Digressions&Impressions

On Neo-Liberalism, Religion, and Walter Lippmann 80 Years Later

Because that which we seek [to do] is not to resuscitate a theory, but to discover the ideas that permit the momentum [élan] toward freedom and civilization to triumph over all the obstacles resulting from human nature, historical circumstances, the conditions of life on this earth. It is a long-term task that requires sustained efforts, sustained support, and the noble patience of those who sincerely and humbly seek the truth. Before it is achieved, humanity will go through, I believe, a very profound and vast religious experience: it will have to evaluate science and its relationship to philosophy and morality anew, it will have to revise the idea of the State, of property, of individual rights and the national ideal. Civilized men will have to submit the conceptions they found novel before the [first World] war to new scrutiny, determined as they will be to discover those that are and those that are not compatible with the vital needs and the permanent ideal of humanity. It is to these vital needs and to this permanent ideal, and not to the doctrines of the nineteenth century, that one should refer to, so as to undertake the reconstruction of liberalism. Let us also seek not to teach an old doctrine, but to contribute within our means to the formation of a doctrine of which none of us has more than a vague notion at the present moment. And we should think of liberalism not as a thing accomplished in the olden days and dated today, but [rather] as something not yet achieved and still very young.--Walter Lippman (1938), p. 105-6.

The term 'neo-liberalism' is associated with many features of liberal ideology of the last half century. But its associaton with a movement is due to the 1938 Walter Lippmann colloquium in Paris (hereafter the colloquium). This gathering was the brain child of Louis Rougier, himself a fascinating (and somewhat disturbing character) with very strong ties to some of my intellectual paragons, Susan Stebbing and the members of the Vienna Circle, including hosting the  International Congresses for the Unity of Science. After the collapse of the first wave of liberalism in WWI and the subsequent rise of communism, fascism, and  nazism, the Colloquium laid the groundwork for rethinking liberalism that, after allied victory in war and Pax Americana, led to spectacular rebirth of liberalism in many new institutions, international collaboration, and a period of astounding prosperity (alongside decolonialization and dismantling of European empires.) While we cannot discount possibility of a great war between China and America, our present conditions, while dire for many and grounds for grave fears, are not yet on the same scale of catastrophe as the atmosphere surrounding the colloquim. Many of its participants are exiles,and the sense that major war is imminent pervades the precedings. The previous sentence is not intended to mimize the suffering of those presently facing persecution nor to deny the looming terror consequent to the unfolding environmental disaster due to climate change.

From the 1960s onward the revival of liberalism became associated with three distinct commitments: (i) a propogation of markets in many spheres of life even at the expense of other voluntary forms of collaboration or organization; (ii) a way of life focused on the profit motive and acquisition of more material comforts or the re-distribution of income/wealth; (iii) the sexual revolution and the concommitant welcoming and newfound construction of forms of life, even identities, that previously were repressed by state and church (or both).* What's striking about the proceedings of the colloquium is that none of these trends are foreshadowed in it--with the exception, perhaps, of (i). But because the proceedings are heavily influenced by ordo-liberal thought, even the most rigorous defenders of markets at the colloqium are committed to the idea that these presuppose a robust state with its own sphere of autonomy and capable shaping the laws required for a market economy.

So, with that in place it is worth looking at the religiosity of Lippmann's conception of liberalism. By this I do not just mean that he thinks that a liberalism worth having will preserve a kind of autonomy for religious associations, churches, and religious ways of life. Rather, I mean that (a) the very idea of liberalism worth having itself involves a spiritual transformation over extended or historical time. And, in particular, that (b) the destination of liberalism is, in a certain sense not yet known. This has strong resonance with a form of Kantian religion (recently ably articulated by Sam Fleischacker in his The Good and the Good Book (Oxford, 2015)) in which the working out of the content of religious faith is itself a matter of uncertainty over the outcome combined with great deal of trust in the guiding ideals (or holy book). At the end (c) there is a promised land that is, in part, the consequence of a revolution in thought (informed by science, experiments in living, and moral discovery). 

This is a liberalism that is grounded in the vital needs of people and principles of humanity. It's pretty clear that for Lippmann these needs are not merely material, although it would be a mistake to shun those material needs. A liberalism that leaves people to suffer is inhumane (and politically unappealing). But these needs also presuppose something spiritual and intellectual. Now, here too, religiosity rears its head. Because rather than privatising those vital needs to churches and voluntary associations alone, it is clear that Lippmann thinks the to-be-discovered-values of liberalism itself need to be, if not themselves sacred objects, at least vessels toward such religiosity. Here Lippmann sounds more like the great Victorian liberal, T.H. Green (and Lippmann's contemporary Niehbur) or the youthful Rawls, than, say, Milton Friedman.**  The achievement of a liberalism worth having is, like the future of scientific development, a multi-generational project that requires self-command, delayed gratification, and a faith in the trustworthiness of the ideal of humanity.

In the last half century liberalism has been increasingly understood, by its advocates and enemies, as somehow anti-religious. This has been a disaster politically because it has driven too many religious into the arms of strongmen and false prophets of security or national glory. In so far as liberalism is hostile to inherited privilege and unquestioned authority this perception of mutual animosity is not without reason. In so far as it caters to a certain skeptical mindset one may superficially believe this to be anti-religious. But such skepticism is itself an expression of religiosity--a willingness to suspend judgment, to consider no question fully settled, a regimented self-doubt, the rejection of conformist consensus these all require faith (even if desparing faith) that illumination can come from the most unlikely sources. One can reject Lipppmann's masculine confidence in civilization, while still recognize that he glimpsed an essential truth, that the articulation of liberalism requires a form of religiosity that awaits its inventors.

  

 

On Public Philosophy and Transgender Rights Campaign

During the past year professional philosophers have struggled with controversies pertaining to transgender issues (recall the Tuvel/Hypatia affaire here and here; and again involving language in journal articles [recall my piece on the open letter to the editors of PPR at Dailynous here;] the debate between Talia Mae Bettcher and Kathleen Stock;[1] the language of the APA philosophy blog [see Leiterreports]), etc. These debates have intersected with wider society and have even led to campaigns to to have faculty removed from their positions in the UK. While I am no friend of calls for civility in debate (recall this post among many), the way this debate is conducted is unedifying and I have already expressed despair that even the philosophers party to the debate seem to be unable to recognize explicitly each other's vulnerabilities. 

I start this post with two preliminary comments. First, as regular readers know, I support so-called public philosophy (recall; which comes in many varieties [see here]) and philosophical activism (which comes in many flavors and in support of many different kinds of causes) of society and the profession. I have long admired the service philosophy of Kristie Dotson (recall), Hugo Bedau's activism against the death penalty, and John Corvino's work on same-sex marriage. (I am sure readers can add to this list their own favorites.)* Such cause/ideal-promoting political activism is both self-justifying and a useful means of discovery of truth. While philosophy can benefit from a measure of distance, cool reflection, and impartiality, it's also the case that engagement with the messy details of lived experience and the arguments generated by political conflict can also be a useful constraint on and source of creativity for philosophical discovery of the nature and properties of an ideal. 

However, I have  long thought that it seems unwise, or at least imprudent, when philosophers qua being philosophers support active politicians and political parties. (That's compatible with doing so qua being citizens of a particular polity). It seems best if one's pursuit of truth and the good is not sullied by and subject to the many tactical compromises and fatal injustices that accompany political life pursued by imperfect beings like us. I rarely see philosophical excellence in support of a politician or party,+ and much that I find cringe-worthy.

