Digressions&Impressions

Ibn Khaldun, Prophets, and his Critique of Martyrdom

[E]very mass (political) undertaking by necessity requires group feeling. This is indicated in the aforementioned tradition: "God sent no prophet who did not enjoy the protection of his people."...
To this chapter belong cases of revolutionaries from among the common people and of jurists who undertake to reform evil (practices). Many religious people who follow the ways of religion come to revolt against unjust amirs. They call for a change in, and prohibition of, evil (practices) and for good practices. They hope for a divine reward for what they do. They gain many followers and sympathizers among the great mass of the people, but they risk being killed, and most of them actually do perish in consequence of their activities as sinners and unrewarded, because God had not destined them for such (activities as they undertake). He commands such activities to be undertaken only where there-exists the power to bring them to a successful conclusion....Rulers and dynasties are strongly entrenched. Their foundations can be undermined and destroyed only through strong efforts backed by the group feeling of tribes and families, as we have mentioned before. Similarly, prophets in their religious propaganda depended on groups and families, though they were the ones who could have been supported by God with anything in existence, if He had wished, but in His wisdom He permitted matters to take their customary course.
If someone who is on the right path were to attempt (religious reforms) in this way, (his) isolation would keep him from (gaining the support of) group feeling, and he would perish. If someone merely pretends to (achieve religious reforms) in order to gain (political) leadership, he deserves to be hampered by obstacles and to fall victim to perdition. (Religious reforms) are a divine matter that materializes only with God's pleasure and support, through sincere devotion for Him and in view of good intentions towards the Muslims. ...

Most men who adopt such ideas will be found to be, either deluded and crazy, or to be swindlers who, with the help of such claims, seek to obtain (political) leadership -which they crave and would be unable to obtain in the natural manner. They believe that such claims will be instrumental in bringing to them the fulfillment of their hopes. They do not consider the disaster that will overtake them in consequence. The trouble they create will speedily cause their death and bring their trickery to a bitter end.---Ibn Khaldun, "Chapter 3, paragraph 6. Religious propaganda cannot materialize without group feeling," The Muqadimmah (translated by F. Rosenthal), p. 88.

Earlier in the week (recall) I claimed that Ibn Khaldun is a proto-political Spinozist. By which I mean that he embraces the idea that revelation is authoritative in social affairs, but that revelation should not be treated as a book that gives us a philosophy of nature. Today I want to spell out a bit more the way revelation's authority is supposed to work. I have noted before (recall) that Ibn Khaldun treats prophecy as a real agent of historical change. But he explicitly rejects (recall) the (Islamic) philosophers' suggestion that prophecy is just a synonym for a true political founder (akin to a Rousseau-ian legislator). So, for him states, even well ordered states are possible without prophecy. This is no to deny that he thinks prophets can be political legislators.

For, to be sure, he treats Muhammad as a genuine prophet. In fact, he attributes two miracles to Muhammad: he "wrought no greater miracle than the Qur'an and the fact that he united the Arabs in his mission." (Sixth prefatory discussion.) The second of these points to the political significance of Muhammad's life; he was capable of unifying Arab tribes. (This is a standard Islamic idea.) 

Now in Ibn Khaldun's philosophy of history, the pre-unity Arabs are treated as Bedouins who live in a kind of anarchic state of nature, of equality and independence. (They also lack wealth because they do not really practice division of labor.) They have a lot of latent power, but ordinary this power is invisible because they are at war with each other or subordinated to some sedentary civilization.  

This latent power can be channeled through royal authority. And royal authority, in turn, (recall) relies on group feeling, or what I call sympathy. In Ibn Khaldun's philosophy of history, genuine change starts in the periphery and, at first, is destructive of civilization life. There is a strain -- I am uncertain if it is the dominant strain --  in Ibn Khaldun that welcomes such purifications because while he has clear fondness for the benefits of civilization, he also thinks it decadent.

True prophets -- as opposed to false, wannabe prophets -- rely on group feeling to survive. As the example of Muhammad shows, they are capable of gaining what Ibn Khaldun calls royal authority.  They do so, in part, because people follow truthful and ethical leadership willingly: good conduct id taken "as proof of Muhammad's truthfulness." (Sixth prefatory Discussion.)

What I find interesting about Ibn Khaldun's analysis is that he grants that some wannabe prophets may well be motivated by sincere and apt outrage at political injustices: they are "on the right path." (He is also adamant that "most" are political opportunists.) Now, you may have thought that he would treat the sincere would be prophet who gets killed as a martyr. But Ibn Khaldun does no such thing. Not only does he barely register the possibility, he is distinctly reserved about treating anybody as a martyr (treating sincere would be prophets who fail as in the grip of a"delusion and stupidity" (Chapter 6, in par. 51)). 

A quick check (this may be misleading) reveals that in his long book, Ibn Khaldun only acknowledges the existence of three martyrs: Al-Husayn (who is revered in Shia Islam)* and Ibn al-Zubayr. Both opposed Yazid, albeit for different reasons.* Ibn-al-Zubayr basically defended what we would call a democratic kingship conception of the Caliphate against turning it into a hereditary institution. What's striking about the treatment of the case of Ibn-al-Zubayr is that Ibn Khaldun both thinks he was mistaken in thinking he had the authority to revolt, and so was killed with lawful authority, AND that he had "(good) intentions and the fact that he chose the truth." It is notable that Ibn Khaldun does not claim that Ibn-Al-Zubayr was mistaken about the political principle at stake.+ But he treats those who opposed him as right. In particular, they were right to see the consequences of revolt, and, thus, civil war, as leading to bloodshed.

What all of this reveals is that Ibn Khaldun both thinks there is a huge political status quo bias in human social life. Anticipating Hobbes, even justified rebellion is frowned upon.++  On my reading he embraces this so much that his whole book is one long argument against any cult of martyrdom. To put it succinctly, Ibn Khaldun's view is that the only prophets worth having are those that succeed in gaining political power.**

Ibn Khaldun's Proto-Spinozism

As a rule, man is able only to comprehend the causes that are natural and obvious and that present themselves to our perception in an orderly and well-arranged manner, because nature is encompassed by the soul and on a lower level than it. The range of perceptions, however, is too large for the soul, because they belong to the intellect, which is on a higher level than the soul. The soul, therefore,can scarcely perceive very many of them, let alone all of them. This shows the wisdom of the Lawgiver (Muhammad) when he forbade (us) to speculate about causes and to stop with them. Such speculation is a field in which the mind becomes lost and gets nowhere, nor gains any real insight. "Say: 'God,' and then let them amuse themselves with their idle talk." Man often stops (to speculate about causes) and thereby is prevented from ascending to the next higher stage. His feet slip. He becomes one of those who go astray and perish. We ask God for protection against disappointment and obvious perdition.--Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah  translated by F. Rosenthal. Chapter 6, Paragraph 14. 

Let's make a distinction between metaphysical Spinozism and political Spinozism. Metaphysical Spinozism is committed to necessitarianism and the (sort of pantheist) identification of god with nature. Political Spinozism is committed to the idea that revelation is authoritative in practical philosophy or ethics, but leaves the nature of reality behind the appearances we are familiar with to science and/or natural philosophy (broadly conceived). The two forms of Spinozism are separable because a political Spinozist need not embrace (or can be agnostic about) metaphysical Spinozism and a metaphysical Spinozist may reject political Spinozism.

