Digressions&Impressions

On Johnson's Victory

We broke the deadlock, we ended the gridlock, we smashed the roadblock and in this glorious, glorious pre-breakfast moment, before a new dawn rises on a new day and a new government, I want first of all to pay tribute to good colleagues who lost their seats through no fault of their own in the election just gone by. And of course I want to congratulate absolutely everybody involved in securing the biggest Conservative majority since the 1980s. "Literally, literally - as I look around - literally before many of you were born....

[T]his election means that getting Brexit done is now the irrefutable, irresistible, unarguable decision of the British people. And with this election, I think we've put an end to all those miserable threats of a second referendum. I have a message to all those who voted for us yesterday, especially those who voted for us Conservatives, one-nation Conservatives for the first time. "You may only have lent us your vote and you may not think of yourself as a natural Tory. And as I think I said 11 years ago to the people of London when I was elected in what was thought of as a Labour city, your hand may have quivered over the ballot paper before you put your cross in the Conservative box and you may intend to return to Labour next time round. And if that is the case, I am humbled that you have put your trust in me, and that you have put your trust in us. And I, and we, will never take your support for granted.--Boris Johnson "Election victory speech"

Johnson's victory speech is extraordinary ungraceful and ungenerous toward Jeremy Corbyn: his only mention of his vanquished opponent, Jeremy Corbyn, is this remark, "You also voted to be Corbyn neutral by Christmas by the way and we'll do that too." Even President Trump, in a moment of humanity, managed to be a lot more generous to Hillary Clinton in his victory speech (against his audience's wishes). This cruel gesture does not bode well for the future of democratic norms in the United Kingdom under this man’s leadership.

Not unlike Trump, Johnson has been systematically underestimated by his opponents. But his willingness to drop his party’s Northern Irish allies ruthlessly in order to break the Brexit logjam and, thereby (recall), to retreat from more than a century of commitment to unity with northern Ireland, showed that he is willing to be a ruthless and opportunistic leader when he judges it in his interest. This signaled he was going to try to forge a new electoral alliance. He is lucky, too, because Jeremy Corbyn, who had the upper parliamentary hand, recklessly gave Johnson what he desperately needed– an early election – without getting anything meaningful in return.

Corbyn, who had showed impressive (and to my surprising) skill as a parliamentary tactician in opposition, misunderstood the nature of this election. This was always going to be a Brexit election. And while his desire to keep the traditional Labour coalition together a mixture of multicultural, cosmopolitan big city-folk and the more nationalist traditional (white) working class vote was understandable, it was a strategic mistake. Brexit is initiating, and itself an expression of, a realignment, as Stephen Davies and I have argued (recall). He never managed to unite the remain vote, and – given his clear ambivalence about Brexit – would never have done so. But without a reasonably unified remain vote, he could never hope to thwart a Johnson victory especially after Farage decided to capitulate.

Because Corbyn and his supporters believed that this was the best chance to reorient British political economy in a generation, they failed to pursue a parliamentary coalition to block Brexit when given the opportunity. The price for that was always clear: Corbyn had to step aside. Instead, he preferred the roll the dice in an election.*

And in that election he refused to defend unambiguously the open borders (supported by his own party membership) that are the most immediate way to help the poor and vulnerable everywhere. In so doing, Corbyn – and his lengthy constructive ambiguity about Brexit -- also retreated from the internationalism and solidarity that characterized the commitment to a pan-European project by European social democracy for several generations. In his unwillingness to defend the European dream of ever “closer union,” Corbyn both failed to mobilize his voting potential and, more amazingly yet, lost the moral high ground.  

If my post seems rancorous, I have to admit that I have been very disappointed in my well-meaning Labour leaning intellectual colleagues, who stuck with party come what may and never truly defended the principles of international solidarity and mostly hid behind obfuscation or tactful silence. (We liberals, even the most skeptical ones, have a shameful past, too, so I don't mean to suggest our silences are any more excusable!)

I have said nothing so far about Antisemitism. I truly and honestly deplore, what we may call, the weaponization of antisemitism (recall) (and indirectly here) by those who are callous about the rights and dignity of minorities, who deport people of color, and who promote detention centers to deter refugees and the despairing. I find the unprincipled alliance with Johnson’s Tories by my Zionist friends shortsighted and callous. (I have defended the legitimacy of Zionism, even in the context of its injustice.) Unlike other Zionists, I think Corbyn’s support for the Palestinian cause is nothing to be ashamed of. Humanity demands advocacy for the underdog and Israel is going to need genuine intermediaries to return from its present strategic cul-de-sac of open-ended low grade war. I never thought Corbyn has an unhealthy obsession with Jews (or even Zionism). But I have regretfully come to believe that he did have an insensitive attitude toward Zionism supporting Jews. (See, especially, the offensively tone-deaf remarks recorded and reported here.) On this point, too, Labour intellectuals did not cover themselves in glory.

In one sense the fate of Labour and its intellectuals is only of academic interest to me. But I also have come to believe that the renewal of a true liberalism, also requires the survival and so, thus, revival of social democracy. For liberalism needs rivals willing to advance liberal or parliamentary democracy. Johnson’s remarks reveal that he understands the slender basis of his current coalition. And his big-spending promises – “we will deliver a long-term NHS budget enshrined in law, 650 million pounds extra every week…record spending on schools…Colossal new investments in infrastructure, in science, using our incredible technological advantages to make this country the cleanest, greenest on earth with the most far-reaching environmental programme,” – suggests that the party of Thatcher has reinterpreted and stakes its future on its one nation roots in defense of a paternalistic hierarchy.

Together with Helen de Cruz (see here), I have treated Brexit as a political transformative expierience. I felt confident that it would accelerate a radical change in political landscape--one that would be hard to believe to people ahead of the vote. But it is increasingly becoming clear that since (as I wrote in my book) the “survival” of “liberal society cannot be presupposed even in its historical heartland.” The bravery of the people of Hong Kong reminds us daily that liberal ideas are still the natural refuge in the face of tyranny and repression of the police state. It is such moving images that inspire a modest hope that not all is lost.

 

 

 