Second, transgender people are subject to bigotry, discrimination, harassment, and violence. This is well documented in the UK and US. The evidence also suggests that many transgender victims are also (intersectionally) members of other historically discriminated minority groups, I assume here that the violence occurs in virtue of their being transgender, and that belonging to it means one belongs to (all other things being equal) a vulnerable category of people. So,

• I wholeheartedly support the campaign for transgender rights and protection under the law.***

Regular readers know (recall this post on MLK Jr.) that I also think that human imperfection, self-interest, and bigotry often undermine enforcement of the law and can even make the most beautifully written laws a tool of oppression. What's needed is, thus, also sufficient popular support or opinion and the right dispositions in favor of such rights. Political campaigns are, therefore, crucial to generate such support.** Of course, there is something of a paradox lurking here, because where such support exists the right would not be necessary.

One important feature of new rights is that the costs and (new) down-side risks of these need not be distributed evenly on the population. That's of special concern if these fall on other vulnerable groups. I understand the present campaign against trans rights, which includes some high profile self-described feminist philosophers -- where not informed by or leaning on bigotry -- as aiming to articulate some such risks to vulnerable women, especially those in prisons and among the homeless. I think such concerns eminently reasonable, but that's because there is a reasonable fear of violence and degradation within prisons and fear of violence against the homeless (see here). But rather than fighting transgender rights, the proper response to such concerns for the very vulnerable is, I would think, to join the coalition for thoroughgoing prison reform and better/more resources and conditions for the homeless.++ 

So my preliminaries have turned into a blog post, which was prompted by my momentary reconsideration of my stance on public philosophy.+++ It's true that there is no reason to believe that philosophical activism will always be beneficial. And I am reminded of the fact that even in the pre-internet age (which, let's stipulate, can make any bad thing worse), there was and never is a golden age of civility (as those of us old enough to recall philosophical debates over abortion, LGBTQ rights, or if one pays attention to debates over Zionism/BDS, etc.)---I have often remarked upon the fact that as a discipline we have an all-too-human fondness for philosophical debates as blood-sports and the delicious take-down.

It's a familiar fact that the pursuit of a worthy cause can turn into fanaticism and unpleasant and vindictive (moral) righteousness. And it is known that friends of worthy causes will find it difficult to condemn the excesses because they do not wish to be seen as undermining the worthy cause. For, it's also all-too-common that critics of the worthy cause will use such excesses as a tactic to undermine a cause, and shift debate away from consideration of the underlying evils. Savvy intellectuals recognize the temptation they may benefit from escalation and from hyping an otherwise unworthy critic, inviting abuse from their anonymous followers, with the cycle being renewed etc. And so it can often happen that wisdom is pushed aside or found crouching unnoticed in the margins of the arresting debates. 

In light of such facts people of good will may prefer to retreat to the ivory tower, and pursue their worthy work in undisturbed quiet. Others will note that these facts are part of the eternal return of life's carnival, and will will them...one tweet at a time eternally.  

 

 

Al-Ghazali's Genealogy of Philosophy and Natural Religion

29. Know that the philosophers, notwithstanding the multiplicity of their groups and the diversity of their doctrines, can be divided into three main divisions: Materialists, Naturalists, and Theists.
30. The first category, the Materialists, were a group of the most ancient philosophers who denied the existence of the omniscient and omnipotent Creator-Ruler. They alleged that the world has existed from eternity as it is, of itself and not by reason of a Maker. Animals have unceasingly come from seed, and seed from animals: thus it was, and thus it ever will be. These are the godless in the full sense of the term.
31. The second category, the Naturalists, were men who devoted much study to the world of nature and the marvels found in animals and plants; they also were much taken up with the dissection of animal organs. In these they saw such marvels of God Most High’s making and such wonders of His wisdom that they were compelled, with that in mind, to acknowledge the existence of a wise Creator cognizant of the aims and purposes of all things. Indeed, no one can study the science of anatomy and the marvelous uses of the organs without acquiring this compelling knowledge of the perfect governance of Him Who shaped the structure of animals, and especially that of man. 

32. However, it appeared to these philosophers, because they had studied nature so much, that the equilibrium of the mixture of humors had a great effect on the resulting constitution of the animal’s powers. Hence they thought that man’s rational power was also dependent on the mixture of his humors and that its corruption would follow the corruption of the mixture of his humors, and so that power would cease to exist. Once it ceased to exist, they alleged that bringing back the nonexistent would be unintelligible. So they adopted the view that the soul dies, never to return. Consequently they denied the afterlife and rejected the Garden and the Fire, the assembly and the Recall, and the Resurrection and the Reckoning. So in their view there would be no future reward for obedience, and no punishment for disobedience. Therefore they lost all restraint and abandoned themselves to their passions like beasts. These were also godless men, because basic faith is belief in God and the Last Day — and these men denied the Last Day, even though they believed in God and His Attributes.
33. The third category, the Theists, were the later philosophers, such as Socrates, the master of Plato, and Plato, the master of Aristotle. It was Aristotle who systematized logic for the philosophers and refined the philosophical sciences, accurately formulating previously imprecise statements and bringing to maturity the crudities of their sciences. Taken altogether, these refuted the first two categories of the Materialists and the Naturalists. Indeed, by the arguments they advanced to lay bare the enormities of the latter, they relieved others of that task: “And God spared the believers from fighting (the unbelievers)” (33.25) by reason of the unbelievers’ own infighting.
34. Then Aristotle refuted Plato and Socrates and the Theists who had preceded him in such thorough fashion that he disassociated himself from them all. Yet he, too, retained remnants of their vicious unbelief and innovation which he was unsuccessful in avoiding. So they all must be taxed with unbelief, as must their partisans among the Muslim philosophers, such as Ibn Sina and al-Farabi and their likes. None, however, of the Muslim philosophers engaged so much in transmitting Aristotle’s lore as did the two men just mentioned. What others transmitted is not free from disorder and confusion and in studying it one’s mind becomes so muddled that he fails to understand it — and how can the incomprehensible be rejected or accepted?--Al-Ghazali Deliverance from Error.

In Deliverance from Error (recall and here), Al-Ghazali conceives the origin of philosophy as a atheist revolt against a natural form of theism, one that posits an omniscient and omnipotent Creator-Ruler of the sort that naturally accompanies sovereign kingship [in which the political ruler understands himself as a God, the mirror image  of the cosmic Creator-Ruler). We are not told much else about the natural form of theism, but (given the stringent denials of the original philosophers), we can infer it posited a providential creation story. (I return to this below.) By contrast (on the hostile interpretation of Al-Ghazali) the first philosophers -- one can recognize a stylized picture of the atomists in it -- posit a cosmic order of eternal return without meaning. 

Al-Ghazali is careful not to name any of these original philosophers nor to characterize the natural theism they reject. But they both precede Socrates. There is, in fact, a peculiarity here in that Al-Ghazali ignores the pure forms of Greek polytheism. The natural form of theism is closer to Judaism and (perhaps more likely on his mind) Zoroastrianism; and original philosophy a revolt against it.  

Al-Ghazali's 'naturalists' are a kind of empirical, natural philosophers. (It's a bit surprising he does not mention medicine in this context, but there are hints of Galen throughout the piece.) These find evidence of functionality and design everywhere, there are led, inductively to a theistic designer. But they view a soul as something emergent from or grounded in physical processes and so mortal. Because they deny an afterlife (and resurrection), they become practical atheists. 

It's no surprise that Al-Ghazali sees a tight connection between beliefs about the nature of the soul and, perhaps, more important the existence of judgment day and  observed behavior. (Let's stipulate he is right about observed behavior.) But it is a bit surprising that the charge of immoral behavior is only lodged against the so-called naturalists and not the earlier materialists (a point repeated in paragraph 33!)

I called Al-Ghazali's narrative a 'genealogy.' But it would have been better, perhaps, to call it a 'natural history.' The achievement of the (Socratic) Theists is not just to refute the materialists and naturalists theoretically and to show why the behavior of the latter was truly immoral, but to turn an immature practice into a mature fields ("accurately formulating previously imprecise statements and bringing to maturity the crudities of their sciences.") To put Al-Ghazali's narrative in Kuhnian terms, Socrates is the start of a revolution in philosophy that culminates in Aristotle's achievements.