As it happens, Spinoza is naturally read as a political and metaphysical Spinozist. In particular, Spinoza is clear that revelation teaches the (ethical) path to salvation. If we lacked the "testimony of Scripture, we should doubt of the salvation of nearly" everyone. (TTP, Ch. 15) By contrast, Scriptures do not teach, and is not in competition with, scientific truth.* It does not mean Scriptures is compatible with any metaphysics. In particular, Spinoza is adamant that political Spinozism must, in practice, be supplemented with a popular "universal faith" which has a number of metaphysical commitments that may not be known to be false. (Things are not so simple because some of these more providential commitments, in turn, violate metaphysical Spinozism.)

Okay, Ibn Khaldun is a political Spinozist, even though he rejects metaphysical Spinozism.** The passage quoted above is from his treatment of speculative theology. He understands the existence of that discipline as a contingent mistake. Al-Ghazali had in his debate with the philosophers shown how reason can be used to refute speculative ideas that threaten the articles of faith; this had inspired his followers to develop a whole positive program of speculative theology. I don't mean to suggest that Ibn Khaldun is not perfectly aware that (a) there was earlier speculative theology, and that (b) Ibn Rushd has serious philosophical responses to Al-Ghazali. But for present purposes we can leave that aside. 

There are four clear components to Ibn Khaldun's position. First, he, too, asserts that revelation fundamentally teaches practical matters. (Revelation is the "laws and precepts of the religion...and which their firmly rooted (belief in) the truth of the articles of faith caused them to observe.") It is not a book of science.)Second, revelation also teaches a very limited number of speculative doctrines that need to be accepted on faith. Third, there is, thus, (against those who have misunderstood Al-Ghazali's legacy) no subject matter for speculative theology and seems, anyway, forbidden by Muhammad ("he forbade (us) to speculate about causes and to stop with them.") That is to say, Ibn Khaldun thinks no positive program of speculative theology is possible (due to our limited cognitive capacities and our imperfect epistemic position), and he believes this helps explain the rationality of the injunction against it: "the intellect should not be used to weigh such matters as the oneness of God, the other world, the truth of prophecy, the real character of the divine attributes, or anything else that lies beyond the level of the intellect. That would mean to desire the impossible."

By speculative theology, Ibn Khaldun means that sub-set of metaphysics that presupposes God's design and studies particular existing entities (see also Ch.6, par 14). This science was the invention of Al-Ghazali. Ibn Khaldun treats it as apologetics because the articles of faith are assumed to be true. By contrast, a non-theological metaphysics "studies existence as such and what it requires for its essence." Metaphysics and science are natural by-products of the advanced division of labor and accumulation in sedentary civilizations. 

Now, in Ibn Khaldun's scheme, the articles of faith and the results of metaphysics may conflict just as in Spinoza's approach the "universal faith" and his metaphysics can conflict. Ibn Khaldun treats the conflict as follows: When metaphysicians speak of existence as such their utterances are so general that they are irrelevant. But Ibn Khaldun also thinks that when it comes to particular existing entities metaphysical argument is not demonstrable, and so metaphysicians either become unjustifiable dogmatists when they pontificate on such entities or they are self-aware that exact conformity between the results of thought and concrete/existing individuals may not be assumed ("conformity between the results of thinking - which, as they assume, are produced by rational norms and reasoning - and the outside world, is not unequivocal.") And even if there is such conformity, it still relies on (fallible, non-demonstrable) observation.

So, metaphysicians either understand their own limitations or they overreach. Ibn Khaldun is pretty adamant that the essences of spiritual individuals are unknowable to human intellects. Appealing to the authority of Plato (!) Ibn Khaldun argues that "no certainty can be achieved with regard to the Divine" and to other spiritual essences, and so is a topic for conjectures. Ibn Khaldun is well aware, and explicitly acknowledges, that later metaphysicians  (e.g., "of Aristotle, al-Farabi, and Ibn Sinna") had been more optimistic about reason's capacity. But he asserts, even argues, they are mistaken. So, whatever metaphysics is possible, it is fallible in character. The same is true for any (empirical) science.

Ibn Khaldun does not think metaphysics is wholly useless: "it sharpens the mind in the orderly presentation of proofs and arguments, so that the habit of excellent and correct arguing is obtained." But while the (hubristic) mistakes of metaphysics may well be pernicious, it need not be forbidden as long as it is restricted to those "saturated with the religious law and...the interpretation of the Qur'an and jurisprudence."

So, to sum up: Ibn Khaldun's political Spinozism creates genuine space between revelation and science/metaphysics. In Ibn Khaldun' this is achieved by a polemic against speculative theology and by re-inventing metaphysics in a Platonic tenor. Not unlike Spinoza, there is a middle, grey zone where articles of faith and metaphysics may come to conflict; but by treating one as a matter of faith and the other as a matter of conjecture, the conflict is contained.

 

On Progress in Science and Revelation

And again it is clear that in the study of beings this aim can be fulfilled by us perfectly only through successive examinations of them by one man after another, the later ones seeking the help of the earlier in that task, on the model of what has happened in the mathematical sciences. For if we suppose that the art of geometry did not exist in this age of ours, and likewise the art of astronomy, and a single person wanted to ascertain by himself the sizes of the heavenly bodies, their shapes, and their distances from each other, that would not be possible for him-e.g. to know the proportion of the sun to the earth or other facts about the sizes of the stars­ even though he were the most intelligent of men by nature, unless by a revelation or something resembling revelation. Indeed if he were told that the sun is about 150 or 16o times as great as the earth, he would think this statement madness on the part of the speaker, although this is a fact which has been demonstrated in astronomy so surely that no one· who has mastered that science doubts it.--Ibn Rushd, The Decisive Treatise, Chapter 1, Translated by George F. Hourancy

One important conception that makes (the possibility) of progress possible, is the idea that those who arrive late on the scene are likely to be in a better position than ancestors and other originators. The temporally later can draw on a wider intellectual division of labor and the historical record of success and failure.  One striking effect of progress is, as Ibn Rushd makes explicit, that the naturally most intelligent person may know less than an average inquirer or student of a later period. Newton and Einstein really know less about physics than some students because the latter can take advantage of textbooks and other mechanisms by which existing knowledge is aggregated and transferred.* 

A really neat version of such mechanisms is discussed by Al-Farabi at one of the most esoteric points of his metaphysics. It has a very tantalizing implication, so I hope you keep reading.

A key concept of Al-Farabi's metaphysics is the active intellect. When it is introduced, Al-Farabi adds, "of the active intellect, it ought to be said that it is the trustworthy spirit and the holy spirit." (Political Regime, par 3) From the perspective of the overal; argument of Ibn Rushd's The Decisive Treatise, We may say that Al-Farabi introduces an allegorical reading of his metaphysics. (This is notable because Ibn Rushd ignores the possibility; for him allegorical readings of the Quran are introduced to make sense of passages that taken literally are obscure in some way.) Presumably Al-Farabi does so to make that metaphysics more acceptable to those that wish to reconcile demonstration to revelation. (Spinoza also has a tendency to use religious sounding language to explain his metaphysics. And in the interest of understanding, I will make Al-Farabi sound like Spinoza despite the fact that Al-Farabi's jargon is generally far removed from straight Spinozism.  

