the Global Pandemic

These lines are written on Easter 2020, that is, in the midst of the viral pandemic, which has gripped humanity since the beginning of the year. This pandemic has taken a horrible toll in many or most countries of the world. By now, the death toll amounts to about 108,000 people worldwide and about 20,000 in the United States alone. The number of people infected by the virus reaches a few millions. These numbers are real. Thus, a first lesson taught by the pandemic is that death is real—not merely a numerical statistic, but concrete inroad into or infliction on humans communities. Differently put, death is not something watched on a television screen, but the cause of intense suffering terminating, for all purposes, future human possibilities. This is clearly shown in the Easter event. Christ’s death on Golgotha on “Good Friday” was not just for show or narrative effect, but was a terminal incision. As some of the bystanders or followers said at the time: “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). And according to the accounts of Matthew and Mark, Jesus was not entirely free of despair when he cried with a loud voice: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46, Mark 15:34). As it seems to me, we should not make light of death and suffering, because this lightness may prevent transformative learning and change. This blockage is evident when we move too briskly from Good Friday to the glory of Easter Sunday or from the cross to triumph. Some of this is also happening in the present pandemic: many people (perhaps too many) are impatient to move from the grim news back to the routines of ordinary life. While partly understandable, this impatience is guilty of forgetting or coldly rubbing out the evidence of the cruel deaths and sufferings imposed by the virus. In her recent “Reflection for Good Friday,” Larraine Lauter (OSU) tells the story of one man by the name of Tony Sizemore—but the example 75

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could obviously be multiplied. As pictured in the pages of the Washington Post, Tony Sizemore is like a man standing at the foot of the cross. His partner, Birdie Shelton, was the first person in Indiana to die of COVID-19. His picture, Lauter writes, shows him “stunned, a man fighting to stay on his feet against the merciless blows of grief, a man struggling to make sense of what has passed upon him. It seems clear that Tony’s mind is seared, as with a branding iron, by the memory of what he has seen.” In this situation, words seem incapable to capture or grasp the experience of loss. “We humans,” she adds, “are desperately trying to make meaning of this unanticipated blow, this pandemic. Tony will have none of the philosophizing, the theologizing, the silver-cloudizing; he is not interested. She is dead, and I am quarantined? Period.”1 We should not forget this story and others of its kind. When seeking to distill some possible lessons from the pandemic, we surely have to be very cautious and circumspect. We have to be careful not to try to “solve” the situation with a ready-made “fix,” especially a fix deriving from our customary tool kit. Surely, we have formidable resources at our disposal. In our modern age, the tool kit is bound to be chiefly technical or technological, built up by our scientific ingenuity. But is this really sufficient? Let us recall the words of some of the bystanders on Easter: “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Can technology really “redeem” us or anyone? Here we run head-on into one of the chief modern “idols”: the idol of self-worship or self-idolatry. This belongs to a kind of “humanism” which has had its day and now is in the midst of twilight. It is a kind of idolizing where human beings are seen as perfect and without blemish or sin—and hence not in any need of redemption. This is the sort of humanism or rather “homocentrism” whose twilight we should welcome and promote.2 Promoting the demise of homocentrism is not the same as dismissing humanism as such. Although not equipped for self-worship or self-rescue, we are as human beings necessary recipients and participants in the story of Easter. Although we are not generally models of goodness, we are all targeted as receivers of the “good news.” Thus, while not the owners or proprietors of redemption, we are inhabited as humans by a possibility or promise: the promise of redemptive change—which is again the story of Easter. But the promise carries over from the religious festival into everyday social and public life. This means that social and public life is marked not merely by self-interest, power games, or domination but by a promise of “good life.”3 Differently put, every existing social or political arrangement is always tentative or provisional by pointing forward to a “just” or redeemed city—which St. Augustine called the “City of God,” although it ultimately has to be populated or inhabited by just “human beings.” This latter fact points inevitably to a rehabilitation of “humanism,” now purged of self-centeredness.