Foucault on the Idea of Europe (and Adam Smith, Hume & Kant), Part 1

So we find this idea, which will be at the center of the economic game as defined by the liberals, that actually the enrichment of one country, like the enrichment of one individual, can only really be established and maintained in the long term by a mutual enrichment...Consequently there is a correlative, enrichment, an enrichment en bloc; a regional enrichment: either the whole of Europe will be rich, or the whole of Europe will be poor. There is no longer any cake to be divided up. We enter an age of an economic historicity governed by, if not unlimited enrichment, then at least reciprocal enrichment through the game of competition.
I think something very important begins to take shape here, the consequences of which are, as you know, far from being exhausted. What is taking shape is a new idea of Europe that is not at all the imperial and Carolingian Europe more or less inherited from the Roman Empire and referring to quite specific political structures...It is a Europe of collective enrichment; Europe as a collective subject that, whatever the competition between states, or rather through the competition between states, has to advance in the form of unlimited economic progress.
This idea of progress, of a European progress, is a fundamental theme in liberalism and completely overturns the themes of European equilibrium, even though these themes do not disappear completely. With this conception of the physiocrats and Adam Smith we leave behind a conception of the economic game as a zero sum game. But if it is no longer to be a zero sum game, then permanent and continuous inputs are still necessary. In other words, if freedom of the market must ensure the reciprocal, correlative, and more or less simultaneous enrichment of all the countries of Europe, for this to function, and for freedom of the market to thus unfold according to a game that is not a zero sum game, then it is necessary to summon around Europe, and for Europe, an increasingly extended market and even, if it comes to it, everything in the world that can be put on the market. In other words, we are invited to a globalization of the market when it is laid down as a principle, and an objective, that the enrichment of Europe must be brought about as a collective and unlimited enrichment, and not through the enrichment of some and the impoverishment of others. The unlimited character of the economic development of Europe, and the consequent existence of a non-zero sum game, entails, of course, that the whole world is summoned around Europe to exchange its own and Europe's products in the European market.
Of course, I do not mean that this is the first time that Europe thinks about the world, or thinks the world. I mean simply that this may be the first time that Europe appears as an economic unit, as an economic subject in the world, or considers the world as able to be and having to be its economic domain. It seems to me that it is the first time that Europe appears in its own eyes as having to have the world for its unlimited market. Europe is no longer merely covetous of all the world's riches that sparkle in its dreams or perceptions. Europe is now in a state of permanent and collective enrichment through its own competition, on condition that the entire world becomes its market. In short, in the time of mercantilism, raison d'Etat, and the police state, etcetera, the calculation of a European balance enabled one to block the consequences of an economic game conceived as being over. Now the opening up of a world market allows one to continue the economic game and consequently to avoid the conflicts which derive from a finite market. But this opening of the economic game onto the world dearly implies a difference of both kind and status between Europe and the rest of the world. That is to say, there will be Europe on one side, with Europeans as the players, and then the world on the other, which will he the stake. The game is in Europe, but the stake is the world.
It seems to me that we have in this one of the fundamental features of this new art of government that is indexed to the problem of the market and market veridiction. Obviously, this organization, or at any rate this reflection on the reciprocal positions of Europe and the world, is not the start of colonization. Colonization had long been underway. Nor do I think this is the start of imperialism in the modem or contemporary sense of the term, for we probably see the formation of this new imperialism later in the nineteenth century. But let's say that we have the start of a new type of global calculation in European governmental practice. I think there are many signs of this appearance of a new form of global rationality, of a new calculation on the scale of the world.--Michel Foucault, 24 January 1979, The Birth of Biopolitics. 54-6

Foucault correctly discern the significance of Kant's Perpetual Peace to Ordoliberal thought (recall here; here; here). (He mentions Kant's essay on the following page, and he begins to develops his idea about the Ordos in the subsequent lecture on 31 January.) While it is not surprising Addison is ignored, it is a bit surprising that Hume goes unmentioned because his essays on "The Balance of Trade" and "The Jealousy of Trade" are key steps in the positions described by Foucault. In particular, "The Balance of Trade" explicitly adopts a European stance (and contrasts Europe with China, in particular [recall this post]).*

One way to put Foucault's point in Schmittian terms he does not use is that once the non-zero-sum logic of mutual gains of trade is accepted as state policy, enemies can be transformed into possible mere rivals. Rivals can be genuine competitors in one sense, but since they are playing the same game also partners of a certain sort. And this transformation entails the possibility of permanent self-limitation in foreign affairs, even a route toward confederation (or "ever closer union"). I use the language of possibility because subsequent history suggests the temptation of continental-wide conquest does not disappear altogether. 

The significance of all of this is that foreign affairs is transformed from the Hobbesian state of nature to something distinctive. Foucault emphasizes the development of a species of "global rationality" (there are shades of Hegel here) and the significance of global markets for European exports and imports. I return to this point below. But before i get to that, when regional enemies are turned into regional rivals, one is incentivized to develop and sustain regional institutions and norms that manage various features (trade, communication, international law, etc.) of the rivalry. This is the possible mechanism that underwrites (recall) Smith's idea of a transatlantic empire and Kant's idea of regional con-federation.

One effect is that the world is divided between peoples (rivals) with which one has shared interests and peoples who remain possible enemies. This way of putting it makes sense of Foucault's idea that the development of liberalism generated a European subject, who viewed part of the world as ripe for, if not, colonialism and  imperialism, then at least continued mercantilism. That is, on this view, intra-European liberalism strengthened the system of global mercantilism. Foucault can grant, and even argues this, that liberalism understood itself as a limitation and correction of mercantilism (and the mercantile police state in particular). But this self-understanding, while partially correct, occludes the fact that the embrace of domestic and regional liberalism sustains a system of global mercantilism.

The benefit of this analysis is that it can explain why mercantile forces made such a powerful comeback after 1870 (as neoliberals lament and their critics acknowledge). For rather than being defeated by the victory of 19th century liberalism, its position had de facto been improved. 

Now, against Kant and Smith, Foucault comes close to implying that the non-zero sum intra-European relationships presuppose a zero-sum extra-European relationship that extracts wealth from would be enemies (in what we may call the Global South). On this view a zone of open-ended progress requires the domination of the backward, even if the shape of this domination is product of contingent features. 

It is important to register that while this is certainly not implausible (given subsequent history) this is not the necessary liberal self-understanding. Smith is quite explicit that non-zero-sum relations are possible with peoples everywhere and, as is well known, he is very critical of the mercantile spirit of war that has occasioned the "savage injustice" of non-Europeans. For both Smith and Kant, progress toward a global organization that creates non-zero-sum logic can accompany open-ended economic progress. Whether the self-conception is correct or is ideological delusion or sensible regulative ideal is, in part, an empirical question. 

I am about to wrap up. But note that there is a further implication of the division of states into European rivals and non-European possible enemies. The possible enemies are all, in principle, geographically distant. And so the grounds of enmity much fewer than among the formerly local enemies. This fact was obscured by the existence of European imperialism/colonialism itself the consequence of (a) capacity to project power globally; (b) the relative military weakness of most non-Europeans; (c) and the development or ethnic/racialist/cultural ideologies of European superiority. With global shifts of balance of power against Europe, (a-c) are de facto being undermined. So, this makes possible a form of European subject that does not thereby indirectly support global mercantilism. So, Europe's current relative weakening may, in fact, be good news for European liberalism understood as a global aspiration. If that's right, this may be the first grounds for optimism about a possible third wave of liberalism, if we can generate it.

Okay, that's it for today. Somewhat surprisingly, when later in the lecture series, Foucault turns to the Ordos and the Chicago school, Foucault does not really return to theme of European subjectivity, nor global rationality. But in a follow up post, I will try to rationally reconstruct it and address the question whether neo-liberalism generates imperial mechanisms.

 

On Confucian Authority

The Confucian conception of the ideal political relationship is one of mutual trust and commitment. Political authority is a kind of relationship or bond between the ruler and the ruled. What makes political leadership truly authoritative is not just the ruler’s ability to protect and promote the people’s well-being, but the willing acceptance of his rule by the people. That is to say, authority to lead is not merely externally justified but also internally constituted by a mutual commitment from both sides—the ruler’s commitment to care for the people and the people’s willing acceptance. Early Confucian masters used words such as min fu (that is, the people sincerely follow) (Confucius 1979:bk 2, sect. 19; hereafter Confucius 1979: bk 2.19), and min yue (that is, the people delight) (Mencius 1970: bk 1B.10) to describe the idea of people’s willing and glad acceptance of political rule. These ideas can often be found in passages from The Analects and Mencius. The authority of political leaders ultimately resides in the ‘hearts of the people’—true authority can only be accepted, recognized, and willingly complied with by the people. External forces such as sheer power will not give a ruler true authority. Even an institutional office of authority cannot guarantee the office-holder true authority.
Precisely because authority is constituted by the attitudes and commitment of the ruler and ruled, early Chinese thinkers thought that political authority is a precarious and fragile relationship. Any one side of this relationship can easily harm or undermine it by withdrawing the attitudes that constitute authoritativeness. These thinkers believed that the ruler rather than the subjects should play an active role in forging and maintaining this relationship—he should care for the people, gain their trust, and win their hearts. Only leaders who have proper virtues and abilities can command the voluntary submission of the people, and only they can develop and sustain the ideal ruler–ruled relationship. In other words, leadership is an important foundation for political order and authority.--Joseph Chan and Elton Chan (2014) "Confucianism" The Oxford Handbook of Political Leadership, p. 58. [HT Amanda Greene]

A nice feature of this Confucian account is that authority can come in degrees along different dimensions based on the intensity and nature of mutual commitment. This allows for the natural thought that the very same authority can be recognized to solve (recall Sabl on Hume) a coordination problem, while being treated as a nuisance in other respects. Authority is not a binary matter. 