Now, in Al-Farabi's system the active intellect is a key intermediary mechanism between the eternal celestial worlds and human affairs. To simplify even more, when we reason successfully in a certain way, we turn ourselves into a truly rational being and become the active intellect and, simultaneously, we are eternal in a certain way. I quote the relevant passage so you have an idea of how Al-Farabi expresses the point (and also the added complications):

Consequently, the rational intellect by which a human being is a human being is not in its substance an intellect in actuality. It is not endowed by nature to be an intellect in actuality, but the active intellect causes it to become an intellect in actuality and makes the rest of the things intelligible in actuality for the rational faculty. When the rational faculty attains to being an intellect in actuality, that intellect it now is in actuality also becomes similar to the separate things and it intellects its essence that is [now] intellect in actuality. And what is intellected of it becomes what intellects. At that point, it comes to be a substance that is intellected in that it is an intelligible insofar as it intellects. And, at that point, what intellects, what is intellected, and intellect come to be a single thing itself in it. Through this, it becomes such as to be in the rank of the active intellect. And when a human being obtains this rank, his happiness is perfected. By means of that thing, the rational soul intellects the active intellect; and by means of it, things that are potentially intellected become intellected in actuality. By means of it, a human being, who is potentially an intellect, becomes an intellect in actuality and in perfection until he
comes to be in proximity to the rank of the active intellect. So he becomes an intellect in his essence after having not been like that and an intelligible in his essence after having not been like that. And he becomes divine after having been material. This is the function of the active intellect, and for this it is called the active intellect. (Political Regime par 8-9).

As it happens truly perfect happiness is only attained after earthly, material existence has ended. If one thinks that truth is in some sense correspondence, Al-Farabi makes no sense. But if one allows oneself to see that truth is a special instance self-identity ("what intellects, what is intellected, and intellect come to be a single thing itself"), he does make, despite the jargon, sense. 

Now, I have mentioned before (recall here and here) that for Al-Farabi when a magnanimous soul (that is still alive) joins the active intellect,  he describes this as either a philosopher-king or revelation (see par. 80). It's true that this can only be called revelation because the active intellect "emanates from the existence of the first cause." (Par 79-80) It's pretty clear that for Al-Farabi, the content of revelation just is the practical wisdom by which polities are ruled on a sound (theoretical) foundation. 

Because Al-Farabi is so explicit that revelation comes to a magnanimous soul, I had failed to notice the implication of the following passage shortly thereafter:

When a group passes away, and their bodies are nullified, and their souls are delivered and made happy, then other people follow after them, take their place in the city, and perform their activities; the souls of these [people], too, are delivered. When their bodies are nullified, they come to the rankings of those in this group who have passed away. They are neighborly to them in the way that what is not corporeal is neighborly. And they join with the similar souls of the people of the single group, some with others. Whenever the similar separate souls multiply and some join with others, the pleasure of each one increases. Whenever one of those who came after attaches to them, the pleasure of the one now attaching increases due to his encountering those who passed away. And the pleasures of those who passed away increase through joining with those who attach to them because each one intellects his essence and intellects the same as his essence many times. What is thereby intellected increases as the ones now present attach to them in future time. So there will be a boundless increase of pleasures for each one with the passing of time. That is the condition of each group. This, then, is the true ultimate happiness that is the purpose of the active intellect. (Political Regime, Par. 85)

Now, the core claim here is that in the afterlife, there is a community of souls that join in or fuse with each other in/and with the active intellect. That is to say there is a kind of (what I'll call) posthumous intellectual, disembodied fellowship. This is presented as pleasing. And over time, as new souls join the fellowship, pleasure increases. (I think Al-Farabi is also committed to the claim that there is a cognitive hierarchy of such fellowships.)

Now, this is an extraordinary (ahh) uplifting image.  But it has a two-fold further effect, one explicitly noted by Al-Farabi. First, "what is thereby intellected increases as the ones now present attach to them in future time." This means that the fellowship, which is a kind of fusions of souls, expands over time. So, second, the fellowship conjoined or fused with the active intellect is not just more pleasing, but a larger, more complex and more powerful unity as time passes.

But this entails -- this is my tantalizing conclusion, that revelation that comes later has the benefit of drawing on collective wisdom of rational minds that have come before. (See also this post for significance of this.) So, later revelation ought to be better revelation. Not for the first time I am left wondering if Al-Farabi doesn't open the door to a new prophet.** 

Once more on Socrates and Thrasymachus

Do you think that a city, an army, or bandits, or thieves, or any other group that attempted any action in common, could accomplish anything if they wronged one another?”  “Certainly not,” said he. “But if they didn't, wouldn't they be more likely to?” “Assuredly.” “For factions, Thrasymachus, are the outcome of injustice, and hatreds and internecine conflicts, but justice brings oneness of mind and love. Is it not so?” “So be it,” he replied, “not to differ from you.” “That is good of you, my friend; but tell me this: if it is the business of injustice to engender hatred wherever it is found, will it not, when it springs up either among freemen or slaves, cause them to hate and be at strife with one another, and make them incapable of effective action in common?” “By all means.” “Suppose, then, it springs up between two, will they not be at outs with and hate each other and be enemies both to one a another and to the just?” “They will,” he said. “And then will you tell me that if injustice arises in one it will lose its force and function or will it none the less keep it?” “Have it that it keeps it,” he said. “And is it not apparent that its force is such that wherever it is found in city, family, camp, or in anything else it first renders the thing incapable of cooperation with itself owing to faction and difference, and secondly an enemy to itself and to its opposite in every case, the just? Isn't that so?” “By all means.” “Then in the individual too, I presume, its presence will operate all these effects which it is its nature to produce. It will in the first place make him incapable of accomplishing anything because of inner faction and lack of self-agreement, and then an enemy to himself and to the just. Is it not so?” “Yes.” “But, my friend, the gods too are just.” “Have it that they are,” he said. “So to the gods also, it seems, the unjust man will be hateful, but the just man dear.” “Revel in your discourse,” he said, “without fear, for I shall not oppose you, so as not to offend your partisans here.” “Fill up the measure of my feast, then, and complete it for me,” I said, “by continuing to answer as you have been doing. Now that the just appear to be wiser and better and more capable of action and the unjust incapable of any common action, and that if we ever say that any men who are unjust have vigorously combined to put something over, our statement is not altogether true, for they would not have kept their hands from one another if they had been thoroughly unjust, but it is obvious that there was in them some justice which prevented them from wronging at the same time one another too as well as those whom they attacked; and by dint of this they accomplished whatever they did and set out to do injustice only half corrupted by injustice, since utter rascals completely unjust are completely incapable of effective action—all this I understand to be the truth, and not what you originally laid down.--Plato, Republic 1, 351d-352d, translated Paul Shorey

When I wrote (recall) about this passage before I treated Socrates' argument as a consequentialist one that gained its rhetorical effectiveness from Athenian (recent) experience of civil war.* But I also noted that the history of imperial/mercantile nationalism shows that gross acts of out-group injustice may well be constitutive of, or facilitate, in-group 'justice.' In a zero-sum environment, hurting 'others' may well be, alas, beneficial to 'us' if 'we' can understand ourselves so. As I noted (here and here) Socrates seems to rely on this very point at Republic 470ff when he thinks through the international relations of Kallipolis.