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The new or purged sense of humanism has implications also for the idea of modern democracy. In a widely used definition, democracy means the “rule of, by and for the people.” In this definition, the crucial shift is from the rule of exalted and self-serving autocrats of earlier times to the political self-reliance of common people. While offering an important shield against the arrogance of elites, the shift obviously requires a rethinking of the notion of “rule”—which cannot be equated with that of kings and potentates. Here the notion of a “promised democracy” or a “promise of democracy” becomes pertinent, a notion based on the equation of leadership and human service.4 For, as Jesus said at the time of Passover: “The Kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them. But not so with you; rather, let the greatest become as the simplest and the leader as one who serves” (Luke 22:24; also Mark 10:42-43; Matt. 20:25-26). This view is also clearly expressed in the “Beatitudes” where we read: “Blessed are the meek, for thy shall inherit the earth. . . . Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:5, 9). There are many other implications for democracy which need to be pursued—especially implications for democratic freedom and equality. Properly construed, freedom in a just democracy should not be a freedom from responsibility or a freedom for selfish pursuits, but a freedom of care for others and their well-being.5 In the same manner, equality should not mean sameness or massification, but rather respect for the integral dignity of everyone and for the voice of the spirit which cannot be silenced or controlled. In the blunt words of scripture: “Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another” (Mark 9:50). In discussing the notion of democracy, many blemishes can be detected which should be denounced and corrected. But all of these blemishes are overshadowed by some dominant features of modern life which, if left unchecked, can be lethal like the current pandemic. I perceive mainly three aspects of modern life which function as idols productive of hideous idolatry: first, the rampant materialism and capitalism throughout the world; secondly, the upsurge of nationalism and militarism in many countries; and lastly, the disregard of “nature” treated as an obstacle to human progress and prosperity. The first feature consists in the idolatry of money and worldly goods or possessions. This stands in stark contrast to the Easter experience of initial emptiness or dispossession and subsequent spiritual resurgence or transformation. We know—and the Acts of the Apostles are emphatic on the point— that the early Christians sold their goods and shared them among each other (a practice which can also be found among Buddhists and devotees of other faiths). Without doubt, Christian scripture is full of “ideology critique” or rather critique of money-based idolatry. The accusers or opponents of Jesus among his people were mainly the Pharisees—and Luke says of them “they were lovers of money” (Luke 16:14). There is the story of the rich young

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man, who came to Jesus asking him what to do to find the good life or “inherit eternal life.” After learning from him that he had kept all the biblical commandments, Jesus said to the visitor: “Go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven,”—then adding to his disciples: “How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:22 and Mark 10:21, 22). The point here, I believe, is not to dismiss or negate all economic gain, but it is to underline the difficulty and the danger of the idolatry of wealth. A second major malaise today demanding critique is self-contained nationalism or chauvinism. Half a century ago a tyrannical ruler in Europe pledged to make his country “great” again after its defeat in World War I—a pledge which plunged his country (and the entire world) into chaos and catastrophe. Christian scripture does not favor selfish nationalism or aggressive chauvinistic policies. As we read in the Acts of the Apostles, Simon Peter recalled that in previous times it was “unlawful” for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of “another nation,” but in the same context Peter also made this redemptive statement: “Truly, I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right, is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:28, 34-35). To be sure, in saying this, the apostle merely repeated the message contained in all the gospels regarding the non-exclusiveness of the “good news.” As we read in the Gospel of Matthew: “The gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations” (Matt. 24:14). And in Mark’s account we find that the gospel should be “preached to all nations” and the temple should become “a house of prayer for all the nations” (Mark 11:17, 13:10). But in truth, these gospel passages are not a new dispensation but merely an elaboration on tradition, especially the words of Isaiah: “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord . . . shall be accepted on my alter, which shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isa. 56: 6-7). Clearly, the transnationalism counseled in these lines is not an abstract universalism based on empty slogans; rather, it is rooted in a shared promise implanted in different nations and captured in different tongues and symbols. This means again that the basic point of politics is not the pursuit of national or ethnic “greatness” but rather the pursuit of ethical goodness or the “good life” in a civil community. The pursuit of the latter aim is hampered by another great malaise pervasive in our time: the neglect or abuse of “nature” as a sustaining substrate of human life. As is evident, this substrate is not cut up by national boundaries or parceled out to different countries in a discriminating manner. In this respect, the present pandemic has taught all of us the valuable lesson of global solidarity.6 Since its inception, the viral epidemic has spread out throughout the world, irrespective of political structures or reigning ideologies in different places. To this extent, the pandemic has been a tough task