Of course, because taking another's authority over oneself on trust seems gullible, or childish, it's easy to  assume mistakenly that this Confucian conception of authority is based on a naive or idealistic conception of politics. To see why this is not so, let's accept the implied contrast (in the quote) between the false authority based on office, function, or mere power and the true authority grounded on mutual commitment. As Joseph Chan notes in his book, Confucian Perfectionism, such a conception of true authority is based on a "service conception" of authority. That is, a ruler's authority is a means toward the flourishing of his (or her) subjects, or ruled. And if these flourish they have reasonably solid (epistemic and psychological) grounds to find the leader authoritative.

Of course, in the background there is a controversial empirical assumption (familiar from other posts on Mencius here and here) that rulers are in a non-trivial sense ultimately causally responsible for social outcomes. By this the Confucians clearly do not mean that rulers should be tyrants. Rather, they are responsible for the proper functioning of laws and for the appointment and oversight of inferior magistrates and rulers. This is less implausible than it sounds because good government for the Confucians is from a practical perspective little more than maintaining impartial justice, keeping taxes low, and facilitating public works conducive to the common good/trade (etc.). 

As an aside, it is a bit peculiar to see Joseph and Elton Chan appeal to Mencius 1B.10. Yes, I know they are doing so to provide a source text for the idea that min yue means the people delight. But at 1B.10 the underlying issue is whether conquest is wise. To be precise, the question is about how to maintain a conquest. And Mencius' answer is that depends on how you treat the occupied. But, of course, what makes the initial conquest possible is "ten thousand chariots" (that is, force).* So, the passage itself is at odds with the overall spirit of the Chans' interpretation of Confucian authority.*

Okay, with that in place let me now turn to a reservation. I do so by noting a virtue of this account of true authority. Such authority is grounded in the care for the people, and their perceptions of it.  This means that social unrest, anger, protest, or social turmoil are all signs that authority is not functioning well. I take this to be a feature, not a bug, of this account. But this account presupposes -- somewhat democratically -- that what serves the people, by the lights of the people, is good.

By this I do not mean to express distrust (familiar from Plato) about the people's ability to embrace true good for themselves. I grant that the service conception presupposes the idea of a moral community. One is not meeting the demands of service merely by preference satisfaction of the people. 

Let me explain. Rather, I worry that the "voluntary submission of the people" to able leaders can come at the expense of those who may not be intended to be served be the leader. Those may be people in places beyond the king's authority, transients within the border, or, perhaps, structural minorities. Now, clearly if the people in places beyond the king's authority or transients/structural minorities within the border can make their displeasure or resentment felt, then the king's lack of service undermines his authority.

But there are going to be cases where those most in need of one's service and protection, are least likely to complain or protest when one is derelict in one's service to them. These are not hypothetical cases, but the very definition of precariousness. It's pretty clear, as Joseph Chan emphasizes, that for (say) Xunzi (7.1) a true king ought to assist the most vulnerable. But here the empirical and normative elements of the theory may well come apart: if "the people" approve of one's leadership (perhaps not in virtue of one's mistreating the very vulnerable, although that cannot be ruled out, but) because one is of true service to the people, then one's subjective authority may well be very robust even if those who are not counted among the people are ignored. But I hesitate to call it 'true' authority. 

 

Beliefs become reality: The Berlin Wall on Campus, and Trump's Wall

As I looked out a moment ago from the Reichstag, that embodiment of German unity, I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: "This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality." Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.--Ronald Reagan, June 12, 1987.

Yesterday, I found myself staring at a janitor's office instead of a seminar room. After circling the floor carefully looking for the seminar with Vernon Smith and Bart Wilson, I asked a staff person for directions; she helpfully asked, do you need to be in Wilkinson Hall or Wilkinson College? I decided that I did not know, but that it was probably the other building. She took me to one of the exits, and said, past the slab of the Berlin Wall, you go into that building on the right. I thanked her. As I started walking, I passed a concrete slab with graffiti, hidden inside a monument, it suddenly dawned on me that's really a piece of the Berlin Wall!

The next morning I went back to look at it and take pictures. The slab of wall is part of a larger monument--on the outside are plaques with quotes by the mighty dead (although not all of them famous) about the nature of liberty, and a larger plaque with a quote from Reagan's famous 'tear down this wall' speech (see above).

When (recall) I visited Rice University a few years ago, I noticed a similar memorial with a section of the Wall (see here). Thanks to Wikipedia (here), I learned that there are bits of the wall not just at quite a few presidential libraries and assorted museums, but also at more US college campuses: Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California (which I will try to visit this month); Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia; Eureka College, Eureka, Illinois (Reagan's alma mater [recall]); Hult International Business School (Cambridge, MA);  Grand Valley State University; Westminster College, Fulton, (site of Churchill's famous Iron Curtain speech); University of Hawaii Honolulu Community College, Honolulu, Hawaii; Capital University, Bexley, Ohio; University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, (I can't believe this I missed this on a visit a few years ago); and The Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Washington D.C. I won't be surprised if some clever photo-artist has done a neat instillation reconstructing the wall from these and other in situ slabs, and perhaps reveal the cumulative meaning of these displaced corners of concrete.

In looking over the quotes on the side of the memorial, I was struck, perhaps naturally today, by a passage from a certain Paul Poirot (see my picture below the fold), "The most certain way to halt or prevent the development of a nation and its citizens is to fence them in." It's from a 1968 essay, "progress through travel." Poirot was an economist who worked for  the Foundation for Economic education (a pro-free-market institute).* While Poirot's essay is not unproblematic, and not without cliches, one gets the sense of a surprisingly noble vision. The fences Poirot speaks of are natural, artificial, historical, and emotional. And he is quite explicit that it not just trade and immigrants/refugees that get hemmed in by fences, but also travelers. It reminded me of a point in James C. Scott's Seeing like a State, in which he remarks, I think (I can't find it right now), that the great wall of China was as much intended to keep potential invaders out as it was to keep citizens in. It's not for nothing, that in Perpetual Peace, Kant treats the right to visitation as a non-enemy as an original, cosmopolitan right not alienated by the rise of property and states. 

Most critics of President Trump's wall and policies rightly focus on the effects on refugees and immigrants as well as trade. But as Poirot and Scott (and Kant) help us see, another great danger is that Trump's wall will encourage the narrowing of visions, the closing in on oneself. In some respects this need not be wholly bad (in reducing the temptation of empire and in addressing, perhaps, important local, social needs), but the diminution of spirit, may well discourage inquisitiveness, curiosity, and travel. Of course, this narrowing of focus, this eagerness to put oneself ahead is part of a larger process that also brought Trump and his wall to power.  

There is, of course, a risk in intellectualizing Trump and his supporters. And from the moment, prompted by Jason Stanley, I started writing about his rise (September 2015), I have been sensitive to this charge. But it's equally dangerous to ignore the role of beliefs altogether. Not just because it plays into the stereotype that Trump and his supporters are driven primarily by ('deplorable') emotions, but more important politics is the process by which "beliefs become reality." It is, of course, an interesting question if that slogan really was painted on the Wall, and in what language, but it's noticeable that Reagan insisted that faith, beliefs, and truth can change the status quo.

Many academics find it difficult to say anything positive about Reagan, and there is much to criticize. Even so, I think he is one of the great democratic orators, and I want to close with a modest reflection on his speech that the piece of concrete in Chapman made me revisit. 

While Reagan twice pairs himself with Kennedy's great speech, the great theme of the speech is the "rebirth" of democracy.  Reagan here echoes (recall) Lincoln's great "a new birth of freedom" at Gettysburg. This rebirth involves simultaneously, being "disabused of illusions" and a willingness to make symbolically grand plans for the future. For example, he plays with the idea of making Berlin a key global city hosting core meetings of the United Nations and Olympic games. 

