Must I repeat that I am not deploring the fact that the cults of honor and courage should be preached to human beings; I am deploring the fact that they are preached by the “clerks.” Civilization, I repeat, seems to me possible only if humanity consents to a division of functions, if side by side with those who carry out the lay passions and extol the virtues serviceable to them there exists a class of men who depreciate these passions and glorify the advantages which are beyond the material. What I think serious is that this class of men should cease to perform their office, and that those whose duty was to quench human pride should extol the same impulses of soul as the leaders of armies. I shall be told that this preaching is imposed on the “clerks,” at least in war-time, by the laymen, by the States, who to-day intend to mobilize all the moral resources of the nation for their ends. But what amazes me is not so much that I see the “clerks” preaching in this manner, as to see them do it with such docility, such absence of disgust, such enthusiasm, such joy… . The truth is that the “clerks” have become as much laymen as the laymen themselves.--Julien Benda (1928. [2007] The Treason of the Intellectuals, translated by Richard Addington, Transaction Publishers, 81.
l was alerted to the existence of Benda's book due to a helpful footnote by George Schwab, the translator of Carl Schmitt's (1929) essay "The Age of Neutralization and Depoliticizations" and a comment by Tracy Strong in the foreword to the edition I used recently(recall here). Benda's Treason is worth reading for those of interested in the nature of responsible speech by public intellectuals of various stripes, and I hope to return to it. But I was intrigued by his definition of 'civilization' which disagrees with my own (see, especially here and here).
For Benda a society is functionally divided among major groups or orders or class (despite his anti-marxism he uses the phrase). And these groups have a function proper to them. Clerks in the sense of 'clerisy' or the learned have on this scheme as a as a goal not just to quench pride, but to preach the unselfish passions and the reality of a 'spiritual' world distinct from, and opposed to, the pursuit of material self-interests. In particular, the clerisy have a duty and so should preach "justice" and "truth" (57). The main argument of Benda's book is that the modern clerisy does not do this by promoting nationalism, material success, and class warfare it is failing in its task.
His opposition to Marxism may be thought surprising because he insists on the significance of justice. But for him justice is a unifying and universalizing theme that is precisely not about material goods, "civilization as I understand it here—moral supremacy conferred on the cult of the spiritual and on the feeling of the universal—appears to me as a lucky accident in man’s development." (194-195) Be that as it may, since Benda acknowledges that only in rare ages does the clerisy perform the tasks he has assigned them faithfully, he is also explicit that civilization is a rare thing and unlikely to happen (195). I have to admit that this makes him endearing to me.
What is less endearing is that on Benda's view all an era has to do is pay lip-service to the moral supremacy of the spiritual realm in order to count as civilization. He does not expect, and at times seem skeptical about the desirability of, adherence to these non-material values by rulers and lay-people alike. That is to say, and I do find this interesting, for Benda civilization is not about the consequences of preaching justice and truth and a civilized age can be highly hypocritical.
In a way, Benda admits that democratic ages may be more sincere than others, but when they are not embracing genocidal nationalism (and he is prescient on this), they are sincerely crass. Now, one may well wonder what's great about civilized ages if they are compatible with (say) rank plunder. Benda does not really explain beyond the nobility of having exemplary clerks willing to stand against the tide. But I think he believes that such ages exhibit a certain form of intellectual even spiritual fertility worth having. Given our manifest lack of civilization it may be worth a second thought.
For what it's worth, the young Mircea Eliade seems to have been impressed by this book, though his exemplary clerks might actually spark the revolution a la Legion of the Archangel Michael.
Posted by: David Duffy | 06/09/2020 at 12:34 PM