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master; in essence it has driven us back to basics, especially to the basic question: What is the point of life and how is it possible to live a decent and worthwhile civic life? One of the main strategies adopted in many countries to contain the disease is “social distancing”—not as a general doctrine (in the sense of neoliberalism) but as a wholesome therapeutic restoring the genuine sense of social life. As someone has commented, quite correctly: “Social distancing is bringing us together again”—which means, it is teaching us to live together again in a proper way. In this sense, the pandemic is promoting, directly or indirectly, the important “twilight” of the idols, by liberating us from the reigning idolatries of egomania or self-worship, chauvinistic nationalism, and the abuse of nature for the sake of human profit or progress. What is crucial here is that liberation is not just a private individual release, but a social and public transformation which persists beyond and hopefully outlasts the present pandemic. For this reason, everything depends on public education and practice and on the ultimate institutionalization of the twilight of modern idols. By way of conclusion, I want to draw attention to some (at least partial) precedents of such institutionalization. The main precedent I have in mind is the so-called World Public Forum—Dialogue of Civilizations which existed for two decades before the outbreak of the present pandemic. This forum was not a governmental institution (although it was not hostile to governments), nor was it a professional academic society (although it was not anti-academic). It brought together people from many or most countries, from many professions or specialties, and from many political orientations. Basically, it was a forum of people concerned about the public well-being of the world, willing to critique current abuses,” and committed to the restorations of the “good life” in many countries and the world. I attach a paper delineating the purpose of the World Public Forum.7

NOTES 1. Larraine Lauter, OSU, “Reflections for Good Friday,” in Johnny Zokovitch, Pax Christi (USA), A Reflection for Good Friday, April 9, 2020. 2. See Fred Dallmayr, For a New and “Other” Humanism (Mauritius: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2019); also Against Apocalypse: Recovering Humanity’s Wholeness (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016). 3. See Fred Dallmayr, In Search of the Good Life: A Pedagogy for Troubled Times (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2011). 4. See Fred Dallmayr, The Promise of Democracy: Political Agency and Transformation (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010); also Democracy to Come: Politics as Relational Praxis (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

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5. Compare Fred Dallmayr, Freedom and Solidarity: Toward New Beginnings (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2015); also Twilight of Subjectivity: Contributions to a Post-Individualist Theory of Politics (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981 in Chinese: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1992). 6. See, e.g., Fred Dallmayr, Return to Nature? An Ecological Counter-History (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2011). 7. See Fred Dallmayr, “Who Are We? What is the World Public Forum—Dialogue of Civilizations?” in Dallmayr and Vladmir Yakunin, eds., Some Global Rays of Hope: Voices from Rhodes 2011 (World Public Forum, 2012), pp. 20–26. The paper is appended here.

Chapter 7

Conclusion Renewal of Virtue

Many of the preceding chapters have discussed political life in dark times, in times when power politics is left entirely to itself. I have explored some historical episodes when power politics inflicted itself harshly on thoughtful people: the episode of the trial of Socrates, the encounter of Sir Thomas More with King Henry VIII, and the experiences of intellectuals with the upsurge of fascism in Europe during the past century. In all these cases (and many others like it) the demands of justice and ethical virtue were ignored or brushed aside in favor of the interests of worldly elites. The situation has not greatly improved in our time. In fact, given the vast increase of technical instruments, mundane self-interest easily prevails everywhere over ethical restraints. In this situation, one wonders whatever happened to the sense of justice and virtue which has animated many people in previous centuries. Has this sense simply vanished? My colleague Alasdair MacIntyre in a very influential study argued that this sense has indeed vanished, as if it had been obliterated in a nuclear disaster. His book After Virtue (1981, 1984, 2007) started with the “disquieting suggestion” that our moral culture today is in the same state of disarray as civilization would be after a wholesale holocaust. “What we still posess,” he wrote, “are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack the contexts from which their significance derived.” Thus, we still possess “the simulacra of morality,” but we have—very largely, if not entirely—lost “our comprehension” of the meaning of ethics. As MacIntyre added, the conclusion to be drawn from his analysis should not “be one of despair.” For, if we are indeed “in as bad a condition as I take us to be,” then pessimism too will turn out to be “one more cultural luxury that we shall have to dispense with in order to survive in these hard times.”1 Fortunately, several people in our condition “after virtue” have not taken the analysis as a verdict of despair, but rather as an incentive for reflective 81