In the analysis of the after-effects of Aristotle's achievements, Al-Ghazali notices that even theistic philosophy inherit the "remnants of...vicious unbelief and innovation" of the naturalists and materialists relative to the original religion. This entails that Al-Ghazali treats the original religion as a species of (what we may call along with the tradition) true religion. Not for the first time (recall), I notice that Al-Ghazali suggests that that while Muhammad's revelation is instrumentally useful, it is not itself necessary for the existence of true religion. 

 

Darwin's (meta)-Philosophy of Science In The Origin of Species (and a note on his subtle Spinozism and debts to Smith)

The belief that species were immutable productions was almost unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to be of short duration; and now that we have acquired some idea of the lapse of time, we are too apt to assume, without proof, that the geological record is so perfect that it would have afforded us plain evidence of the mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation.

But the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one species has given birth to other and distinct species, is that we are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps. The difficulty is the same as that felt by so many geologists, when Lyell first insisted that long lines of inland cliffs had been formed, and great valleys excavated, by the slow action of the coast-waves. The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of the term of a hundred million years; it cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost infinite number of generations.

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the `plan of creation,' `unity of design,' &c., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject my theory. A few naturalists, endowed with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt on the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with confidence to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality. Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for only thus can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed.--Charles Darwin The Origin of Species, Chapter 14.

Yesterday (recall), I remarked that Darwin likes to bookend/frame his arguments in terms of the ignorance of savages (recall also here). In later editions (from the third onward) of Origin this is accompanied by a further framing: in An Historical Sketch, Darwin gives an informed (albeit potted) history of the "progress of opinion on the origin of species" leading up to "the publication of the edition of the work." The book closes with a kind "prophetic glance into futurity"* in which Darwin sketches a trajectory for the reception of his book which I have quoted above. Of course, the rhetorical point of both (the historical sketch) and the quoted passage above is to promote and influence the uptake of Darwin's theory (and, perhaps, to reward him with  proper credit for the relevant bits of it).

Ever since the work of D.T. Campbell (on 'evolutionary epistemology' a term coined by him in Popper's (1974) Schilpp volume) and David Hull (with his evolutionary approach to development of Science) the idea of applying evolutionary ideas to knowledge has been thoroughly worked out and covers many different kinds of projects. The SEP article by Bradie and Harms suggests that Dewey and the pragmatists were the first to to do so. But I am convinced that evolutionary ideas about knowledge precede Darwin and may well have influenced the development of his views in biology (that's for another time). Even so, the purpose of the present post is to look at how Darwin conceptualizes the sociology of knowledge. 

1. The first sentence above suggests that ideas in biology are influenced by ideas about or dependent on cosmogony/cosmology. That's no surprise because as Darwin is at pains to emphasize, his theory requires an almost unimaginable lengthening of the age of the Earth. For those steeped in Christianity that's a problem; but even among christian deists there was a steady increase in the possible age of the Earth from the seventeenth century onward. Spinozists, of course, had no trouble allowing that the age of the Earth extended backward into infinity (as space was infinite).  That is to say, Darwin is acutely aware that the uptake of his ideas about the living world are influenced by what is taken to be possible and reasonable in other domains of inquiry.

2. The second sentence, which restates an important evidential objection against Darwin's theory, reinforces that first point and recalls his ninth chapter which was devoted to refuting the objection. His response there is really three-fold: the geological record has not been exhausted yet; the geological record will always be incomplete (due to constraints on fossilization, and the submersion of previous lands into oceans, etc.); the study of the geological record is itself influenced by the recent "the revolution in our palaeontological ideas." That is, while Darwin is a gradualist about the evolution of species, Darwin conceives of development of disciplinary knowledge as capable of revolutions in thought. I am convinced this idea is indebted to Smith's History of Astronomy.+ Despite the existence of such revolutions, his own 'historical sketch' suggests that there is progress in knowledge. So Darwin is using 'revolution' not in the old-fashioned sense of a circular understanding of knowledge (time, orbits, etc.) but more in the modern sense of a dramatic change, which can (but need not) be an important advance,

Incidentally, as an aside, my mention of Spinozism is not innocent; in that ninth chapter he also writes, "During each of these years, over the whole world, the land and the water has been peopled by hosts of living forms. What an infinite number of generations, which the mind cannot grasp, must have succeeded each other in the long roll of years!" While I am happy to concede to a skeptic that all Darwin needs to be saying here is that there has been a very huge number of generations beyond the mind's possible conception, his use of 'infinite' is politically dangerous--because that implies there need not have been a start at all.** This infinity is repeated in the passage quoted above. 

3. In the second quoted paragraph Darwin then offers a non-epistemic, but psychological error-theory for why a community of enquirers, may be resistant to the uptake of his theory. He claims it is a psychological fact that we require to see intermediate steps before we grant the existence of a great change. And if those steps are not easily visible, we are "always slow" in admitting any "great change." The psychology here is indebted to Smith's psychological-epistemic account (see my book) of how gaps prevent the mind to go along with any claim (and even generate the  painful emotion of wonder--which prompts us to further inquiry). We recoil from such gaps. 

4. This is related to a further psychological point which closes the second paragraph: from the vantage point of the minds of individual epistemic agents, the claims made in geology and in Darwin's theory are fundamentally hard if not impossible to grasp. The point is a quirky one, but can be understood if we take the idea of gaps seriously. It is impossible to inspect visually or manually, as it were, each step in an (unfolding) infinite series. Even if we avoid Zeno style paradoxes here, there is simply no time or resources to do so. The would be knower here, has to allow a form of abstraction that jumps over any would be gaps.++

5. Darwin then closes with a now familiar thought (often attributed to Planck -- "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it --) that scientists who grew up with different conceptual framework are likely to resist to come around to his theory. The epistemic significant point is that Darwin again expresses the idea that background ideas influence the uptake of new theories. In this case the background ideas are deeply entrenched in alternative paradigm. 

6. In addition, Darwin points out that there are really two main kinds of stances toward a theory: (i) one can have a disposition" to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties; (ii) and a disposition that attaches more weight "to the explanation of a certain number of facts." The first (i) is a skeptical disposition; the second (ii) is a confirmatory disposition. The interesting point here is that Darwin recognizes that (i) is a legitimate position and that he does not try to argue against it. But it's clear he thinks that this is nonthreatening because such characters may well find even more problems with other theories.

7. Darwin assumes that the community of knowers is populated with epistemic agents that have different epistemic characters. For in addition to (i-ii), it turns out that (iii) flexibility of mind, and (iv) young age (which he claims is correlated with impartiality) may also impact the uptake of new theories. (I don't mean to suggest there can't be hybrids of i-iv for Darwin.) That is, not unlike his theory of plants and animals, Darwin assumes natural variability within epistemic communities. 

8. Okay, this is a long-ish blog post now. So, one closing observation. The selection mechanism here, which is a kind of bottleneck, is the mind and its  disposition of the epistemic agent. So, it strikes me that Darwin is edging close to a theory of cultural evolution of which his meta-philosophy of science is an example.

Trump as a Return to Normal (On Grover Cleveland's First Inaugural)

The conscience of the people demands that the Indians within our boundaries shall be fairly and honestly treated as wards of the Government and their education and civilization promoted with a view to their ultimate citizenship, and that polygamy in the Territories, destructive of the family relation and offensive to the moral sense of the civilized world, shall be repressed.

The laws should be rigidly enforced which prohibit the immigration of a servile class to compete with American labor, with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization.--Grover Cleveland Inaugural Address, March 4, 1885.