But it occurred to me that the argument with Thrasymachus can also be differently. Socrates can be taken to be saying that collective agency (and individual agency) presupposes justice because justice is was creates the minimal unity for there to be a self to act. I think Socrates is pretty explicit about this very point. And, if one allows, as I would (but certainly everybody) that agency comes in degrees, then partial or imperfect justice creates conditions for partial agency (etc.) With perfect justice one has a perfect unity or harmonious whole, capable of autonomous action. The last point is anachronistic, although I think the Athenian Stranger makes the point in the puppet image in Plato's Laws (ca 644).

Be that as it may, and now we get to more speculative part. First, Socrates is explicitly committed to the idea that injustice is a cause or source of dis-functionality, that is, civil strife (and mutual anger) or antipathy. (Just as a harmonious, just city has mutual sympathy.) And as the rest of the Republic reveals, he is also committed, I think, second, to the idea that in many way the character of the polity takes its character or trickles down from its rulers. (Obviously it's possible I am reading Al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd (recall) into the Republic here.) To be sure that can't be the whole story because Socrates' causal analysis of how one kind of polity devolves into another isn't reducible to that.

Anyway, what Socrates' argument against Thrasymachus licenses is the following inference: political disunity or social strife is itself a signal of lack of justice and so evidence of bad governance. This is a view I associate with Mencius (recall here and here), and others inspired more by Machiavelli). I think the argument is also worth taking serious for those of a realist bent. Political rule that generates conditions of dangerous civil strife or an inability to engage in powerful collective action is self-defeating even by the lights of the powerful who wish to benefit from their rule. But this requires, I suspect, a distinction between self-interest and self-interest properly understood.

 

On Forgotten Public Philosophers-Politicians, Escapism, Willa Cather and Spinoza!

Good afternoon Professor Schliesser,

I hope this finds you well and does not create an inconvenience for you.

I am currently working on an essay on escapism within society and its justifications. Within the research process I found your blog and found your text on philosophy as escapism [here] rather interesting, wich is why I was wondering as to whether you hold an opinion on the value of escapism in our contemporary society.

Any opinions you would like to share are very much appreciated."--[Name withheld], sixthform at a grammar school in England.

A student's question is most capable of exposing my babbling.* My first reaction to reading the email was a discomfort growing into panic that I had no idea what 'escapism' meant, followed by a sense of mortification that I had used it without giving it thought. I went back to my own essay, and saw that I used 'escapism' to signify an activity that displaced discomfiting feelings. (Yes, I noticed the lurking practical regress.) 

 

Online one finds claims that escapism is a modern term (sometimes also used to describe genre) originating during the great depression in the 1930s. Playing around with google.scholar/books I found no use prior to 1800 in English, but tantalizing hints that escaping had migrated into something like escapism in the more recent sense. But it's true that reliable hits for 'escapism' only start to occur in the 1930s. So, for example, one can read in an essay,"His first published novel, One Man's Initiation, appeared a year later. It had evidently been written in the trenches, and was, strangely enough, a quiet, thoughtful book that made no attempt to be harrowing, but sought patiently to understand. In it, however, predominate those twin maladies of escapism and individualism which Dos Passos had acquired at Harvard." It's notable that escapism is treated as a disease here.Willa Cather noticed such pejorative usage of "escapism" (and, I hasten to add, "individualism"), and has a fantastic essay on the subject (1936) that I warmly recommend reading.

 

But it was another early use that caught my attention. In the Monist (1933), I found a transcript of a "A paper read at the tercentenary commemoration of Spinoza sponsored by The Philosophy Club of Chicago and held at The University of Chicago on December 9, 1932." The author is one T.V. Smith about which more below. It's an incredibly critical essay of Spinoza. I start with a long quote:

[T]here is little profit in honoring Spinoza unless it leads us to honor our own opportunities the more. And surely our opportunity is not yet reduced to making the best of the worst; we may still hope to make the worst less bad and the less bad better. The tendency in some quarters to canonize Spinoza leaves me uneasy, though I joy to honor all those who did their part toward fortifying the philosophic mind in adverse days. It leaves me doubly uneasy, however, when reverence for Spinoza is made to ornament a modern escapism. I refer to the tendency to mythologize physics with theological aureoles, to romantize mediaevalism in morals under the guise of good taste founded on uncriticized tradition, to realize Platonism by glorifying contemporary dictators as the long sought philosopher kings. I refer, in a word, to the rationalized romanticism of those who would purge the social sciences of every element that makes them social and present them as logic to be got at dialectically rather than experimentally.
Such attitudes are defeatist, and while they find in Spinoza and in Plato logical prototypes, they wrong the noble dead by accommodating them to a logic of events more pregnant than their ancient logic of discourse. With reference to our social problem and the fruitful attitude toward it I am convinced that Spinoza is a splendid example of the way not to do it in modern times. Passing as a political realist because he built his system on power, Spinoza actually romanticized the distribution of power which prevailed at his time and place. Now power itself is not given to men in a sacred lump with implied anathemas against any who would increase or reallocate it. It waxes and wanes in quantity and migrates here and there in habitat. Our task is, as Spinoza truly said, to understand power, its nature and incidence-not however in order to achieve blessedness under the worst distribution of it but in order to facilitate a more blessed redistribution of power. Spinoza is not our logical leader in the effort through science to increase power; for though engaged in what for his time was a scientific profession-lens grinding-he elected to seek personal salvation through discovering and contemplating the whole of things rather than social amelioration by detailed mastery of his own specialized part. He performed few experiments, wrote only one thing on his scientific pre-occupation, and that without distinction. Nor is Spinoza our logical leader in the task of distributing power more justly to all men; for he could not get along with men well enough to understand, much less to improve, the forms of social relations. Not wholly in his stars but partially also in himself must have lain the cause of his lifelong isolation. (34-35)

After this majestic example of victim blaming it comes as no surprise that Smith was the "editor of the International Journal of Ethics" and soon also turned to politics being elected (as a Democrat) to the Illinois State Senate, then the US House, and briefly the US Senate. (That is consistent with his views in the essay, which promote an embrace of messiness of reality in order to do good.) I have to admit that today -- I have a student to answer! -- I have little interest in fully untangling the nature of modern escapism even though I am interested in the public image/role of Spinoza. But the passage made me wonder: if there is such a thing as "modern escapism" of which Spinoza is the ornament (ca 1930), what is, then, the original (pre-modern) escapism, according to Smith? 

 

It turns out, Spinoza is the source of (original) escapism! Spinoza 

discovered how to make the best of the world at its worst. Now this is an immortal discovery in a world that some of the time for all of us and all of the time for some of us permits little alternative to the worst. All honor, then, to Spinoza for discovering how to snatch one compensation for the withering sterility of cosmic neutrality, i.e., an emotional appreciation of understanding itself. When mind eats mind, mind need never wholly starve, though its resulting life be but a sort of living death (31-32)

Smith, a man of action, is no friend of this kind of escapism. He clearly thinks it risks quietism and deference to inherited status quo. But he does grant it is authentic escapism. I am inclined to agree with Willa Cather ("give the people a new word, and they think they have a new fact") and that Spinoza only managed the not insignificant feat to make it seem as if something new was being said because he tapped into a vital need in a new (linguistic and conceptual) register.