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recovery. I was particularly inspired by the argument of John Milbank and Adrian Pabst in their study The Politics of Virtue: Post-Liberalism and the Human Future (2016). As the authors argue in their introduction, their study is directed primarily against two kinds of liberalism of the past: the “socialcultural liberalism of the left” (accentuating the private life) and the “economic-political liberalism of the right” (often called “neo-conservatism”). Against these two perspectives, the study pleads for a new vision of the “human future” which combines democratic impulses with the recollection or “anamnesis” of ethical insights of the past: that is, a blending of cultural duty and virtuous responsibility alongside a real democratic equality and creative freedom in the economic and political realms. Such an outlook—which might be called “post-liberalism”—would enable a “mutualist approach” in both domestic and foreign affairs and would substitute for the dominance of market, state, and technocracy “the primacy of society, culture and interpersonal relationships.” Most importantly, such a perspective should also inaugurate a “politics of virtue” which is not self-centered or imperialistic but always interactive or reciprocal by seeking to promote the solidarity of the city and the cosmopolitan community.2 At this point, I want to return again to Siena and the frescoes in the “Peace Hall.” Here we find a clear pictorial presentation of all those “virtues” whose significance today appears dim and nearly erased. As previously indicated, the front of the Hall is dominated by “The Allegory of Good Government,” while its right and left sides present the prominent effects of good or bad government in town and country. In the center of the allegory of good government is the large figure of “justice,” the symbol of fair treatment in politics and hence the crucial source of public happiness. A large inscription reads: Wherever she rules, this holy virtue [of justice] induces to unity all the many souls [of citizens] and they, gathered for this purpose, make the common good [ben comune] their overlord who never turns his eyes from the faces of the virtues sitting around him.

Above the head of justice the fresco shows the figure of “wisdom” instilling proper discernment in all the rulers and citizens. Below the two allegories there is a figure called “Concordia” holding in her hand a long cord which connects her with all the citizens, thus insuring fair and equal treatment of all in the community. To the sides of the central figures there are depictions of traditional virtues, especially of the so-called cardinal virtues: “prudence” (prudentia) which counsels proper action in a given situation; “courage” (fortitude) which instills strength to resist intimidation; “temperance” (temperantia, sophrosyne) which allows us to restrain or moderate selfish impulses; and again

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“justice” (iustitia, dikaiosyne) which produces overall fairness and harmony. These virtues are called “cardinal,” deriving from the Latin cardo (hinge), because they are the basic or hinge qualities required for a virtuous social and public life. They are also called “classical,” because they were centerstaged by Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero in their writings and later by a number of church fathers (including St. Augustine). In the “Peace Hall,” these crucial virtues are supplemented or buttressed by some additional frescoes, such as the figures of magnanimity and peacableness. On the two sides of the Hall we find frescoes depicting the effects of good government in town and country (eastern wall) and the allegory of bad government and its effects in town and country (western wall). The “allegory of bad government” is particularly gripping and instructive because we encounter there figures very familiar to us in modern and recent times: especially the allegorical figures of tyranny (devilish power), avarice (greed and hording of wealth), and vainglory (conceit and self-glorification). In turn, these vices or counter-virtues give rise to numerous bad effects, such as cruelty, fraud, divisiveness, slaughter, terrorism, and war. Gazing at these frescoes, and especially at the allegorical pictures of the virtues, we may ask: What is their general meaning or intrinsic character? And here we are almost inevitably led back to Aristotle and his Nicomachean Ethics for, in the early part of this treatise, Aristotle inquires about the nature or meaning of “virtue.” He immediately rejects its identification as an inner “emotion” or a natural “capacity.” In doing so, he clearly refuses to see virtue simply as a private or individual quality or else as a natural endowment not in need of ethical seasoning and transformation. Rather, he views virtue as a practical excellence which is developed and fully exercised in a city or community. For, although one may wish for good or virtuous individuals, Aristotle says, context is crucial and “the good of the city is clearly a greater and more perfect thing to attain and to safeguard.”3 Moreover, the good of the city is not merely a means or an instrument to reach other ends; rather the city’s well-being is “final and self-sufficient,” maintained through the practice of virtues. The term “self-sufficient,” however, requires caution to guard against any kind of human arrogance or selfishness.4 Mainly for this reason, St. Augustine in his City of God preferred to treat ethical virtues as the “gifts of God,”5 surely a welcome reminder, provided it does not negate social and political practice. Like all forms of divine beneficence, gifts of virtue go astray, if they are not translated into steady practices. This issue leads us back to the humanist insights of Erasmus, his effort to link worldly and otherworldly concerns, immanence, and transcendence. More specifically, the issue reaffirms the Erasmian preference to balance faith and ordinary life, religious belief and worldly learning and practice (fides et eruditio).