Reagan's speech starts from duty toward freedom, a sense of history, and also beauty.  And it turns out aesthetics play a great role in the speech because Reagan makes a point of contrasting the beauty of the great parks/forests of Berlin with the ugly wall that runs from the Baltics down to Southern Europe. The wall is a "scar." The fruits of freedom are prosperity, but also culture and higher learning.+ 

Let me close. The key moment in the speech is when Reagan addresses those that protested him in 1982, when NATO was deciding to place cruise missiles, and those that protest him during the speech. Rather than vilifying them, he acknowledges their presence and continues his (side of the great) debate over his foreign policy with them. This turns out to set up the closing rhetorical flourish when he closes his speech not with a comment addressed to Gorbachev, the NATO allies, the German government, or Americans watching home (even if they are all implied part of the audience), but with a rhetorical question posed to the demonstrators, "I wonder if they have ever asked themselves that if they should have the kind of government they apparently seek, no one would ever be able to do what they're doing again."

That non-inclusive 'they' is a rhetorical mistake ('you' would have been so much more potent); even if Reagan gets to position himself as the thoughtful one and implicitly treat the protesters as thoughtless. This is not why I admire the speech. Yet, in so doing, and in the historical context, Reagan acknowledges that fundamental confrontations are at the heart of democracy. And, in fact, he turns the right to protest and denounce him loudly into the distinguishing hallmark of democracy; audaciously, his whole speech is a claim that his robust foreign policy is the safeguard of others to criticize him.

Thirty-two years is a longer separation between us and President Reagan than Reagan and President Kennedy. The cold war seems like a blip now briefly interrupting, with the horrific doctrine of mutually assured destruction, the natural rise and fall of demagogues. The vast majority of students who notice the slab of concrete were not born yet when 'the wall' came down. One wonders how many of them will be around to celebrate the fall of President Trump's wall. 

 

 

The European Union's Pivotal Moment: On Brexit and CEU

Following Kant, they see Auschwitz as the ultimate expression of that barbarism, that brutal debasement of humanity, which is national particularism.

From this point of view, the death camps provide the ultimate proof of the evil of permitting nations to decide for themselves how to dispose of the military power in their possession. The obvious conclusion is that it was wrong to give the German nation this power of life and death. 

If such evil is to be prevented from happening again and again, the answer must be in the dismantling of Germany and the other national states of Europe, and the yoking together of all the European peoples under a single international government: Eliminate the national state once and for all, and you have sealed off that dark road to Auschwitz.

Notice that according to this view, it is not Israel that is the answer to Auschwitz, but the European Union. A united Europe will make it impossible for Germany, or any other European nation, to rise up and persecute others once again.

In this sense, it is the European Union that stands as the guarantor of the future peace of the Jews, and indeed, of all humanity.--Yoram Hazony (2018), The Virtue of Nationalism.

The slow-motion, train-wreck of European crises unfolding since 2005, with France's non and the Netherland's nee, is culminating in two events a week (or two) apart: next week the mother of all parliaments will hold a debate and vote on The Withdrawal Agreement between the EU and UK. The other is the Hungarian government's decision to force a departure of Central European University (CEU) alongside the "Hungarian governmentʼs crackdown on academic freedom, including a government ban on gender studies programs, forced suspension of research related to migration, and punitive tax measures." 

I have decided to contextualize these political events with a quote from (my sometime co-author), Yoram Hazony, a fierce critic of the EU. I find it useful to do so because often (not always) critics see the true nature of an institution or change better than a friend of the status quo. In his book, Hazony treats the EU as a (modern) cosmopolitan empire to be contrasted with the nation-state, whose legitimacy and virtues Hazony defends. The particular quoted passage is part of an argument in which Hazony tries to make the case that the same set of facts can be viewed differently depending on the contrasting paradigm (empire vs nation) one embraces/inhabits.* (Obviously, the argument is, in part, in the service of a vindication of Zionism--but that vindication does not concern me here.)

What Hazony gets right is that at bottom the EU is a moral project, even a Kantian one centered on (recall) Kant's liberal faith (not his ethics) and Kant's embrace of (recall) Hobbesian self-limitation.+ It's not only a moral project; it started out as a means to prevent another major war between Germany and France (recall this post on the 1951 Paris Declaration), and it quickly became preoccupied with economic matters. But even so, in the proposed "closer union" of the Treaty of Rome, "peace" is explicitly coupled with "liberty." This is important, because while (as I argued) the EU was grounded in considerable mistrust of national, parliamentary democracy, it's anti-democratic modes of operation are designed to safeguard liberties. Left-wing critics of the EU (recall this post on so-called Lexiters) think the previous sentence is code for an exclusive defense of private property and the advocacy of a neoliberal agenda. I don't think such critics are all wrong about this, but the point of defending private property and markets is to advance an agenda not just of economic growth, but also the flourishing of peoples and individuals, to safe-guard them from harms and cruelty, and to allow each of us creatively to make independent choices that will develop whole new ways of  living.

In his book, Hazony acutely diagnoses the risks of homogenization and imposition that tempts every imperial center. What he misses is that the EU is unlike any other empire in it being grounded in principles of non-violence. These principles were made possible due to the fact that for all of its history so far the EU operates in the context of Pax Americana--most EU member states are protectorates of the US. (That is, as empires go the EU is not quite independent.)  Hazony misses this because he is primarily focused on the way ultimately (Germany led) EU law supersedes domestic law. But during the last few years nobody in the EU has contested the right of the British to leave the EU, except other UK citizens and EU residents living in the UK.

An empire with a true right to exit is a historical novelty. This is only intelligible, I think, because at bottom the EU is committed to non-violence and liberty. (Hazony by contrast, sees the EU as focused on, like all consolidated empires, peace and prosperity.) My claim here is not ad hoc. The UK's long road to Brexit has been paved by innumerable number of opt-outs. Each of these opt-outs represent an acknowledgment of the liberty of the member states (and their inhabitants) to be free to chart their own course(s).**

Of course, there is a limit to such freedom and May's Withdrawal Agreement represents it. It expresses the unequal power between the much stronger EU and the weaker UK (which on paper is still one of the five great powers with a veto in the security council and an independent nuclear arsenal). In return for being able to say 'we have left the EU' (such symbols matter) and to continue to have market access (in goods) to the EU, the UK has agreed to a status that provides it with less political influence in the EU today and not much new freedom to maneuver in the future. Somewhat ironically a project (Brexit) that was intended to deliver freedom, ends up reducing freedoms: to be a rule-taker is to be subject to empire. The debate in the Commons will be fascinating because there are no good choices for the (rather unimpressive) British political class.

Hazony's error about the nature of the EU can be forgiven because it's easy to miss that the EU is a moral enterprise because the EU's political elites fail to defend it; its judges and leading technocrats routinely fail to defend freedom of religion, academic freedoms, the right to asylum, press freedoms, the rule of law in member states, and the rights of (say) Roma. In that light, the departure of CEU from Hungary is not an isolated incident. ++  But it represents a more general lack of belief in the EU as shared, moral enterprise.*** 

Now, one may well think that as long as the EU prevents a new war between France and Germany, such a moral enterprise is dispensable. But we're one or two national elections away such that the all the important EU players will have an instrumental or rejectionist understanding of the EU. The rejectionists take heart from the defeat of CEU and the possibility of a genuine Brexit, which will remove the key guardian of liberal values from the EU. Before you think my alarmism is premature, consider the fact that (recall) unemployment is low and we're nearing the end of a a long economic growth cycle fueled by low interest rates; EU rejectionist and neo-fascist parties are polling between 10-35% across Europe, including in countries with no serious fascist tradition. As Stefan Kolev noted to me recently, who seriously believes those forces will be contained during the next economic crisis?