It is comforting to think that President Trump's racialized xenophobia is an aberration; that in a democracy the cosmopolitan embrace of brotherhood (say, in the French Revolution) is always the more tempting strain; that it briefly interrupts the arc and march of (recall) historical American progress toward racial harmony. It is, perhaps, more tempting to view him as an especially lucky or skilled demagogue, who defeated Madison's design to prevent the rise of such a character because of innovation in the media and the development of open primaries (which reduce party elite control over the electoral process). What really needs explaining on this account is how a mixed, wealthy, and educated society can elect such a character after an extended period in which elections were won in the moderate center (vindicating Downs' voter theory (recall)). 

Regular readers will not be surprised I think of Trump as a regression to the mean. Xenophobia and demagogy are permanent possibilities in liberal democracies. These have no special tendency toward acting morally abroad or toward their own minorities. (That's compatible with lots of other political systems being especially atrocious.) Even belated acknowledgments of past wrongs are unlikely to lead to genuine compensation in democracies. As Spooner puts it "Do not imagine that the Parliaments and Courts of oppressors will ever right the wrongs of the oppressed." (That may be too categorical.) 

I decided to take a look at Cleveland's inaugural address because I had been reading Lysander Spooner's criticism of it. To the best of my knowledge Cleveland has a decent reputation among historians and he is not remembered, especially, for his fiery rhetoric or immoral behaviour toward minorities and foreigners. Even so, in his Inaugural Cleveland appeals to a shared sense of cultural superiority toward native Americans, immigrants, and Mormons. (Strikingly the Inaugural is silent about the former slaves and Reconstruction.)* It is my sense that the "servile class...with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization" is a dog-whistle about Chinese immigrants.

Crucially, this sense of cultural superiority is cashed out by Cleveland in moral terms (which is why the Mormons can be included in the list). The de facto military and economic power of the United States is understood in terms of superior moral civilization that risks being polluted by others. It expresses and understands itself paternalistically toward the native Americans, which are forced to assimilate. Even the nakedly economic argument against immigration is primarily justified by fears over moral contamination. (Spooner attacks Cleveland not on this sense of superiority but with the suggestion that the economic gains of immigration restriction are captured by employers not workers.)

Cleveland was not an experienced politician when he became President. (In this he reflects the last two Presidents.) And he is distinct from American populism. (But he does echo Jacksonian strains.) I mention him not because I think his words are especially distinct from what one would expect, but rather because I suspect they are really a normal attitude in democracies. The previous sentence is not an argument for expert-rule or multi-national empire (or sortition, etc.). To say "that's normal" is not intended to excuse it. (To say that the business cycle is normal is not to approve of recessions.) But rather to help us see that at no time one can be confident that voters will not be seduced by awful ideas dressed up as civilizational or moral talk. ** What needs genuine explanation is when this does not occur. 

 

On the Female Gaze (De Grouchy on Demagogues)

When we see a man for the first time, we observe his features, we search them for his soul. If his face has any charm or beauty at all, even if it is only distinguished by some singularity or other, we study it carefully, attempting to grasp the impressions that cross it, and to tease out those that habitually do so. There is no one whose character we cannot guess at least a little from the first sight of a face, enough that we may draw some conclusion, favorable or not, about it. Soon, the impression made by a person’s physiognomy is enhanced, altered or undone by their movements, manners, words, or by whether their words agree or not with their actions. If in the eyes, which betray the soul, or the voice, which modulates it, the physiognomy, which tells of its habits, and the manners which reveal them, we think we find a character, or the signs of some quality that particularly interest us – either because they are like ours, or because they are amongst those we most highly approve of, or because together they strike us as extraordinary and engaging – then a feeling of benevolence rises in us towards the person who seems thus gifted. We feel drawn to him, we enjoy thinking about him, and the interest we feel intensifies our observations, and increases their accuracy. Sometimes, yet, this first impression is so strong as to confuse us, and it takes over our capacity to observe. In lively souls, the effect of such an impression is to give rise to prejudices that blind them, rendering them incapable of right and sometimes even reasonable judgment.--Sophie de Grouchy, Letters on Sympathy, Translated by Sandrine Berges (forthcoming),* Letter 3 (see here for a French version).

In  context of this section of the Letters, De Grouchy is discussing (among other things) the problem of tragedy which exercised many philosophers in the eighteenth century (see Dadlez's very useful introduction). In the quoted passage, De Grouchy adopts the first person plural perspective. It is not entirely clear who is included in this 'we.' As the title of this post suggests, I want to suggest that De Grouchy is articulating something like the (hetero-)female gaze.

In the first sentence of the Letters, De Grouchy speaks in her own authorial-persona voice (first person singular): It seems to me that man [L'homme] has no more interesting object of meditation than himself. If the sentence is read sarcastically (and feministically), (such that L'homme is not 'mankind' but MAN) then she accuses (intellectual type of) men of a species of narcissism. (The sentence has an implied addressee, 'C'--generally thought to be Cabanis, De Grouchy's brother-in-law and a famous physician, and so one wonders how he took it.) If the sentence is read straight up (and a generic claim about mankind) she shows her anti-theistic hand (which shows up throughout the Letters), in which our study is rightfully oriented toward man (not God) and this life (not the afterlife).

The first person plural voice is introduced in the second sentence of the Letters: Is there, indeed, a more fulfilling and pleasant way to pass the time than to turn one’s soul onto itself, study its operations, trace its movements; to employ our faculties to observe and puzzle each other out and to seek out and understand the fleeting and secret laws that guide our intelligence and our sensibility. Here the first person plural seems to be describing a generic experience common to all of us.** Now, this enterprise of self-knowledge, which is about the discovery of hidden laws of (human) nature, includes non trivially  (in an age when women are not assumed to be philosophers) women.

During most of the Letters, the first person plural describes such generic common experience and it is pretty irrelevant if this experience is gendered or not. But, it's not too much of a stretch to say that in the quoted passage articulates a version of what we may call (pretentiously and essentializing -- with all the problems this entails) the female gaze. In fact, she describes what's it like to be infatuated ("this first impression is so strong as to confuse us, and it takes over our capacity to observe.") As she puts it in the next paragraph (from the quoted above): When we see in a man the promise of qualities that please us, we feel drawn to him.

I don't mean to belittle the passage by calling it the female gaze (or to suggest that according to De Grouchy only women have the female gaze.) De Grouchy's text leads the reader to see an analogy between infatuation of a pretty man and being under the sway of a demagogue (a topic that becomes central later in Letter 4, recall here). For, a few pages before she had already had introduced her political interest in the attraction of public spectacles, "which leads the crowds to gather constantly around scaffolds, and to witness there sometimes, in all their horrors, tortures which, nearly always, bring them to tears? The human heart is, in some ways, drawn to what moves and stirs it."

Now, I don't mean to suggest that De Grouchy is the first to articulate the female gaze from within. (I am not an expert on such matters, but I suspect we need to go back to at least Sappho.) But she is notable for articulating the female gaze within a clearly philosophical treatise that itself is not aimed at belittling women's experience.*** (Again, I am not claiming she is the first to do so, but I do welcome learning of other, earlier instances!)

While De Grouchy is clear that there are potential bad consequences of the female gaze, she does not dwell on them. Rather, she goes on to treat the infatuation stage as a path toward moral education into necessary friendship+ and its good political consequences (her main topic):

This is because once alert to the possibility of those qualities, we long for all the rewards we implicitly associate with them. Thus, a necessary effect of the most basic and the least reflective kind of self-love is that we love those whose opinion conforms with ours and who thereby raise in our own eyes the value we attach to our own judgment, and reassure us that we are not mistaken. Similarly those who recommend themselves to us by their virtue, their humanity and their charity interest us either because their memory brings help and support to our plans or projects, or because the very idea of the good they have done or might yet do renews in us the emotion usually produced by the sight or anticipation of public happiness, or the relief of private unhappiness.