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One aspect of the Erasmian correlation—or of the “tale of two cities”—is the possibility of cross-fertilization. As history teaches, worldly experiences—especially experiences of suffering and misery—can generate or lead to a renewal of spiritual hopes. This was the case during the last century when the dismal life conditions encountered by members of the Frankfurt School fostered the upsurge of eschatological sparks. In related instances, such an upsurge occurred as the result of nuclear disaster. By way of conclusion, I want to remember here another pacific location: the “Peace Memorial Park” in Hiroshima, Japan. As is well known, together with Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Nagasaki, Hiroshima signifies the culmination of the pursuit and effects of naked power politics. Survivors built a lovely memorial park there as a summons to life and peace in the aftermath of immense destruction. On the venue of this park, musical and other artistic performances have been held to underscore this summons. At one time, a Japanese choir of some 10,000 people—the men in black, the women in white—performed the last movement of Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony,” which puts to music Friedrich Schiller’s great “Hymn to Joy.”6 At the very start of this book I mentioned the uplifting or redeeming quality of great art. Here are some lines of that hymn: Joy, beautiful spark divine, Daughter of Elyscium. Here we enter drunk-with-fire, Heavenly your sanctuary. Your sweet magic reunites What custom’s edict has divided. All human become brothers/sisters Where your gentle wings abide.

NOTES 1. See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study of Moral Theory, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), pp. 2, 5. 2. See John Milbank and Adrian Pabst, The Politics of Virtue: Post-Liberalism and the Human Future (London/New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016), pp. 1–4. Compare also James Hankins, Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019). 3. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Martin Ostwald (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999), pp. 4–5, 40–41. 4. For the move beyond self-sufficient or self-contained humanism, see Fred Dallmayr, For a New and “Other” Humanism (Mauritus: EAP Lambert Publishing, 2019); also Dallmayr, “Humanizing Humanity: For a Post-Secular Humanism,” in

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Against Apocalypse: Recovering Humanity’s Wholeness (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016), pp. 75–86. 5. St. Augustine, City of God, with Introduction by Etienne Gilson (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1958), pp. 115–116. 6. See Fred Dallmayr, “Mindfulness and Cosmopolis,” in Mindfulness and Letting Be: On Engaged Thinking and Acting (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014), pp. 110–111; also Against Apocalypse: Recovering Humanity’s Wholeness (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016).