 

On Race and the Enlightenment

The key ingredients of modern racism are: a scientific or pseudoscientific theory of fixed differences between human “species”; an emphasis on group or collective identity; a stress on national culture and ephemeral spiritual differences rather than institutions to explain differences in societal outcomes. All of these were products of the 19th century and in many cases emerged in diametrical opposition to Enlightenment ideas of individualism and egalitarianism.

This is not to excuse the racism of any given classical liberal or to deny that racialism and liberalism could coexist. But it does suggest that a Foucauldian attempt to trace back the sins of the modern world to the Enlightenment is hardly the path towards a better understanding of the past. Mark Koyama "Did the Enlightenment Give Rise to Racism?" @Liberal Currents, [HT David M. Levy]

Koyama, an economics professor, does not recycle the uncritical platitudes common to friends of the Enlightenment. He draws on an impressive and wide array of recent scholarship to engage with the question that gives his essay its title. Even so, his narrative fails to do justice to the underlying evidence.* (In what follows, I am drawing on work of many scholars that I will not credit independently--mea culpa.)

Before I get to that let me give a sense of his strategy. In addition to alertness to the thought that the Enlightenment is itself a diverse set of intellectual traditions, Koyama's strategy can be best summarized three moves:

1. Where Enlightenment figures are racist, their racialism is not modern scientific racism. A characteristic example is the encyclopedic naturalist Buffon, who embraces a racialist theory in which, in principle, reversible environmental features can explain racial difference (and hierarchy) 
2. Where Enlightenment figures do seem to anticipate modern scientific racism, treat them as exceptions ("such as David Hume and especially Immanuel Kant").
3. Treat the racialized ideas of civilizational hierarchy and progress of Victorian imperialists (e.g.) not as heirs to the Enlightenment, but as influenced by the counter-Enlightenment. In so doing he draws on work by David Levy, Sandra Peart, and Jennifer Pitts, all of whom usefully distinguish Adam Smith's stadial theories and his critique of imperialism from Mill's attitude.+ 

Let's grant, for the sake of argument, that the environmental racists (like Buffon) do not count as predecessors of modern scientific racists. I do not think this is un-problematic because (i) in his own time Buffon's writings were admired greatly (including sometimes by Adam Smith [see here for my treatment]) and were thought to be the pinnacle of scientific achievement; (ii) Buffon's work was also thought scientific by a relevant authority. For, in the fourth edition of the Origin of Species, Darwin writes, "the first author who in modern times has treated it in a scientific spirit was Buffon."  The "it" that Darwin refers to is the thought "that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are the descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms."  To save Koyama we need to insist that Darwin's idea of 'modern' when conjoined with 'scientific' and ours differs. 

 

Second, it is peculiar to treat Hume and Kant as exceptions (even if we allow, persuaded by Kleingeld, that Kant changed his mind). No narrative of the Enlightenment without them is possible. It is notable  that in his essay, Koyama ignores mention of the details of Hume's position. For Hume's claims racial hierarchy occurs in his essay of national characters (recall this post, which also deals with his attitude  toward Jews). That is, Hume very clearly anticipates the main outlines of the position that Koyama is keen to attribute to the counter-enlightenment. (That  is, of course, no surprise because there are clearly conservative elements in Hume's philosophy. It is also no surprise to readers of Levy/Peart, who often emphasize that Smith's methodological analytic egalitarianism is in sustained critical dialogue with Hume on precisely this point.) Of course, Hume also embraces, and in fact is one of the greatest theories of the idea (that Koyama identifies with the true Enlightenment [recall my post here]) that "progress was possible given the right institutions and government"  (and, in fact, his treatment of the Jews is a somewhat disturbing example of this.) 

 

Third, of course, Hume and Kant are not mere exceptions. I have (recall) repeatedly called attention to Berkeley's racialist eugenics program (which includes racial hierarchy) in the Querist (which is a great economics text that embraces the idea that "progress was possible given the right institutions and government.") Now, Berkeley's status as Enlightenment thinker may be questioned.

 

So, let me turn to a really strange bit in his analysis: he correctly notes Voltaire's fascination and praise for China (this was, in fact, a rage in eighteenth century thought; see Ryan Hanley's piece), but he mistakenly infers from this that Voltaire is, thus, not a racist.  Of course, as I noted a few months ago (recall), Voltaire is very clearly a racist. (See also Harvey on Voltaire's Treaty on Metaphysics here.)Now, in context Voltaire is attacking the great chain of being on proto-Darwinian grounds (appealing not unlike Buffon and Smith to the reality of species extinction). To be a racist does not require -- as Koyama himself insightfully argues -- to put Europeans (alone) at the top of the hierarchy.

 

The attack on  the great chain of being is important. It is now thoroughly discarded within science. But it was very influential in the nineteenth century (go read Lovejoy). So, on this point Voltaire is more modern than most Victorians. Any list that includes Hume, Kant, Berkeley, and Voltaire is not a marginal feature of the Enlightenment. (They, in turn, influenced many others.)++ So, in some sense it is undeniable that the Enlightenment gave rise to racism. 

 

I do not wish to deny that there are important currents in Enlightenment thought, represented by Diderot (who is barely discussed) and Adam Smith, that are deeply suspicious of the racism and imperialism of their peers.** Koyama is right to call attention to them (but curiously uninterested in gender). I often do so myself in my own writings. But one cannot rule out the possibility that they are the generous outliers of the Enlightenment not its main current.***

 

I believe there is in this also an important moral: every age, including the ones that understand themselves as Enlightened, is full of awful ideas. Sometimes, even the noblest souls -- Kant, Mill -- embrace the most awful ideas. It does not follow that one cannot turn critically against the ideas of one's age. I believe that's an  Enlightenment idea worth embracing.

 

 

Graeber on Nobility and Markets

A mechanic from Nebraska knows it is highly unlikely that his son or daughter will ever become an Enron executive. But it is possible. There is virtually no chance on the other hand that his child, no matter how talented, will ever become an international human rights lawyer, or a drama critic for the New York Times. Here we need to remember not just the changes in higher education, but also the role that unpaid, or effectively unpaid, internships. It has become a fact of life in the United States that if one chooses a career for any reason other than the money, for the first year or two one will not be paid. This is certainly true if one wishes to be involved in altruistic pursuits: say, to join the world of charities, or NGOs, or to become a political activist. But it is equally true if one wants to pursue values like Beauty or Truth: to become part of the world of books, or the art world, or an investigative reporter. The custom effectively seals off any such career for any poor student who actually does attain a liberal arts education. Such structures of exclusion had always existed of course, especially at the top, but in recent decades fences have become fortresses.

If that mechanic’s son – or daughter – wishes to pursue something higher, more noble, for a career, what options does she really have? Likely just two. She can seek employment with her local church, which is hard to get. Or she can join the Army.

This is, of course, the secret of nobility. To be noble is to be generous, high-minded, altruistic, to pursue higher forms of value. But it is also to be able to do so because one does not really have to think too much about money. This is precisely what our soldiers are doing when they give free dental examinations to villagers: they are being paid (modestly, but adequately) to do good in the world. Seen in this light, it is also easier to see what really happened at universities in the wake of the 1960s – the “settlement” I mentioned above. Campus radicals set out to create a new society that destroyed the distinction between egoism and altruism, value and values. It did not work out, but they were, effectively, offered a kind of compensation: the privilege to use the university system to create lives that did so, in their own little way, to be supported in one’s material needs while pursuing virtue, truth, and beauty, and above all, to pass that privilege on to their own children. One cannot blame them for accepting the offer. But neither can one blame the rest of the country for resenting the hell out of them. Not because they reject the project: as I say, this is what America is all about.

As I always tell activists engaged in the peace movement and counter-recruitment campaigns: why do working class kids join the Army anyway? Because like any teenager, they want to escape the world of tedious work and meaningless consumerism, to live a life of adventure and camaraderie in which they believe they are doing something genuinely noble. They join the Army because they want to be like you.--David Graeber (2007) "Army of Altruists: On the alienated right to do good"@The Anarchist Library. [HT David Jacobs.]