This leads her to deviate strongly from Hume and Smith and offer a positive account of enthusiasm+ (about which another time more). Contrary to first appearances, perhaps, De Grouchy does not assume that infatuation will always lead to the moralized and humane friendship. Her larger argument requires the existence of proper institutions that make possible the proper cultivation of our feelings both in us qua excitable individuals as well as in us as qua members of a would be mob (who enjoy the frisson of political action and delusion).

 

 

The choice between a sort of Humane Nationalism vs Elitist, Cosmopolitan Liberalism (I)

Brexit has turned the floodlights on it, exposing, so that all can readily see, the deepest fault line in the politics of Western nations today. It is along this line that the bitterest and most fateful political battles in our time are likely to be fought....What we are seeing is the beginning of a struggle over the character of the international political order itself.

For 350 years, Western peoples have lived in a world in which national independence and self-determination were seen as foundational principles. Indeed, these things were held to be among the most precious human possessions, and the basis of all of our freedoms. Since World War II, however, these intuitions have been gradually attenuated and finally even discredited, especially among academics and intellectuals, media opinion-makers, and business and political elites. Today, many in the West have come to regard an intense personal loyalty to the national state and its right to chart an independent course as something not only unnecessary but morally suspect. They no longer see national loyalties and traditions as necessarily providing a sound basis for determining the laws we live by, for regulating the economy or making decisions about defense and security, for establishing public norms concerning religion or education, or for deciding who gets to live in what part of the world.

But those who have made this transition in fundamental political orientation have done so without making sure that everyone else was on board. Millions of people, especially outside the centers of elite opinion, still hold fast to the old understanding that the independence and self-determination of one’s nation hold the key to a life of honor and freedom. These are people who believe that no one ever consulted them about giving up on the freedom of their nation to protect its people, their interests, and their traditions. And when people think they weren’t consulted about giving up such precious commodities, they are apt to respond in dramatic, harsh, and often violent ways.

This means that the clash of fundamental political assumptions we are watching unfold is already much more extreme than has been fully understood. As what is at stake comes better into focus, political parties will realign. Entire countries will realign. The Brexit vote is only the first shot fired in a protracted conflict that will play itself out throughout the West and elsewhere. Yoram Hazony, 6 september 2016 Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom @Mosaic.

Hazony's words were written in between Brexit and before Trump's (first?) Presidential victory. The piece advances numerous theses worth reflecting on, but the core idea is this: roughly between 1600-1950, Europe (and eventually the world) came to be dominated by a certain Old-Testament inspired, "Protestant construction" of nationalism (implicitly recognized at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648). This construction rejected universal claims of empire (promoted as much by the Catholic church and the heirs to the Holy Roman Empire as the Caliphate) in favor of the nation-state. Around 1950 the construction was displaced by a Pax Americana which produced an elite project of liberal cosmopolitanism that effaced the moral and political foundations of the nation state, both on a global scale and in various regional projects (especially the Europe Union).

The Protestant construction was founded on two (not entirely coherent) principles: "First, the king or ruler, if he is to rule a nation by right, must devote himself to the protection of his people in their life, family, and property, to justice in the courts and the maintenance of the sabbath, and to the public recognition of the one God;" and "second, nations that were cohesive and strong enough to secure their political independence would henceforth be regarded as possessing what later came to be called the right of self-determination, by which was meant the right to govern themselves under their own national constitutions and churches, without interference from foreign powers." On Hazony's reading of the subsequent history, the tension between these two principles proved to be creative, as it promoted creative friction within and among states and (echoing Hume without acknowledgment) competitive emulation. Hazony is fond of the Protestant construction, but he does not ignore its moral blemishes.* It's crucial to his larger argument that these blemishes are bugs not features of the Protestant construction (which he revives, in part, also to re-articulate a fresh vision for Zionism).

Yoram Hazony spends quite a bit of time discussing the significance of the first principle, reading it as embracing "the minimum requirements for a life of personal freedom and dignity for all." One may say, in the language of the eighteenth century, that the Protestant construction embraces a commitment to common humanity, even if this commitment is both differently expressed locally and can sustain very different political orders. Hazony spends less time on the second principle, which is shame because it is Spinozistic in character: it is a variant of might makes right. All nations have a right to self-determination if they can secure it either on the battle-field or through restraint by others. I call it a "variant" because it does not legitimize wars of conquest; Hazony emphasizes (by drawing on his interpretation of the Hebrew Bible) that the second principle also demands a certain amount of restraint--one cannot use one's power to dominate other nations.

By contrast, "the liberal construction of the West is premised on the idea that there is ultimately only one principle at the base of legitimate political order: namely, individual freedom." Hazony traces this ideas to Locke, and he has some fun criticizing Locke's impoverished anthropology which results in a "shocking depreciation of even the most basic bonds that had been thought to hold society together." While Hazony recognizes that Locke is a child of the Protestant construction, he argues that he inspired in others to "tirelessly elaborate this dream-world, working and reworking the liberal vision of human beings freely pursuing property on the basis of consent and without borders."+ This is, in fact, Hazony's main philosophical charge against cosmopolitan liberalism: that it is based on impoverished and unrealistic understanding of human nature. (Here Hazony makes it a bit easy on himself because while he takes Kant's cosmopolitanism to be one of his main targets, he does not recognize that Kant's liberalism is rooted not in Locke's anthropology, but in a very different, thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature.)

Hazony makes a few other charges against the liberal construction (which includes what passes for conservatism, too): it is in contrast to its self-understanding, monist in character. (So, liberals do not understand themselves.) It produces conformity in education, it is "the virtually unquestioned framework for what an educated person needs to know about the political world," which produces jobs and projects for folk so educated,** and it produces a kind of moral ideology that makes modern folk unaware "that there might be intelligent and decent people whose estimation of the worth of such enterprises is drastically different from their own." One side effect is that all particularist or nationalist alternatives to the liberal order and up being "considered akin to racism or fascism." (I have expressed some sympathy for this charge.)

As an aside, sometimes Hazony recognizes that his historical narrative is at times tenuous. After all, the great age of nationalist independence -- decolonization -- occurred during the first few decades of Pax Americana and was at least for a long time not very liberal (nor very Protestant). In addition, while it may be true that there "are people who believe that no one ever consulted them about giving up on the freedom of their nation to protect its people, their interests, and their traditions" it is notable that a good chunk of the electorate that voted leave (the aged) in the Brexit referendum, had in 1975 "expressed significant support for EC membership," given that it was decided "67% in favour on a national turnout of 64%." That is, while Brexit has become framed in terms of a populist revolt against Elites (and Hazony promotes this meme), reality is closer to this being an instance of buyer's regret. Crucially, Hazony implicitly recognizes but does not reflect on the significance of this, that the consent of the governed (a Lockean liberal principle not a Protestant construction principle) is central to legitimacy.

This is not to deny that joining the EU wasn't also an elite project for the UK. But, as Kenneth Clarke pointed out in his speech to the Commons (which closes with Burke), it was a means to maintain the UK's political stature and influence in a world dominated by others after the loss of its empire. For the truth is, for much of the Protestant construction the European powers that accepted a European concert were also imperialists (even Scotland's parliamentary union with England was itself the product of a failed imperial project). So, while it is possible to see in the Protestant construction a progressive unfolding of moral insight such that many of the immoralities produced by it come to be seen for what they are (such a conception of history is certainly available to the historical agents Hazony considers), there is no reason to think that the nation states which participated in the Protestant construction truly recognized the self-limitations that Hazony ascribes to it in his articulation of the second principle. A Europe of nations is a Gaullist principle enunciated once France was within the EU (and had come to terms to the loss of its imperial project).