 

It is a tantalizing possibility that an emotional appreciation of understanding itself was discovered after the 1650s and, allow me this play of words, to create, in violation of the principle of sufficient reason (or at least ex nihilo nihil fit) , surplus ("compensation") out of something sterile ("cosmic neutrality"). If I were a Marxist historian of science, I would say that the spirit of capitalism was thus given matter in Holland.

 

But to wrap up. Escapism in this sense -- an intellectual joy in being with [one's] thought** -- is a human need in all places. For, no society will manage to abolish the possibility of people with only lousy options.  And, so, long after the one-time philosophical Senator of Illinois is forgotten, Spinoza keeps being rediscovered. 

 

 

On Hong Kong, Progress, and the Judgments of Spectators (I)

 

The revolution of a gifted people which we have seen unfolding in our day may succeed or miscarry; it may be filled with misery and atrocities to the point that a right thinking human being, were he boldly to hope to execute it successfully the second time, would never resolve to make the experiment at such cost—this revolution, I say, nonetheless finds in the hearts of all spectators (who are not engaged in this play themselves) a wishful participation that borders closely on enthusiasm, the very expression of which is fraught with danger; this participation, therefore, can have no other cause than a moral disposition of the human race.—Kant "The Contest of the Faculties" (AA 7:85), translated by Nisbet.

Before I get to the famous passage from Kant let me situate it briefly in the overall argument. Kant explicitly frames the Contest of Faculties in terms of contrast between true and false prophecy (recall this); he starts his discussion by offering examples of a priori history: these all involve what we might call self-fulfilling prophecies. The self-fulfilling prophecies Kant discusses all have a distinct character: warning against a bad outcome while sticking to a course of action that necessitates will make the bad  outcome happen.* These are all too common. 

By contrast Kant is interested in forecasting a positive outcome of a special kind, namely open-ended progress. The obstacle here is that one cannot assume human nature -- understood as a collective property [it is allowed  there may be good individuals] -- is naturally good (which may secure the positive outcome). So, what is needed, then, is a particular kind of existence proof that a collective is capable of generating the conditions of self-improvement and acting on them (and so can then figure into a self-fulfilling positive prophecy). Such an event would provide evidence of, a sign, of the possibility of progress. 

Readers knowledgeable with Kant know that he wishes for something stronger: such an event would be the kind of cause that the "inevitable consequence of its operation, that mankind is improving." But as Kant explicitly acknowledged elsewhere when discussing an objection by Mendelssohn ("mankind constantly fluctuates between fixed limits"), this presupposes commitment to divine providence. Our lives are not just the possible amusement to Epicurean Gods or fit for the existentialist's absurd.

It's not that luck does not enter it into it at all; Kant allows that experiencing such an event that would be a sign of the necessity of progress is a matter of probability (we can't all be so lucky to live in interesting times). In addition, Kant is also willing to allow that any particular event that is taken as a sign may itself not be the cause of future progress (and so not necessitate it). 

What is notable about Kant's next move is that he takes Adam Smith's theory of the impartial spectator, which is primarily designed to apply to judgment of characters and individual situations,** and turns it into a social device. (For my musings, first prompted by Sam Fleischacker, on the connection between Kant and Smith see here; cf. here). I quote the passage (which precedes the famous one quoted above):

We are here concerned only with the attitude of the onlookers as it reveals itself in public while me drama of great political changes is taking place: for they openly express universal yet disinterested sympathy for one set of protagonists against their adversaries, even at the risk that their partiality could be of disadvantage to themselves. Their reaction (because of its universality) proves that mankind as a whole share certain character in common, and it also proves (because of its disinterestedness) that man has a moral character, or at least the makings of one. And this does not merely allow us to hope for improvement; it is already a form of improvement in itself.

It is notable that the significance here is not so much the French revolution itself -- Kant was notably (to use an understatement) lukewarm about revolutions --, but the reaction of the impartial spectators. That is, Kant is more interested here in the existence of an international public opinion than in the events in Paris (cf. Mill here and Lippmann here on national public opinion). The existence of a disinterested and what we might call robust and impartial public opinion is for Kant significant evidence that progress has been made and so is possible.+ Importantly impartiality does not entail neutrality; it is also compatible with, after due consideration of all the facts, taking sides in a conflict.

The way public opinion takes sides is by a kind of sympathetic identification which, in the case of French revolution, borders on enthusiasm [eine Theilnehmung dem Wunsche nach, die nahe an Enthusiasm grenzt]. Now, enthusiasm is, as Kant explicitly notes, itself a dangerous emotion. In Smith it always (recall) involves a heightened admiration, but sometimes this is misplaced and so can lead to bad decisions (something Sophie de Grouchy emphasized when discussing the bad political consequences of acting on enthusiasm (recall here; here; here, and here). Kant probably shares in fears over acting enthusiastically. But the consensus and disinterested nature of the spectators's attitudes are a different kind of event. 

I have already noted that the events in Hong Kong occur at a moment when the elected leaders of the world's liberal democracies seem to identify more with the Chinese government than with the brave people of Hong Kong. They can do so in virtue of the absence a countervailing international public opinion. 

Now, the existence of an enthusiastic international public opinion can, at times, be a contributing cause to bad outcomes. When it encourages the weaker side with a kind of implied material support and then does not (or cannot) deliver or deliver less than needed material assistance, it may generate worse outcomes than if it had not existed. [Hungary 1956; Syria more recently] spring to mind as examples. So, political leaders need not be craven if they refuse to go along with or encourage international public opinion.

It is tempting to close with the thought that when one is unlucky enough to live in times when democratic leaders are craven and international public opinion is uninterested and silent, it is hard not to feel, despairingly, that Kant did not give Mendelssohn's position its full due. 

Even so, the actions of the people of Hong Kong are themselves a source of a more slender hope. Their courage, in the face of overwhelming odds, to defend the rule of law and resist the imposition of arbitrary power is a sign that liberty's flame has not been extinguished, yet. And seeing this, no dictatorship can feel secure. 

 

 

 

On Rare Phoenixes in Philosophy (Seneca, Socrates, and Spinoza)

For one of the first class ["good men" [vir bonus]]] perhaps springs into existence, like the phoenix, only once in five hundred years. And it is not surprising, either, that greatness develops only at long intervals; Fortune often brings into being commonplace powers, which are born to please the crowd [turbam]; but she holds up for our approval that which is extraordinary by the very fact that she makes it rare. [eximia vero ipsa raritate commendat]

2. This man, however, of whom you spoke, is still far from the state which he professes to have reached. And if he knew what it meant to be "a good man," he would not yet believe himself such; perhaps he would even despair of his ability to become good. "But," you say, "he thinks ill of evil men." Well, so do evil men themselves; and there is no worse penalty for vice than the fact that it is dissatisfied with itself and all its fellows. 3. "But he hates those who make an ungoverned use of great power suddenly acquired." I retort that he will do the same thing as soon as he acquires the same powers. Seneca, Letter 42. Translated by Richard Mott Gummere (with minor changes)

The truly good are so rare we may as well call them flukes of nature. Allowing that Socrates associates philosophers with those of the first class, Socrates also seems to have thought that absent breeding, this the case (see the αὐτόματοι  Republic 520b). But Seneca seems more adamant about the cyclical rarity of then. I mention Socrates because Seneca may well be tempt the reader to think he is slyly comparing himself to Socrates; he was, after all, born about 480 years after Socrates. 