After yesterday's post [in response to Dennett, on meritocracy and the crisis of liberalism], David Jacobs called my attention to Graeber's essay. A regular (recall) inspiration for these Impressions, Graeber fails to acknowledge the exceptions that prove the rule to his analysis, but otherwise his essay has aged well and is very much worth reading.* (I have quoted the concluding paragraph.) It's rhetoric is also nice instance of what I call cosmopolitan patriotism. While the occasion of the piece is political, it's significance is a two-fold conceptual, even axiological distinction (familiar, in fact, from Seneca amongst others [recall for example here]).

First, Graeber treats altruism and egoism as conceptual opposites made possible -- and made intelligible -- by market relations even if, and, perhaps precisely because, the distinction is preached by missionaries. In fact, he treats Christianity as a response to the development of markets and also as a means of the global extension of the cultural-conceptual logic of markets. Graeber draws on anthropology, but one senses a debate with Nietzsche hovering above the whole essay.

Second, orthogonal to the altruism-egoism axis, there is nobility, which is (a) made possible by wealth, and (b) just "is to be generous, high-minded, altruistic, to pursue higher forms of value." I think it is a bit unfortunate that Graeber list altruism here, too. Unfortunate, because this higher kind of altruism relies on "not really" having "to think too much about money" whereas the first kind of altruism is infused by thinking about money if only because money is either the explicit or unspoken other (in terms of self-denial, vows of poverty, pure wills, etc. ) or a measure of the size of the altruistic effort. So, to avoid confusion, when talking about higher forms of altruism (as a species of nobility) I'll use 'generosity' instead.

Such nobility and generosity are not essentially dependent on markets. For markets are not the only source of wealth. But it does not follow that they are incompatible with markets. As even Graeber implicitly allows, commercial society can generate the kind of wealth that makes such nobility and generosity possible. I have argued, in fact, that the original meaning of liberty in liberalism presupposes 'the sense of security that is a consequence of living under the impartial rule of law, and this liberty involves a kind of self- ownership that allows one to exercise one’s judgment in order to make meaningful choices.' Among some such choices are the kind of things Graeber and Adam Smith both call 'noble.' As I have emphasized before, Smith thinks a peculiar form of love of it, which is simultaneously an elevated form of self-love, provides the  motivational pull for generosity: "the love of what is honourable and noble, of the grandeur, and dignity, and superiority of our own characters" (recall here, here; here).

As an aside, I do not mean to deny that Smith was a critic of the rigor-ism that Graeber associates with the missionary; not unlike Hume, he argued that the opposition between egoism and altruism in a way distorts even debases the logic of markets, even morality itself; that prudence, self-care, and market participation can be (inferior) features of a morality worth having. (I think Graber agrees [his Nebraskan mechanic is a dignified character, after all.])**

Now you may be suspicious that I am turning Graeber's critique of the structures of exclusion into a defense of true liberalism worth having. That I am ignoring his point that in modern liberalism, American society demands from those that pursue nobility an initial sacrifice--a sacrifice that is financially un-problematic for those with easy access to family capital, where such capital exists, or that demands considerable self-abnegation and pre-commitment. It is as if contemporary society is saying to those that wish to leave the logic of market relations behind, prove it by cleansing yourself from the habit of financial acquisition.

This purification ritual has two obvious problems: first, the structures of exclusion mean (as Graeber notes) that the possibility of becoming generous in the sense meant here is unfairly distributed. Second, and this echoes the argument of my recent posts on the crisis of liberalism [here, here, and here], the rewards of generosity are increasingly, as one moves up the status hierarchy, measured by money. This is even true of soldiering, which -- let's stipulate in agreement with Graeber -- starts with a desire for 'adventure and camaraderie,' and then is turned into dedication to the mission, even love of country (or constitution), but at the end of a career -- of service and self-improvement -- then is turned into a well paid consultancy gig for a military contractor.+ That is, the purification and sacrifice are blemished by the monetary corruption that beckons at the end.  (The corruption I have in mind here is the undermining of the values that intrinsically belong to the great intermediary social orders; read yesterday's post.) So, the sacrifice ritual becomes kind of vacuous because the holiness it is meant to ensure turns out to be unavailable. Perhaps I have taken Graeber's ideas here a bit beyond his intentions (he actually knows something about the anthropology of sacrifice, after all). But they are not meant as criticism.

But there is a third, more fundamental, problem lurking here, and it is one of the central problems for the revived form of true liberalism I wish to help articulate, but it is also a problem for Graeber (whose political ends are different). Earlier I had agreed with Graeber that generosity and nobility are made possible by wealth. But that was a deliberate euphemism. For while wealth is necessary it is not sufficient; (c) it must be accompanied by some sense of aristocracy. Of course the nature of and entry into aristocracy is very varied in space and time and may -- even if necessarily grounded in capital in some way -- be highly spiritualized.++ 

Graeber rightly notes that it is natural to wish to be part of something higher. But the moral program of recent liberalism, with its embrace of equal dignity, is highly suspicious of any distinction between higher and lower values [unless the private values are strictly private]; and the foreseeable effect of the embrace (by my neo-liberal friends) of revealed preference in modern market economies is to undermine any such distinction. That's a feature not a bug. Graeber rejects the economists (see his Debt), of course, but not the methodological and even moral egalitarianism that lurks below. My point here is not to make trouble for Graeber's project(s);+++ rather to say his insights make trouble for mine: so, yet another way to think the problem of [reviving] liberalism, is how are generosity and nobility possible today? 

 

 

On Two Kinds of Utility and Cosmopolitanism in the Moral Thought of Grouchy and Vauvenargues

In all those circumstances, we become used to consulting our reason as to what the best course of action is, and to settle on the one that will give us the greatest satisfaction afterwards, and thus we acquire the idea of moral evil, that is of an act that is harmful to others and which is prohibited by reason.  

This definition strikes me as more accurate than the one proposed by Vauvenargues, who says that moral good and evil refer to whatever is more useful or harmful to humanity in general. These two definitions are fundamentally the same one, as any good or evil that reason approves or disapproves of corresponds to that which is useful or harmful to humanity. But Vauvenargues’ definition is less precise and harder to grasp because it does not take into account the idea that moral good and evil can be found even in the common man. For ordinary reason and conscience are not enough to understand good and evil from a universal perspective. Yet it matters more than is sometimes thought, in defining moral concepts that we should prefer those definitions that the least enlightened of men may grasp. For when it comes to uncovering the general laws ruling the human heart, the most reliable and enlightened reason is that which is the most common.--Sophie de Grouchy, Letters on Sympathy, Letter V, translated by Sandrine Berges.   

While there is some evidence that Sophie de Grouchy (recall this recent post) was familiar with Bentham's early works, the main notion of 'utility' that she deploys is, in fact, a bit closer to eighteenth century thinkers like Beccaria, Hutcheson, Helvetius, and Hume than Bentham's. In that sense, 'utility' means something like 'public good' (sometimes she uses 'common utility' or 'general utility' to capture notions related to this). Not unlike Smith, she clearly evaluates social institutions like the law in such consequentialist terms. The main consequences that matter are pleasure and virtue. She thinks that such utility can come in degrees. But unlike Bentham, she does not offer a calculus nor aims to maximize the utility of individuals.   

In one case she also treats utility as something that an individual can have in relationship to another individual: "we now see how we are disposed to a particular sympathy for those we are tied to by utility or pleasure," (Letter II). Here she uses utility as an explanation for a directed sympathy with somebody else. That is, if another is -- because of her, say, riches, influence, or status -- useful to us, we are likely to feel sympathy for her. Again, this is unlike the Benthamite notion, where utility is related to a hedonic or psychological property of experience. (As it happens, Grouchy helpfully distinguishes utility from pleasure in the quoted passage.)  