The conceptual-historical point of the previous paragraph is this: Hazony thinks that under Pax Americana nationalism went into retreat because of a kind of misinterpretation of the Nazi-Germany. On Hazony's reading, it's national-socialism which gave nationalism a bad name. (And, so, Hazony makes an effort to show that Hitler was really an imperialist not a nationalist.) But, of course, among progressive intellectuals it was WWI which revealed the strength and immorality of nationalism (in which the workers turned out to be more loyal to their warlike nation states than amiable, international brotherhood). Rather, the post WWII, cosmopolitan liberal order was founded on the recognition that the age of liberal empires, except the American one, was finished.

None of this is to deny that Hazony may well be right that we're in a age of massive realignment along the lines he suggests.+ One attractive feature of Hazony's attempt to re-aminate  and renew the Protestant construction is that it can avoid a clash of civilizations, which (paradoxically enough) is more likely if the West remains wedded to a cosmopolitan, liberal order. (But it is also notable that many of the political ascendant nationalists see the world not as win-win, but fundamentally as zero-sum in which mutual interference is regarded as quite normal.) The question I'll pursue in a follow up post, is if a revitalized version of the Protestant construction is really worth having politically and morally and if Hazony's fundamental claims survive scrutiny.

Another attractive feature of Hazony's attempt is that it does not cede nationalism to those that embrace racism and fascism. In another, follow up post I explore to what degree one can fashion a liberalism out of the best features of the Protestant construction without giving up on liberalism altogether.++

 

 

Before Orientalism there was another possible Path

The first major work of Oriental scholarship after d'Herbelot's Bibliotheque was Simon Ockley's History of the Saracens, whose first volume appeared in 1708. A recent historian of Orientalism has opined that Ockley's attitude towards the Muslims — that to them is owed what was first known of philosophy by European Christians — "shocked painfully" his European audience. For not only did Ockley make this Islamic pre-eminence clear in his work; he also "gave Europe its fiat authentic and substantial taste of the Arab viewpoint touching the wars with Byzantium and Persia. "* However, Ockley was careful to dissociate himself from the infectious influence of Islam, and unlike his colleague William Whiston (Newton's successor at Cambridge), he always made it clear that Islam was an outrageous heresy. For his Islamic enthusiasm, on the other hand, Whiston was expelled from Cambridge in 1709.--Edward W. Said ([1978] 2003) Orientalism, 75-6 [*Said is quoting A.J. Arberyy.]

Some other time I return to Said's remarks about Whiston. In re-reading Orientalism, Ockley's name rang a bell. He is, in fact, the translator of Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan (Translated by Simon Ockley 1708); it's the translation I have used here at D&I when discussing Ibn Tufayl. (Sadly Said does not mention the translation.) In his  "preface" to the translation Ockley (1678-1720) explains what he takes to be the main point of Ibn Tufayl's book, "The Design of the Author is to shew, how Human Capacity, unassisted by any External Help, may, by due Application, attain to the Knowledge of Natural Things, and so by Degrees find out its Dependance upon a Superior Being, the Immortality of the Soul, and all things necessary to Salvation." That is, the book is read as an inductive, naturalistic argument for the very possibility of knowledge of nature, God, etc. So, one may think that Ockley wishes (i) to promote so-called natural religion. This despite the fact that in his Appendix, Ockley concedes that the book relies on outdated Philosophy and mistaken Divinity (one being "Aristotelian, the other Mahometan").

This is not to deny that most of the Appendix is devoted to undermining (i). Ockley sets out to deny the idea "That God has given such a Power or Faculty to Man, whereby he may, without any external Means, attain to the Knowledge of all things necessary to Salvation, and even to the Beatifick Vision it self, whilst in this State." That is, against the position he associates with Malebranche in his own day, Ockley defends the necessity of (Mosaic/Christian) prophecy and revelation (in light of man's cognitive weakness) which, in turn, is (largely) dependent on God's will (and the presence of the holy spirit).

In addition to promoting natural religion, in the first sentence of the Appendix he attached after his translation, Ockley commends the book for the "lively Image and Representation which it gives of unspotted Virtue, unfeigned Love of God, and Contempt of the Things of this Life." That is, Hayy Ibn Yagzan the purported hero of the novel is treated as (2) an exemplary model of ascetic virtue and piety.

Yet, the reason given for translating the text, anew (apparently there already existed two translations from Latin not Arab), is to "other Persons whom I would willingly incline to a more favourable Opinion of Arabick Learning" (emphasis added). That is he wishes to correct a biased and unfavorable or unflattering view of the intellectual achievements of the 'Arabs' in twelfth century Spain. (He also mentions Averroes in the same, brief Preface). In particular, it combats the idea that Islam is, in principle, incompatible with great intellectual and scholarly attainment. Unfortunately, Ockley does not tell us who may be the source of the meme that Islam is incompatible with Enlightenment. Remarkably for an an early modern, Ockley does not treat the embrace of Aristotelianism as a sign of intellectual weakness.

As an aside, and curiously enough, neither in in his preface nor in his longer Appendix does Ockley mention the relationship between Islam and Enlightenment is, in fact, a major sub-plot of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan. In the translated story, but not in Ockley's comments we are exposed to the failure of Hayy Ibn Yagzan's mission to convert the people who grow up in society to the truth. For, the (exoteric) meaning of the text very strongly suggests that true virtue and political/social life are incompatible.**

Ockley's position becomes clear when we see how he understands progress:

Indeed, if it were in Religion, as in Arts and Sciences, it might with a great deal more Reason have been expected; that considering the vast Distance of Time since the first planting of the Christian Religion to this present Age, we might have been improved to a Degree of Prophecy. For Arts and Sciences receive their Beginnings from very small Hints at first, and are afterwards improved proportionally to the Industry and Capacity of those who cultivate them; and therefore we may reasonably expect, that the longer they continue, the more they will be advanc'd. But the case is vastly different in Religion, which is always best and purest at its first setting out. And there is a very good Reason to be given, why it should be so; for after the first Covenant made by God with Mankind in the Person of Adam: every other Dispensation has found Men under a State of Corruption, and in the actual Possession of Errors, diametrically opposite to those Truths which it came to instruct them in; and therefore it was requisite that the means to remove these at first, should bear Proportion with the Difficulties they were to encounter. Appendix § 11.

Ockley thinks that religion inevitably declines (due to the Fall and the necessity of always and everywhere of having to remove errors in religion first), while the arts and sciences necessarily improve over time. This helps explain why Ockley does not hold Ibn Tufayl's Aristotelianism against him. For, Ockley is relying on a tacit symmetry principle: on Ockley's account the natural philosophy of his own day will become as dated to future readers as Ibn Tufayl's science seems dated to him. In addition, there is no reason to think that modern Christians are superior to 12th century followers of Islam. For, his own age is one of half millennium of additional religious decline.

There is a further symmetry principle at work in Ockley's Appendix. For in it, Ockley argues that there is no prophecy after Christ. (This means that he systematically discounts the prophetic status of the Qu'ran.) But he goes on to suggests, somewhat on the sly, that although Ibn Tufayl is is a sincere Mahometan, he agrees with him because Ibn Tufayl allows Hayy Ibn Yagzan to gain knowledge without exposure to Islam/revelation.  In fact, Ockley treats the religious errors of his audience's day (inclination toward mysticism, enthusiasm, etc.) as analogous to the 'errors' of Ibn Tufayl (" If I have not spoken all the while particularly to my Author, the reason is, because I write to Christians, and chiefly have regard to those Errors, held by some of that Denomination, which are common with those of our Author."). So, his readers have no right to feel superior to Ibn Tufayl neither in science because it is intrinsic to science that future ages will surpass the earlier ones nor in religious matters because each later age is further removed from the truth.