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Index

Abbey, Ruth, viii Adorno, Theodor, 40, 44–47; on Hegel, 45; Negative Dialectics, 45, 46 After Virtue (MacIntyre), 81 allegory, 41–42 All-India Muslim League, 31 Aphorisms of the Statesman (al-Farabi), 61 Aristophanes, 12 Aristotle, 3, 11–23, 61, 63, 83; Nicomachean Ethics, 83 art: Beethoven, 84; and Benjamin, 41–42; as co-doing, 3–4; as political education, 3; Schiller, 84. See also Peace Hall; Peace Memorial Park atheism, 22 Augustine of Hippo, 17–19, 76, 83; City of God, 83; dualism, 18

Capitini, Aldo, 68 Chen Te-hsiu, 62 Christianity, 75–79: Augustine, 16–19, 55; Easter, 75–79; Erasmus, 58–61; idolatry, 22; Maritain, 20–22; Metz, 52; More, 18–19; remembrance, 52. See also Beatitudes Cicero, 2 citizenry: vs. family or clan, 1; Great Community (Dewey), 33–34; Islamic, 29–32; responsibilities of, 11, 17, 28; responsibilities of leaders to, 60–61, 82 City of God (Augustine), 83 common good: in Augustine, 17; in Bobbio, 63–64; in Cicero, 2; in Erasmus, 58–61; missing in modern statehood, 27–28; vs. self-interest, 2; in Utopia, 19 Confucius, 61–62 corruption in government, 11, 59, 63–64 Cosmopolitan Civility: Global-Local Reflections with Fred Dallmayr, viii cultural legacies: affecting statecraft, 26; Iqbal, 31

Beatitudes, 55, 65, 68, 77 Beethoven, Ludwig, 84 Being and Time (Heidegger), 47 Benjamin, Walter, 40–44; Baroque drama, 41–42; and Proust, 42–43 Bergson, Henri, 22 Bible (Christian), 55, 65, 75, 77–78 Bible (Jewish), 25–26, 35, 78 Bobbio, Norberto, 63–67; and Erasmus, 64; In Praise of Meekness: Essays on Ethics and Politics, 63 Buddhism, 55, 77

democracy, 77–78; in Bobbio, 63–67; in Dewey, 32–34; in Gandhi, 68–70; and humanism, 77; vs. monarchy, 60 93

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Index

Dewey, John, 26; and democracy, 32–34; against force, 34; Great Community, 33; pitfalls of, 56–58 dualism: in Augustine, 18; critiqued by Maritain, 20–21; critiqued by Merleau-Ponty, 21; limits of, 20; in Western civilization, 20 Education of a Christian Prince (Erasmus), 58–61, 64–65 Enlightenment, 44–45 Erasmus of Rotterdam, 18, 57–64, 83–84; and Bobbio, 64; Education of a Christian Prince, 58–61, 64–65; and Plato, 59 Eros and Civilization (Marcuse), 46 Faith in History and Society (Metz), 51 Farabi, Abu Nasr al-, 61; Aphorisms of the Statesman, 61 Frankfurt School, 39–52 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 4 Gandhi, Mahatma, 26, 27–29, 68–70; Hind Swaraj, 27 good life. See common good hadith, 55 Hegel, Georg, vii, 32, 45 Heidegger, Martin, 20; Being and Time, 47; Letter on Humanism, 48; and remembrance, 40, 47–50; What Is Called Thinking? 49 Henry VIII, 18–19 Heraclitus, 4 Hind Swaraj (Gandhi), 27–29 Hinduism, 29, 69; and Iqbal, 31. See also Gandhi Hölderlin, 48, 49 Horkheimer, Max, 45 humanism, 75–79; and Heidegger, 48; and Maritain, 20–21; and More, 18 Humanism and Terror (Merleau-Ponty), 21 Husserl, Edmund, 47

idolatry, 22; modern, 76–79 India, 27–31 Indian National Congress, 29, 31 individualism, 27; Iqbal, 30 In Praise of Meekness: Essays on Ethics and Politics (Bobbio), 63 In Praise of Philosophy (MerleauPonty), 22 Integral Humanism (Maritain), 21 Iqbal, Muhammad, 26, 29–32; against colonialism, 30; diversity, 32; Mysteries of Selflessness, 30; Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, 31; Secrets of the Self, 30 Islam, 29–32, 55; Muslim leadership, 61–62 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali, 31 Judaism, 25, 44 Kant, Immanuel, 46 karmayoga, 67–69 Khan, Abdul Ghaffar, 29 Lenhardt, Christian, 51 Letter on Humanism (Heidegger), 48 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, 2 Machiavelli, Niccolo: and Bobbio, 64; The Prince, 64 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 81; After Virtue, 81 Marcuse, Herbert, 40, 46–47; Eros and Civilization, 46 Maritain, Jacques, 20–21, 22; Integral Humanism, 21; In Praise of Philosophy, 22 Mazzantini, Carlo, 65–66 meekness, virtue of, 55, 63–67, 70, 77; in Gandhi, 68–70 memory. See remembrance Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 21–22; Humanism and Terror, 21 Metz, Johann Baptist, 40, 51–52; Faith in History and Society, 51