Her main conception of utility is also relevant when it comes to her sole mention of Vauvenargues (1715-1747), who seems unknown among philosophers today. Vauvenargues, an aristocrat, was also little known in his own, short life; but he was befriended by Voltaire who drew attention to his writings. Above, Grouchy quotes Vauvenargues as holding "that moral good and evil refer to whatever is more useful or harmful to humanity in general." The idea that 'good' just is what is useful can be traced back to Hobbes and Spinoza. But the idea that this should be understood in terms of humanity in general seems original to Vauvenargues. (Let me know if you know another source!) It presupposes a very cosmopolitan understanding of the public good. Not unlike Grouchy, Stoicism greatly influenced on Vauvenargues in his youth, although there is debate about his mature views (see here). Proto-utilitarians (like Hutcheson, Helvetius, and Beccaria) tend to treat such utility in terms of the greatest number not in terms of humanity as such.  

Grouchy mentions Vauvenargues in order to contrast his conception of good and evil with her own conception of moral evil, "that is of an act that is harmful to others and which is prohibited by reason." Grouchy here presupposes a distinction between moral and physical pains. The contrast between the 'moral' and 'physical' was a standard one in the second half of the eighteenth century. The 'physical' refers to bodies or matter—so 'physical evils' are bodily pains. The 'moral' refers to what we would call 'social,' but it used to refer to things connected to minds (in a broad sense). So, a 'moral evil' is a social harm.  

Grouchy's criticism of Vauvenargues is, a bit complex. In part, he is treated as a misguided elitist who fails to see that the working poor are capable of sound moral evaluation. But her grounds for criticizing Vauvenargues are itself a bit elitist: that the working poor will lack understanding of such a cosmopolitan conception of humanity in general. She states the point, however, in egalitarian way, "we should prefer those definitions that the least enlightened of men may grasp." The underlying point is a serious one, she rejects a kind of elite, moral expertise: the most reliable and enlightened reason is that which is the most common, that is, found among the working poor.  

The other reason for calling her criticism 'complex' is that while criticizing Vauvenargues's definition, she also claims that, in fact, their definitions actually agree. That is, there is a sense in which their definitions are meant to track a common (and cosmopolitan) good (or evil). This turns on her understanding of reason, which – to simplify – is in her hands not just a psychological faculty that (as in Hume) can calculate the foreseeable effects or outcomes of actions, but also a kind of cosmopolitan principle that (as in Smith) demands from us that each of us is treated equally, or impartially. So, a moral evil is a harm to others when that violates this cosmopolitan principle.

On Impartiality, And the Equality of All Planetarians; Huygens on Beauty and the Infinite Universe

But still the main and most diverting Point of the Enquiry is behind, which is the placing some Spectators in these new Discoveries, to enjoy these Creatures we have planted them with, and to admire their Beauty and Variety. And among all, that have never so slightly meddled with these matters, I don’t find any that have scrupled to allow them their Inhabitants: not Men perhaps like ours, but [37] some Creatures or other endued with Reason. For all this Furniture and Beauty the Planets are stock’d with seem to have been made in vain, without any design or end, unless there were some in them that might at the same time enjoy the Fruits, and adore the wise Creator of them. But this alone would be no prevailing Argument with me to allow them such Creatures. For what if we should say, that God made them for no other design, but that he himself might see (not as we do ’tis true; but that he that made the Eye sees, who can doubt?) and delight himself in the contemplation of them? For was not Man himself, and all that the whole World contains, made upon this very account? That which makes me of this opinion, that those Worlds are not without such a Creature endued with Reason, is, that otherwise our Earth would have too much the advantage of them, in being the only part of the Universe that could boast of such a Creature so far above, not only Plants and Trees, but all [38] Animals whatsoever: a Creature that has a Divine somewhat within him, that knows, and understands, and remembers such an innumerable number of things; that deliberates, weighs and judges of the Truth: a Creature upon whose account, and for whose use, whatsoever the Earth brings forth seems to be provided. For every thing here he converts to his own ends. With the Trees, Stones, and Metals, he builds himself Houses: the Birds and Fishes he sustains himself with: and the Water and Winds he makes subservient to his Navigation; as he doth the sweet Smell and glorious Colours of the Flowers to his Delight. What can there be in the Planets that can make up for its Defects in the want of so noble an Animal? If we should allow Jupiter a greater variety of other Creatures, more Trees, Herbs and Metals, all these would not advantage or dignify that Planet so much as that one Animal doth ours by the admirable Productions of his penetrating Wit. If I am out in this, I do not know when [39] to trust my Reason, and must allow my self to be but a poor Judg in the true estimate of things. C. Huygens, Cosmotheoros, “Rational Animals in the Planets”.

I have mentioned before (recall here) that in an unpublished manuscript (from 1691) Huygens embraced what one may call an ‘aesthetic-maximazation-conservation principle.’ This principle asserts that no natural beauty is wasted and so requires spectators to enjoy it. Because the night-skies on other planets are lovely there must be extraterrestrials to enjoy it (Newton, too, embraces this implication). Huygens's God would not waste the opportunity to have sentient beings enjoy the aesthetic pleasure. Neither God nor nature does anything in vain, after all. " I had noted that Huygens mentions the principle in the (posthumously published) Cosmotheoros, but rejects it as decisive (“this alone would be no prevailing Argument with me to allow them such Creatures.”)

It’s not entirely clear why Huygens rejects it the ‘aesthetic-maximazation-conservation principle’ as offering us grounds to infer extraterrestrials. Perhaps, it’s because he comes to see that there are wasted aesthetic opportunities in the universe: while he is firm that our Sun’s planets have inhabitants, and that this is so of planets of other Suns throughout the universe, he has decided that moons (and Suns) do not have inhabitants.

Another possible ground for rejecting the ‘aesthetic-maximazation-conservation principle’ is that it entails, as Huygens notes, that we humans may exist for God’s aesthetic pleasure (“God made them for no other design, but that he himself might see…and delight himself in the contemplation of them?”) I believe Huygens’s suggestion to this effect is a rhetorical question (even if Huygens embraces providential deism in the Cosmotheoros.)) A reason for thinking this is a rhetorical question is that in the quoted passage, Huygens does not consider this answer – we exist for God’s aesthetic pleasure – as decisive, not to mention that this position would bring Huygens uncomfortably close to Epicureanism --a position he rejects explicitly in the Cosmotheoros.

Rather, Huygens embraces a more Copernican, ‘all Solar Systems are Created Equal,’ principle. A more modest version of the principle is used within solar systems: ‘all planets are Created Equal’ principle. Of course, Huygens recognizes that gravity and heat will be different in different planets, and that the night sky will offer different opportunities to develop one’s astronomy. In fact, part of the fun of the book is having Huygens imagine for his reader what experiencing the galaxy would be like for extraterrestrials. Here’s a nice example:

if Amazement and Fear at the Eclipses of the Moon and Sun gave the first occasion to the study of Astronomy [on Earth], as they say it did, then it’s almost impossible that Jupiter and Saturn should be without it; the Argument being of much greater force in them, by reason of the; daily Eclipses of their Moons, and the frequent ones of the Sun to their Inhabitants. So that if a Person disinterested in his Judgment, and equally ignorant of the Affairs of all the Planets, were to give his Opinion in the matter, I don’t doubt he would give the cause for Astronomy to those two Planets rather than us.

It is notable that Huygens here draws on (Epicurean) tropes which became central to Enlightenment thought (in fact, the parallels with Adam Smith's History of Astronomy are uncanny):+ ancient science is grounded in the unpleasant experience of the spectacle the heavens offer us. The early inhabitants of the outer planets have more regular reasons – and better potential data! -- to begin to track their heavens. An implication that Huygens leaves hanging is that some extraterrestrials will surpass us in scientific knowledge. (Later, when he explicitly gets to the issue, he goes no further than to say that: “there’s no reason to think the Planetarians less ingenious or happy than our selves; we have gained our point, and ’tis probable that they are as skilful Astronomers as we can pretend to be.”)