Let me close by returning to Said. Early in Orientalism, he notes that "Unlike Michel Foucault, to whose work I am greatly indebted, I do believe in the determining imprint of individual writers upon the otherwise anonymous collective body of texts constituting a discursive formation like Orientalism." (23) This remark I find endearing because it it is an embrace, as an article of faith ("I believe") of a certain form of authorial agency.  The embrace of agency also entails the possibility of failure. We can, thus, lament that Ockley's was not the 'determining imprint' on his century.

On Graeber's Genealogies of Philosophy

In Athens, the result was extreme moral confusion. The language of money, debt, and finance provided powerful — and ultimately irresistible — ways to think about moral problems. Much as in Vedic India, people started talking about life as a debt to the gods, of obligations as debts, about literal debts of honor, of debt as sin and of vengeance as debt collection. Yet if debt was morality — and certainly at the very least it was in the interest of creditors, who often had little legal recourse to compel debtors to pay up, to insist that it was — what was one to make of the fact that money, that very thing that seemed capable of turning morality into an exact and quantifiable science, also seemed to encourage the very worst sorts of behavior?

It is from such dilemmas that modern ethics and moral philosophy begin. I think this is true quite literally. Consider Plato's Republic, another product of fourth-century Athens. The book begins when Socrates visits an old friend, a wealthy arms manufacturer, at the port of Piraeus. They get into a discussion of justice, which begins when the old man proposes that money cannot be a bad thing, since it allows those who have it to be just, and that justice consists in two things: telling the truth, and always paying one's debts. The proposal is easily demolished. What, Socrates asks, if someone lent you his sword, went violently insane, and then asked for it back (presumably, so he could kill someone)? Clearly it can never be right to arm a lunatic...

As we all know, Socrates eventually gets around to offering some political proposals of his own, involving philosopher kings; the abolition of marriage, the family, and private property; selective human breeding boards. (Clearly, the book was meant to annoy its readers, and for more than two thousand years, it has succeeded brilliantly.) What I want to emphasize, though, is the degree to which what we consider our core tradition of moral and political theory today springs from this question: What does it mean to pay our debts? Plato presents us first with the simple, literal businessman's view. When this proves inadequate, he allows it to be reframed in heroic terms. Perhaps all debts are really debts of honor after all. But heroic honor no longer works in a world where…commerce, class, and profit have so confused everything that peoples' true motives are never clear. How do we even know who our enemies are? Finally, Plato presents us with cynical realpolitik. Maybe nobody really owes anything to anybody. Maybe those who pursue profit for its own sake have it right after all. But even that does not hold up. We are left with a certainty that existing standards are incoherent and self-contradictory, and that some sort of radical break would be required in order to create a world that makes any logical sense. But most of those who seriously consider a radical break along the lines that Plato suggested have come to the conclusion that there might be far worse things than moral incoherence. And there we have stood, ever since, in the midst of an insoluble dilemma.--David Graeber Debt: The First 5000 years, pp. 195-7.

It is much noticed that Graeber's book is a polemic both against what he takes to be the purportedly scientific "discipline of economics" (which he treats as founded by Adam Smith (p. 24)) as well as a polemic within political economy (with Graeber taking sides with various heterodox positions). I have not seen it remarked yet that the polemic extends toward philosophy. Graeber executes the polemic with great panache in the space of a few pages. Before I get to that, I should note that he relies on the striking methodological claim that "anthropologists have the unique advantage of being able to observe human beings who have not previously been part of" philosophical conversation "react to" philosophical "concepts." Thereby, anthropologists are thus given moments of "exceptional clarity" that "reveal the essence of our thought." (p. 243)*

The long passage quoted above (I deleted the remainder of the summary of Book I of the Republic) occurs in the middle of Debt. Graeber treats Plato's Republic as (an instance of) the origin of "modern ethics and moral philosophy." I return to the question of what may count as pre-modern or ancient ethics and moral philosophy before long. (Henceforth, I'll use 'moral philosophy' or 'modern moral philosophy' to refer to what he calls "modern ethics and moral philosophy.") He treats modern moral philosophy as (the) response to conflicts created by the clash between aristocratic norms or honor systems with commercial and utilitarian values. On Graeber's account the response fails to provide a coherent theory that can accommodate let's say the best of the conflicting pulls. Theory suggests that the only coherent alternative is a "radical break"--one such version is sketched by Socrates in the Republic.

Now, throughout Debt, radical is a word with a very positive valence. It does not follow Graeber endorses all radical solutions (he dislikes Platonic hierarchy, for example). But rather, he understands himself as belonging to the minority (as opposed to 'most') among those who seriously reflect on such matters who recognize that Plato got it right in some sense. That is to say, systematic modern moral philosophy (which is, thus, always political philosophy!) is always at odds with the world and can only be made to cohere with the world by nothing short of a thorough revolution. The insight is not disputed by the majority of serious thinkers -- presumably aware that many revolutions have a tendency to worsen the world they are supposed to improve -- decide to muddle on. (There is a sense that Socrates of the Republic belongs to the majority [see also this post on Le Guin.])

That is to say, Graeber essentially understands the whole history of modern moral philosophy as a tension between those with a responsible risk aversion on behalf of themselves and humanity and those few daring souls who are willing to risk all to improve man's estate. Graeber is notable for insisting that this tension plays out in all major philosophical traditions including ones (China, India) not initially influenced by Plato. Graeber's interpretation of the risk averse side is compatible both with a kind of conservative status quo bias and with the thought that the responsible types opt for small, incremental steps toward the more radical ideal knowing full well that the ideal itself is out of reach (because it will bump up against internal contradictions eventually). This is not, in fact, a silly reading of the history of philosophy, although many will dispute the claim that there can't be a reconciliation between the world and our best moral or political theory short of radical rupture. The radical response is, of course, itself to be found within modern moral philosophy.

I infer from Graeber's treatment that pre-modern moral philosophy is not theoretical or systematic. For, as we have seen, he does not deny that reality of moral evaluation. Recall that he is committed to three claims that,

• When humans transfer objects back and forth between/among each other or argue about what other people owe them the same fundamental moral principles will be invoked everywhere and always;
• Humans have a sense of justice that grounds sociality;
• Most humans are, when given the opportunity, oriented toward a pleasing conviviality.

What Graeber, thus, claims is that it is impossible to systematize these three commitments in a way that does not end promoting revolution. (As an aside, one may understand Plato's true city more derisively known as the city of Pigs as a way at approximating these three commitments.) But that's compatible with finding instantiations of these commitments throughout human history. So, the alternative to modern moral philosophy is by Graeber's lights a kind of anti-theoretical situationism eternally immanent in local mores and practices (he sometimes dubs this 'baseline communism') if they are not corrupted by significant violence.  I call this rustic wisdom (recall). It does not always remain immanent, and it is partially expressed in many religions.

Now, Graeber tells another genealogy of (Greek) philosophy. For, he recognizes that modern moral philosophy was preceded by "speculations on nature." In his broader story, Thales of Miletus is the founder of philosophy. As I noted a few days ago in a post on James Ladyman, this is a recurring trope in the history of philosophy (see Hume), and the way to understand Thales' philosophy was even a matter of dispute between Hume and Smith (recall). He suggests that it is no coincidence that the founding of Greek philosophy coincides in time with the introduction of coinage (p. 245, and the rise of Greek mercenaries). In different contexts I have suggested that the debate over the meaning of Thales also recurs throughout the history of economics and political economy (see also this paper; and this one). As an aside, one thing missing from Graeber's interpretation (as distinct from the tradition) is Thales's (mythical) significance as an astronomer.