Much of the letter repeats Seneca's lessons about how a high price in the marketplace, and mass approval, are worthless or  involve commodities and states of affairs that make us worse off. A key new claim (also with a Socratic provenance) is that bad people actually (secretly) have, despite appearances to the contrary, a low estimate of themselves [At male existimat de malis.]* The etymology of existimat ( ex- +‎ aestimō) reminds us that esteem and estimate (in the sense of judging) are very closely tied together. 

It is not entirely clear if Seneca thinks low self-esteem is a cause of their bad behavior or if this is, due to the workings of conscience (as Butler and Adam Smith would argue), the effect of bad behavior, or  (more likely) both. But the striking fact is that the interaction of low self-esteem with bad behavior creates a miserable psychic condition in virtue of succeeding at one's projects.** 

I have always have found the underlying psychological idea plausible enough, despite the suspicion this is the kind of thing we powerless may invent to haunt the powerful. What makes Senca's claim plausible is that his lines may well be autobiographical (he was insanely rich and not free of misdeeds). Yet, sometimes one encounters the obscenely rich and wicked who seem to lack all sense of shame. 

Be that as it may, on this view to do bad is to get caught in a vicious cycle of self-contempt. In the ledger Seneca likes to invoke, one is, were double-entry book-keeping already invented, then in the loss column.

It turns out that in this sense -- of psychic health or proper positive self-estimation -- only a fraction [quoto cuique] -- are not in the loss column. By the structure of his letter, Seneca tempts us to see in these self-contained few with nothing lost [nihil perdidit] the rare exemplars that arise every half-millennia or so. The role of these exemplar(s) is to help structure the emendation or spiritual exercises he offers, but it is de facto unattainable. 

Since I have been brief, let me add one further thought. Another way to understand the the nature of the phoenix image is in terms of the periodic rebirth of philosophy. This is in some sense the eternal recurrence of the same. Although we can expect differences because while the identity of the phoenix remains the same, the context in which she grows does not.

With that in mind, I looked anew at the last line(s) of Spinoza's Ethics: But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. [Sed omnia praeclara tam difficilia, quam rara sunt]. This evoke Seneca with one notable difference. Spinoza leaves no doubt that despite the difficulty, one can with a proper regimen turn oneself into one of the (mentally) blessed. And if you fail, try again and harder.

On (Lippmann and) Ignorant Voters

The hypothesis, which seems to me the most fertile, is that news and truth are not the same thing, and must be clearly distinguished. The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them into relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act....For the troubles of the press, like the troubles of representative government, be it territorial or functional, like the troubles of industry, be it capitalist, cooperative, or communist, go back to a common source: to the failure of self-governing people to transcend their casual experience and their prejudice, by inventing, creating, and organizing a machinery of knowledge. It is because they are compelled to act without a reliable picture of the world, that governments, schools, newspapers and churches make such small headway against the more obvious failings of democracy, against violent prejudice, apathy, preference for the curious trivial as against the dull important, and the hunger for sideshows and three legged calves. This is the primary defect of popular government, a defect inherent in its traditions, and all its other defects can, I believe, be traced to this one.--Walter Lippmann (1922) Public Opinion (Chapter 24, 228-230) 

As regular readers know, I think reflection on Walter Lippmann is important in present circumstances. He is one of the intellectual architects (recall) of what I call the second-wave of liberalism (1945-2008), which has been imploding during the last decade, and even was the proximate cause of the development of what came to be known as neo-liberalism. More subtly, his conception of the good society, which hearkens back to the (attractive) kind of liberalism of Adam Smith and Sophie de Grouchy, rejects both state neutrality and state-craft as soul-craft; the good society is one that has many morally salient characteristics (the people are flourishing and can lead lives of their own choosing without fear or coercion). To attain the good society, not unlike a medieval cathedral, is a multi-generational, collective project. There is a sense in which this is a religious project. But, probably unlike the cathedral, the path and the outcome of the good society is, due to the uncertainty generating conditions of modern life, full of surprises. 

One reason to return to Lippmann (not in order to agree -- he also has (recall) serious weaknesses --) is that, as  JohnDewey emphasizes, he understands the problem of voter ignorance not, as anti-democrats do, as a problem of other (not-so-smart or gripped by ideology) voters, but as a structural feature of the human condition. One need not agree with all of Lippmann's ways of articulating the situation, to see that the (Platonic) cave is the human condition in mass society. And to overcome such ignorance, here he anticipates Hanna Arendt, is a rare achievement to be found in, or (perhaps its better to say) produced by, a few institutions:  the law and science.

As an aside, Lippmann, who knew the press from within, is adamant that the press is even during the best of times and ownership structures not that kind of institution capable of reliable generating truth.* And, in fact, he claims that, when the press is conducive, it is often relying on the rule-following features of the administrative state. Importantly, his skepticism about the press' truth-conducive-ness does not entail that the press has no positive contributions to make to democratic life. (If he thought that, his life would be self-undermining in a very obvious ways.)

I do not think Lippmann's answer to the problem of voter ignorance is successful, but it was (judging by what happened next) very influential; and if not influential, at least prophetic. It is possible that by Lippmann's own standards his solution would be deemed successful because Lippmann's aspirations were (again noted by Dewey) were more ameliorative than utopian.  Lippmann's proposal has three central features: first, is to advocate for an expansion of the (meritocratic) bureaucratic state and infuse it with what he calls 'technical knowledge' that he associates with "statisticians, accountants, auditors, industrial counsellors, engineers of many species, scientific managers, personnel administrators, research men, "scientists," and sometimes just as plain private secretaries." (234) He thinks such technical knowledge can also be turned into an "experimental social science." (237)  The point, for Lippmann, is not that such technicians will run the show, but rather that they become embedded (as "permanent intelligence section") in all government apparatuses (nationally and locally). For, by definition, a technician is not the decision maker.+

A key second feature of his proposal is that there will be a permanent circulation of college graduates from universities, perhaps even a privileged 'national university' (247) recruited from government staff, into government; and technical, government bureaucrats returning regularly to train and teach at universities. This intellectual flow of human capital would itself (in part) constitute "political science" and, in turn, would "associated with politics in America."+ (In 1922 economics was not yet seen as the future queen of the social sciences.) Lippmann optimistically assumes that all of this can be done transparently and openly (246).  The third, key feature is to insist that any political decision must be channeled through a procedure that will involve the bringing to bear of technical expertise on a problem (e.g., 255). 

As an aside, Lippmann's account is clearly distinct from the (later) Hayekian narrative, which sees the rise of the bureaucratic, technocratic state as a consequence of the experience of (mobilization and) war-planning during WWI. Lippmann, by contrast, thinks that the rise of the technician in the great society is itself the consequence "of blind natural selection" (234); complex organizations faced with complex decision environments started to require technical expertise merely to help integrate the flow of data and to structure decision-making for the executive. One discerns in Lippmann that the problem of big data is a nineteenth century problem, and that to overcome it even in competitive markets, requires the rise of expertise within organizations.