On the whole Huygens’s reasons for suggesting his ‘all Solar Systems are Created Equal,’ principle are not very interesting (or persuasive--they rely on analogies). But after driving home the vast distances of the visible universe, and reminding his readers of the even vaster distances of the (infinite) universe invisible to us, he introduces a striking, and I think consequential, thought experiment, near the end of his book that helps explain why he adopts this principle:

For then why may not every one of these Stars or Suns have as great a Retinue as our Sun, of Planets, with their Moons, to wait upon them? Nay there’s a manifest reason why they should. For let us fancy our selves placed at an equal distance from the Sun and fix’d Stars; we should then perceive no difference between them. For, as for all the Planets that we now see attend the Sun, we should not have the least glimpse of them, either that their Light would be too weak to affect us, or that all the Orbs in which they move would make up one lucid point with the Sun. In this station we should have no occasion to imagine any difference between the Stars, and should make no doubt if we had but the sight, and knew the nature of one of them, to make that the Standard of all the rest. We are then plac’d near one of them, namely, our Sun, and so near as to discover six other Globes moving round him, some of them having others performing them the same Office. Why then shall not we make use of the same Judgment that we would in that case; and conclude, that our Star has no better attendance than the others? So that what we allow’d the Planets, upon the account of our enjoying it, we must likewise grant to all those Planets that surround that prodigious number of Suns. They must have their Plants and Animals, nay and their rational ones too, and those as great Admirers, and as diligent Observers of the Heavens as our selves; and must consequently enjoy whatsoever is subservient to, and requisit for such Knowledge.[1] (Italics added.)

There are three underlying intuitions here: first, on a cosmic scale, all Suns are equal with no marks to distinguish them and so no marks to elevate them over others. Second, most planets, including ours, are invisible at most points in the universe, and so have no claim to privileged status. Third, there is no rational ground to make one planet (ours) the measure of others.[2] Man is not the measure of things once we see ourselves in our proper place. The nod to Protagoras is important.

It is, by now, a familiar claim that Copernicanism decenters humans and our solar system. We are not at the center of creation anymore. But even so various species of humanism have survived, even thrived in the ages of Copernicanism. (Huygens knew this up close; his father was one of the great Renaissance men of his age.) Throughout the Cosmotheoros, Huygens hesitates to grant that we humans are at the pinnacle of earthly life. He is especially impressed by birds (challenging Descartes's treatment of them as  mere mechanical entities):

Birds, liv’d with more pleasure and happiness than Man could with all his Wisdom. For they have as great a gusto of bodily Pleasures as we, let the new Philosophers say what they will, who would have them go for nothing but Clocks and Engines of Flesh; a thing which Beasts so plainly confute by crying and running away from a stick, and all other actions, that I wonder how anyone could subscribe to so absurd and cruel an Opinion. Nay I can scarce doubt but that Birds feel no small pleasure in their easy, smooth sailing through the Air; and would much more if they but knew the advantages it hath above our slow and laborious Progression.*

Huygens notes that from the impartial and disinterested perspective of the universe [as it were, sub species universalis], our planet is just a “small speck of dirt."* That is, Huygens thinks embracing the 'Solar Systems are Created Equal,’ principle also has obvious implications for "Wisdom and Morality," but about that some other time more.

On Surveys of the History of Political Philosophy/Theory

After  the death of Mohammed in 632, Islam began a triumphant century of conquests. These victories, which left Islam the dominant force in the wealthy Eastern Mediterranean, destroyed what was left of the urban cultural base of the Roman Empire.--Dick Howard (2010) The Primacy of the Political: A History of Political Thought from the Greeks to the French & American Revolutions (Columbia UP), 140.

The quoted passage is just about the only mention of Islam in Howard's book. The passage represents Islam as a powerful military force. It also treats it -- I will grant that this is unintentional -- as destructive of civilization. The contributions to political theory by Islamic thinkers go unmentioned. Howard's book is a survey. It claims to be a History of Political Thought, but outside of Europe and North Atlantic, it fails to cover the other traditions of political theory inspired by Plato. Of course, Islamic-Platonic political theory was also practiced in Europe (e.g., Spain), so the previous sentence is far too generous. This is not the only oversight. While Howard mentions the significance of women and family relations throughout the book, he fails to discuss any female thinkers let alone treat any of them (or a group of them) as worthy of a chapter.+

Alan Ryan's (much larger and) more sophisticated On Politics, mentions some of the leading Islamic philosophers in chapter 6, titled "Between Augustine and Aquinas." But it treats them as metaphysicians and contrasts them with the (somewhat later) Ibn Khaldun, who is considered as the first Islamic political theorist. Now as regular readers know, I am a huge fan of Ibn Khaldun (recall here and here), but this is ignorance about Al-Farabi and those he inspired as well as the roots of key moves in later history of political thought.** (It's not that Ryan ignores their role as transmitter of the Ancients.) Ryan does better on more recent, anti-colonial, twentieth century Islamic  thought; he is clearly fascinated by Sayyid Qutb. And it is not impossible that Sayyid Qutb's  polemical rejection of the Islamic philosophical tradition as somehow not really "true Muslim philosophy", may have encouraged Ryan to treat it as a topic that can be safely ignored. (That can't be the whole story because Ryan also recognizes that Qutb himself is being extremely inventive about the history of Islam.)

On women's role in the history of political theory, Ryan does somewhat better than Howard. While no woman gets her own chapter, the text is at least sprinkled with references to female thinkers and De Pizan gets serious attention. Peculiarly, feminist manifestos are seen as responding to foolishness and lacking political implications. (Because Ryan is unaware of Ibn Rushd's political theory and Platonic feminism (recall), he also suggests that other than Plato nobody drew the conclusion that political capacity and authority had nothing to do with birth and sex)*

Okay, so much for my polemic and brief survey of the field of historical surveys of political theory. Some other time I'll reflect on the presuppositions that make this kind of practice normal. This post was prompted by my search for a decent textbook to use in a rather massive (300-400 students) first year, Intro to History of Political Theory lecture course (from Plato to Marx) that I have been asked to teach. Our teaching coordinators frown on teaching such first year courses from primary texts alone and -- because an exam is given -- encourage the use of a text-book. 

As an aside, most of my scholarly friends in the profession prefer to teach through primary sources. (This has as nice side-effect that our teaching is both research-led and can lead to fruitful research.) And, having  gone through The University of Chicago, I, too, share the prejudice. But even for us  -- text snobs -- surveys are not trivial; they provide the narrative arc that, if they are written by somebody influential and creative, hovers in the back of our minds and quietly seeps into our teaching and research. In addition, these surveys are also the face of our discipline to many students and wider public. 

So, right now, I am still looking for a survey of the history of political philosophy/theory that, in addition to ordinary requirements (competence and nicely written), has three more, moderate desiderata:

    (i) some coverage of political theory outside of Europe/North America, and coverage of Islam (within Europe).

• We are constantly being told about globalization and clash of civilizations, but we allow ourselves to be ignorant of the theories that inspire alternative forms of political reflection.

    (ii) no ignoring of demography, imperialism, racism, eugenics, and slavery (and theoretical debates about these)

• With the rise of concern of global warming and trans-humanism, there is renewed interest in demography and eugenics; these are perennial topics in the history of political theory (and so are questions over  social hierarchy). 

    (iii) some interest in history of feminism female and male -- (and the theoretical debates about it)

• Feminism has a long history. We flatter ourselves and our students by pretending its novel; such flattery only promotes conformism.

So, this gets me to my question: anybody have suggestions for a history of political theory from a cosmopolitan perspective?* I need a text rather urgently.:)

If non exists, who will step up to write it and which publisher will commission it?