The key to this broader genealogy is that the "peculiar way" in which "pre-Socratic philosophers began to frame their questions" is (indirectly) a meditation on the nature and paradoxes of coinage (p. 247); this results in (i) making forms of materialism the "starting point" of speculative philosophy and (ii) the creation of (historically more popular) systems in opposition to materialism, but all these oppositional systems introduce (iii) conceptual dualities around some enduring form vs content or mind vs body distinction (or both; there are shades of Nietzsche here--Graeber never confronts more monist systems). (Again, this is also said to be true of non-Greek traditions.)

The underlying thought of -- and the bite of -- Graeber's genealogy is that our inherited traditions of philosophy fail to recognize that  the manner of theorizing is itself conditioned by particular and peculiar circumstances. In particular, these circumstances presuppose the violent eradication of forms of life that may be amenable to baseline communism and rustic wisdom (see also this post on Justin Smith). This is, I think, what Graeber means elsewhere in Debt, "the logic of identity is, always and everywhere, entangled in the logic of hierarchy." That is to say, the Graeber critique of philosophy amounts to our unwillingness to recognize the reliance of our way of (philosophical) life on this violence.  

 

Brooks, Civic Religion and Truth in Politics (On Al-Farabi and the End of the Technocratic Rule)

[W]ould he not provoke laughter, and would it not be said of him that he had returned from his journey aloft with his eyes ruined and that it was not worth while even to attempt the ascent? And if it were possible to lay hands on and to kill the man who tried to release them and lead them up, would they not kill him²?” “They certainly would,” he said.--Republic, 517a.

 

The one who is virtuous in truth--namely, the one who, when he rules them, determines their actions and directs them toward happiness--is not made a ruler by them [in a democratic city]. If he chances to rule them, he is soon deposed or killed, or his rulership is disturbed and challenged...However, it is more possible and easier for the virtuous cities and the rulership of the virtuous to emerge from the necessary and democratic cities than from  the other [ignorant] cities. Al-Farabi, Political Regime 117 (p. 88 in the Butterworth translation).

One way to understand the twentieth century is that after the collapse of Weimar and the Third Republic, and the near collapse of the US in the early 1930s, liberal democracies have experimented starting with the New Deal, with increasing stealth rule by experts and meritocratic technocrats while allowing peaceful regime change among competitive (monied) elites through mass elections. This system is near collapse because in the aftermath of the great financial recession, the system's capacity for adaptation (to technological disruption, immigration, ecological change) is being overstretched.

Within the status quo, the strongest winds (in the wake of Citizens United vs FEC) blow either toward increasing the olicharchic power of the monied classes; or (among the electorates) toward (Presidential) strong men that can protect and promote shared identity (the two are compatible because the strong men may be very wealthy), but there is no reason to expect such strong men to be friends of justice or truth even by accident. By contrast, among the justice loving intelligentsia, who mistake the cause (immoral policy) for the effect (ignorant electorates), we find the addicted gamblers who wish to double-down on expert rule by limiting the franchise in various ways and, thereby, euthanize democratic life one moral argument at a time.

Is there then no way out from our predicament?

The deadly conclusion of the Cave allegory can be treated as both Socrates's admission that the transition problem -- [recall], that is [recall also here and here] how to how to create the best political organization with a population raised under bad institutions (or worse, that is, bad breeding) -- is insolvable and also, thereby, that in politics opinion and not truth rules. Madison, writing in defense of a representative, that is, aristocratic version of democracy during a revolutionary transition, concedes the point (and thereby echoes Adam Smith):

If it be true that all governments rest on opinion, it is no less true that the strength of opinion in each individual, and its practical influence on his conduct, depend much on the number which he supposes to have entertained the same opinion. The reason of man, like man himself is timid and cautious, when left alone; and acquires firmness and confidence, in proportion to the number with which it is associated. When the examples, which fortify opinion, are antient as well as numerous, they are known to have a double effect. In a nation of philosophers, this consideration ought to be disregarded. A reverence for the laws, would be sufficiently inculcated by the voice of an enlightened reason. But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato. And in every other nation, the most rational government will not find it a superfluous advantage, to have the prejudices of the community on its side.  Madison (1788) Federalist 49.

Opinion and prejudice cannot be removed entirely from democratic life. The best that can be done is to have these promote reason. This is the Platonic understanding of religion. Madison follows Plato (Laws) in understanding the rule of law as a second best means to facilitate the rule of reason absent philosopher-kings. This has a predictable conservative consequence already known to Al-Farabi (who was probably unknown to Madison, but who did influence Spinoza [perhaps via Ibn Rushd] and, thereby, all kinds of 18th century thinkers), who also advocates the rule of law absent philosopher-kings. In fact, while Al-Farabi allows philosopher-kings to be radical innovators and contextualist about how the best city ought to be ruled (recall also this), absent philosophical rule, the law (derived from a philosopher-king) should exhibit a strong status quo bias and be treated with reverence (see, especially, paragraph 82, on p. 70 of the Butterworth  translation of the Political Regime).*

But unlike Plato and Madison, Al-Farabi seems to insist that a virtuous city is possible and that it can arise from a democratic city by which Al-Farabi seems to mean that the citizens directly vote for their ruler or president (akin to elected kingship/generalship) without mediating institutions. This rule is based on the good opinion of the citizens, and ongoing bargaining between ruler and evolving coalitions. Despite his Platonism, Al-Farabi portrays the democratic city in attractive fashion as a cosmopolitan, multicultural, multi-ethnic commercial polity, where a relativistic, mutual tolerance rules, in which the arts and sciences can thrive (alongside the vices) in a private capacity: "it is like an embroidered garment replete with colored figures and dyes." (par. 115, p. 87)

Yet, as we have seen, Al-Farabi is adamant that (i) a virtuous city can emerge from a democratic city, but that (ii) it cannot be turned to a city in which truth and virtue rule. Al-Farabi's text does not explain how (i) and (ii) can be made compatible. It's clear that in Al-Farabi the lack of proper (mass) education in virtue (and perhaps a proper eugenic project) is a barrier to (ii), but that one cannot expect proper education until the transition problem is solved.**

But it strikes me there are two ways in which (i-ii) can be made to cohere with each other in Al-Farabi's scheme: first, virtue rules indirectly by stealth. This is, in fact, part of Plato's second-best 'solution' (e.g., the Nocturnal Council) in the Laws. But I see no hints of this in Al-Farabi's Political Regime (Al-Farabi knew the Laws).

Second, another option would be to start what the ancients would have called a colony. In particular, such a colony would be founded by a charismatic leader who understands true or civic religion. For, as we have seen in Al-Farabi true religion, or civic religion, really serves two purposes: (a) generate flourishing for members of the just/virtuous polity and (b) move from a misguided status quo to an optimal political outcome. (So, in time (b) precedes (a).) Al-Farabi is explicit that that a true leader understands how to use true religion in (b). The model is, thus, more akin to Moses and Muhammad (leaving the commercial town of Mecca for Medina).+ Crucially, Al-Farabi does not advocate noble lies. Civic religion is (recall) truth-apt.

Perhaps, one day space will be colonized and we can re-imagine a new founding. For now, we have to deal with our democratic way of life. Civic religion (which can include elements of what we call religion and what we call science) is a means to bring people to the truth without expecting everybody to be philosophers. It is a means toward a leveling up to the best of everybody's capacities. The symbols and images promoted by a true religion play a central role in facilitating some unity toward truth and justice in political multiplicities.

This idea of a collective, civil religion oriented toward truth and justice must be saved from those like David Brooks who invoke it to stifle dissent and to promote symbolic unity and solidarity as such. The young athletes that take a knee in the name of justice show that they understand the power of images, rituals, and symbolism. A democratic collective becomes better than its individuals if it can renew this civil religion toward justice (as an ideal). This is done not through mindless and criticism-free repetition, but through spirited debates in the spirit of mutual forbearance. Such forbearance does not come naturally, of course, unless we recognize the fragility of our way of life.