Now, Lippmann is not unaware that there is a real risk the technocrats will quickly run the show and displace elected officials and electorate. His response to this is to insist on a stark distinction between executive and technical functions and to aim to align incentives between them properly. [242]+ Only this can keep the technician's disinterestedness in place. If such a distinction were to be maintained in practice, and an esprit de corps among the technical class could be cultivated, then his hope that there will be circumstances in which the presence of a class of technicians can even abolish partisanship would not be comical. I don't mean to suggest that Lippmann's proposal is impractical: it very much reflects reality inside important elements of the governance of the EU and the US Federal government. As Dewey discerned, Lippmann proposes what became a tool, even an effective technique of governance one that has undoubtedly helped reduce the catastrophic mistakes all political agents can make.**

I used the word 'comical.' Perhaps that's unfortunate.  For Lippmann's weakness is the weakness of much of twentieth century liberalism. We can discern in Lippmann a tendency toward consensus and de-politicization in thinking about politics. In his (1937) Good Society, he demands that politicians combine, in spirit, the temperament of a legislator and a judge (who is impartial, fair, temperate, etc.) As the earlier Public Opinion teaches, that aspiration would only be possible in reality if political life is not governed by opinion. But if that were possible, we wouldn't (recall) need democracy at all. 

 

 

On Marilynne Robinson's Edomites

Assmann’s argument is the sort of razzle-dazzle that depends on coinages like “mnemohistory,” which is the exalted and useful discipline of interpreting history that collective memory has displaced and suppressed so thoroughly only the writer has an inkling even of the fact of suppression. In this cognitive implosion a fusion occurs between Moses and the Aton cultus which conventional history simply cannot achieve. Assmann is writing this book in response to Freud’s abysmal question about the origins of anti-Semitism. “Strikingly enough, his [Freud’s] question was not how the Gentiles, or the Christians, or the Germans came to hate the Jews, but ‘how the Jew had become what he is and why he has attracted this undying hatred.’” He paraphrases Freud’s answer thus: “Not the Jew but monotheism had attracted this undying hatred. By making Moses an Egyptian, [Freud] deemed himself able to shift the sources of negativity and intolerance out of Judaism and back to Egypt, and to show that the defining fundamentals of Jewish monotheism and mentality came from outside it.” So we are to concede, apparently, that these are “the defining fundamentals of Jewish monotheism and mentality.” Comment is unnecessary, though I will draw attention here to the notion of victimization I remarked on earlier. We gentiles have the Torah to blame for our worst moments, it would appear.

Like others of these writers, Assmann argues that ancient polytheism was essentially tolerant, “cosmotheism,” and readily accepted other gods, translating them into the terms of the culture that received them. Granting that Melqart, a god of Carthage, did indeed lounge around in a lion skin looking just like Hercules, we have the fact that Rome loathed Carthage, and was despised in turn, and reduced that great city to bare earth and then plowed salt into the ground. Athens and Sparta had just the same pantheon, and they fought to the death. And Rome conquered Greece, whose gods it had thoroughly Latinized. That is to say, whatever the merits of polytheism, at best it only obliged people to find other than religious grounds for hostility, which they were clearly very able to do. How the wars of the Hebrews against the Canaanites are more culpable than the wars of the Romans against the Etruscans I fail to see, or why anyone should imagine that these wars were less formative for European civilization than those distant, inconclusive wars among the Semites. Or, for that matter, why they do not prove that the character of the civilization was already formed when Rome set about the conquest of Italy. Jack Miles attributes the structure of Western consciousness to monotheism on the grounds that “the Bible was the popular encyclopedia of the Middle Ages.” But in fact through most of the Common Era in Europe the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, existed almost exclusively in Latin, a language incomprehensible to the great majority of people, who were in any case illiterate. So its influence is easily overstated. Yet ferocious intolerance has characterized most of Western history in the Common Era.

Polytheism is as fashionable now as it has been since fascism was in its prime. As a corollary to the current tendency to blame monotheism for intolerance and aggression and genocide, there is an assumption that polytheism must have been tolerant, pacific and humane. This notion is old, too. In The Natural History of Religion, Hume says, “by limiting the powers and functions of its deities, [idolatry] naturally admits the gods of other sects and nations to a share of divinity, and renders all the various deities, as well as rites, ceremonies, or traditions, compatible with each other … [By comparison] when one sole object of devotion is acknowedged, the worship of other deities is regarded as absurd and impious.”

It is striking to see how the cultural discourse is circling on itself. Perhaps the real familiarity of their arguments explains why these writers I have looked at offer so little in the way of evidence. For example, Assmann, the most scholarly of them, says the Old Testament is deeply informed by aversion to Egypt, then offers no support from the text. And, coincidentally perhaps, little evidence is to be found in the text. One Mosaic law of unambiguous relevance, which goes unmentioned by him, is Deuteronomy 23:7: “You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother; you shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land.” This law provides that both Edomites and Egyptians may enter the assembly of the Lord on favorable terms — after three generations, that is, which seems long, but which is liberal by comparison with the ancient Athenians, for instance, who never naturalized the descendants of foreigners. Nor, as I understand, do the modern Germans. This one verse is sufficient to demonstrate that there was not hatred but in fact a certain bond between Hebrews and Egyptians.

This idea, that the hatred of the Other is the signal preoccupation of the Old Testament, is carried to great lengths by Regina Schwartz..."--Marilynne Robinson, "The Fate of Ideas: Moses" in When I Was a Child I Read Books (2012), pp. 114-116. [First published in 1999 in Salmagundi.]

During the Summer my mom called attention to a lovely, recent essay by Robinson in the NYRB. (Thank you mom!) In that essay Robinson vindicates the Puritans and Cromwell as (for example) legal reformists who develop the idea of the rule of law. I may be the only would be aspiring contributor to the Republic of Letters who had missed the impact of Robinson's novels and essays and even Obama's endorsement of her. (Serves me right for skipping the NYRB for a few years!) I am trying to use the remainder of this Summer to catch up on what I missed. When I Was a Child I Read Books contains two essays, "Open thy Hand Wide: Moses and the Origins of American Liberalism" and "The Fate of Ideas: Moses," which are the bedrock on which the recent NYRB essay is built. These two essays are often read in tandem by those with an interest in advancing, what we may call, contemporary political theology (see, e.g., Paul Steaton critically; Scott D. Moringiello admirably).

The long quoted passage is kind of exemplary of Robinson's philosemitism. She is very acute on the ways in which biblical scholars and even very progressive intellectuals have a tendency to attribute bad features of European civilization or today's culture to a disparaged version of the Old Testament.

As an aside, she uses "Old Testament" and not "Hebrew Bible" because they have "very different cultural histories [and] the order of the books is different." (96) En passant, Robinson raises the question to what degree these can be said to be, in fact, the same book(s).*

Be that as it may, Robinson, who is often humane and wise, is pretty compelling that often the unlovely critiques of the Old Testament are grounded in lack of familiarity with the actual text. She notes that for much of the history of Christianity such familiarity cannot be presumed among many. (The revival of knowledge of the Old Testament occurred during the reformation by humanists and reformers.)+  And one of her more endearing features is to quote Scriptures to unmask dangerous nonsense presenting itself as scholarship. I don't mean to suggest she is committed to simpleminded literalism or infallibility of scripture; not unlike her hero, Calvin, she uses sola scriptura as a means to expand one's judgment and sensitivity and to ground what she calls free thought. 