Index

Milbank, John, 82 More, Thomas, 18–19, 58; and Bobbio, 64; Utopia, 19 Mysteries of Selflessness (Iqbal), 30 nationalism, 78; as idolatry, 77–79; Indian, 30; Islamic, 32; Western, 32 natural history, 40, 44–46, 51 nature, 4, 40–42, 45, 50, 51; antipathy to, 77–78 Negative Dialectics (Adorno), 45, 46 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 29 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 83 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 30 non-infliction of harm, as basis for common good, 2, 4, 61 orthopraxis, 8, 55, 57, 60, 67–69; and karmayoga, 67–69; vs. orthodoxy, 55 Pabst, Adrian, 82 Pakistan, 29–32 pandemic, 9, 75–79 Peace Hall (Siena), 2–3, 5, 82–83 Peace Memorial Park (Hiroshima), 84 Plato: and Erasmus, 59, 60, 61; and Gandhi, 70; and Socrates’ trial, 12–17 Plutarch, 59 polis: in Augustine, 17; definition of, 1. See also citizenry; corruption political education, 57–58; art, 3, 5; ecology, 4; Education of a Christian Prince (Erasmus), 58–61, 64–65; philosophy, 4–5; spirituality, 5 The Politics of Virtue: Post-Liberalism and the Human Future (Milbank and Pabst), 82 positivism, 3 praxis, 3–4. See also orthopraxis

95

The Prince (Machiavelli), 64 Proust, Marcel, 39, 42–43 Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Iqbal), 31 Reformation, 19, 26 religion: as source of ethics, 27. See also individual religions remembrance, 39–52; and ecological change, 50–51 Remembrance of Things Past. See Proust Sartre, Jean-Paul, 20 Schiller, Friedrich, 84 Secrets of the Self (Iqbal), 30 self-restraint: in leaders, 62 self-rule (swaraj): Gandhi, 27–29 Seneca, 59 Siena. See Peace Hall Socrates, 5, 11–23; accusation of corruption, 14; accusation of impiety, 14; on death, 16; Delphic oracle, 13; as seeker of justice, 15; trial, 11–16, 18 soulcraft, 26, 30, 31, 34 statecraft, 26, 31, 34 statehood, 25; benefits of, 25; Dewey, 32–33; divorced from citizenry, 34; divorced from religion, 26, 55–56 swaraj. See self-rule “two cities” (Augustine), 16–20, 83–84 Utopia (More), 19, 64 What Is Called Thinking? (Heidegger), 49 Whitman, Walt, 34

About the Author

Born in 1928, Fred Dallmayr grew up during World War II in Germany. Having witnessed extreme forms of injustice, violence, and cruelty at a young age, he vowed to dedicate his life to the promotion of global understanding, justice, and peace. He first studied law at the University of Munich but later, after his emigration, he received a PhD in politics and political thought from Duke University with the goal of studying and teaching the meaning and purpose of politics. He was and remains inspired mainly by Plato and Aristotle whose works have shown him that politics is not mainly about sheer power but about the pursuit of the “good life” in a public community. Dallmayr taught first at Purdue University between 1963 and 1978; subsequently he has been teaching politics and philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. In 1978 he served as research fellow at Nuffield College in Oxford; in 1988 he was a visiting professor in philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. As recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, he spent 1991–1992 at the University of Baroda in India. Following this experience Dallmayr decided to devote his life to the study and teaching of comparative political philosophy with a focus on Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Islamic philosophical and political traditions. Having retired from active duty in 2005 (after nearly sixty years of teaching) he continues his academic work for the sake of promoting global harmony, cross-cultural understanding and peace.

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