Even so, I think something is off in her reading of Deuteronomy 23:7. And I will suggest it's the kind of offness that characterizes the advocate. Before I get to that, everything she says in the passage quoted above is true -- both true as readings of others and about the larger purported truths to which they refer. More important, given the contemporary scene, the passage she quotes from Deuteronomy helps provide background to the kind of claims my friend (and sometime co-author) Yoram Hazony makes (recall, for example, here and here) about what he calls the order of nation states which co-habit in peace. Hebrew, Egyptian, and (especially?) Edomite can be expected to cohabit. In fact, and again with a nod to the contemporary headlines, this is a Hebraic nationalism that rejects ethnic/racial purity and is open to immigrants becoming part of the community (and intermarry). Hazony himself has written eloquently on this (recall).** 

Okay, with that in place, I would like to quote 23:7 in Deuteronomy's slightly larger context:

3An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever: 4because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee. 5Nevertheless the LORD thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the LORD thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because theLORD thy God loved thee. 6Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever. Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land.8The children that are begotten of them shall enter into the congregation of the LORD in their third generation. KJV

It's pretty clear that the Old Testament treats Ammonites and Moabites very differently from Egyptian and Edomite. What's especially striking is not the historical rationale offered by Moses,++ but the insistence that one should not aim to make peace or (I think) trade with  Ammonites and Moabites. To put the point anachronistically, in the order of nation states there will be states that are perpetual enemies (e.g., Ammonites and Moabites) and those that are not (e.g., Edomite and Egyptian. Since the Jews had been slaves in Egypt this is indeed remarkable.) It seems that there is something about the national character of perpetual enemies (lack of hospitality and, to sound Hobbesian, war-preparedness) that makes them (these nations) incapable of change.*** 

I think Robinson would be inclined to read, and she would not be wrong to do so, this passage of the Old Testament as showing that an unwillingness to open one's hand to the stranger is, according to it, almost the worst national character-trait. So, the passage supports her larger spirit.  

Even so, I close with a yes, but. 

Even if one allows (for the sake of argument) that national character is fixed, I am unsure what the assumed mechanism is by which flawed national character infects each individual such that it makes members of these nations permanently unwelcome. But it's pretty clear that the passage justifies inhumane treatment of those taken to belong to natural enemies. So, surely Robinson is correct to say that the Old Testament shows no signal preoccupation with hatred of the Other. It would be pleasant if we could all be Edomites. But that's compatible with the injunction to be on guard, in the sense of keeping out, alas, some distinct Others, forever.  

On the God Within (Seneca, Spinoza, and the Bible/Vergil)

[I]t is foolish to pray for this when you can acquire it from yourself. We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol's ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. God is near you, he is with you, he is within you. 2. This is what I mean, Lucilius: a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian. As we treat this spirit, so are we treated by it. Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God. Can one rise superior to fortune unless God helps him to rise? He it is that gives noble and upright counsel. In each good man

A god doth dwell, but what god know we not [quis deus incertum est] habitat deus].--Seneca, Letter 41. Translated by Richard Mott Gummere

To achieve a sound mind [ad bonam mentem] prayer [optare could also be mere wishing] won't do; there are not just opportunity costs involved, but our attention is misdirected outward. For, Seneca, as is familiar by now, self-cultivation is, simultaneously, a withdrawal from the world of the crowd and popular approval. He comes very close to suggesting here that public displays of religion is a participation in the worship of false idols (such as characterize the market-place, the political crowds, and the amphitheater).

Part of self-cultivation is the development of what we may call conscience, the observer and custodian [observator et custos] of the good and bad we perform. Interestingly Seneca presents the operation of conscience as a reciprocal, relationship between the agent and this hidden faculty. When we nurture conscience, we are, in turn, nurtured by it. This form of boot-strapping is the path toward overcoming the rule of chance [recall, inter alia, also letter 39 here], and to participate (as we have seen) in a life rule by necessity (recall the start of the Letters) and, thereby, become godlike (recall this post on self-reliance in letter 31). A good person is precisely the one that has justly come to rely on conscience.*

I don't mean to ignore how the people that exemplify such self-controlled god-likeness, exemplify a species of (almost Nietzschean) magnanimity, laughing at our fears and at our prayers and willing them over and over again, (Vis isto divina descendit; animum excellentem, moderatum, omnia tamquam minora transeuntem, quidquid timemus optamusque ridentem, caelestis potentia agitat.)

Now, Gummere helpfully notes that the last line of the quoted passage is itself a quote from Vergil's Aenid 8.352. Seneca here proves true to his principle that the origin of a truth is less important than the fact that (recall) there is no exclusive property right in wisdom and that it can be made available to all of mankind. Even so it is notable that he quotes a poet here and not (as he had done before) a member of a competing philosophical school. (In the previous letter (40), he made a similar point with Homer.)

There is a lot to be said about the context of 8.352 and how it relates to the political self-conception of Rome and its founding. But, at this point, and in virtue of a recent lecture by Steven Nadler that I attended, I am reminded of the epigram to Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise (hereafter TTP): Per hoc cognoscimus quod in Deo manemus,/et Deus manet in nobis/quod de Spiritu suo dedit nobis (1 John 4:13; in the King James, Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.) What's clever about this is that the first two parts of the verse, just express the Spinozism of the Ethics (we are in God and he in us). Later, in chapter 14 of the TTP, when he comments on the very verse, Spinoza explains that to have possession of the (holy) spirit just means exhibiting faith in works, that is obedience to God, that is showing one's charity (or 'lovingkindness' in Curley's translation).+

Now, Spinoza and Seneca agree that a holy spirit dwells within us and that being attentive to it guides our good behavior. They also agree on a structural feature: that to behave in accord with it, is to be guided by (an eternal property, that is,) reason, that is, necessity, that is, (one's second) nature. And that to do so is the path of salvation (see the rest of letter 41). I don't mean to suggest that they agree, exactly, on the contents of conscience or what the holy spirit demands from us. That's for another time.

Rather, I want to close with a final observation prompted by one of the most striking passages in the TTP (from Chapter 5):

So the narratives contained in the Old and New Testaments are better than the other, secular narratives, and among the [Scriptural narratives], some are better than others, in proportion as the opinions which follow from them are salutary. Hence if someone has read the stories of Holy Scripture, and has had faith in it in every respect, and has nevertheless not attended to the lesson Scrip­ture intends to teach with those stories, nor improved his life, it is just the same as if he had read the Koran, or the dramas of the Poets, or even the ordinary Chronicles, with the same attention as the multitude commonly give to these things. On the other hand, as we have said, someone who is com­pletely unfamiliar with these stories, and nevertheless has salutary opinions and a true manner of living, is absolutely blessed and really has the Spirit of Christ in him.**

There is a lot to say about this passage (recall), but the key point is that one has the Spirit of Christ if one exhibits the right kind of behavior and that one does not need exposure to Scripture nor philosophy to attain it. More subtly, and controversially, perhaps, any text, if read attentively, can be made to yield the salutary opinions needed to instruct others -- as Seneca instructs Lucillius -- in the art of living...if, and perhaps only if, one has a well-prepared mind, as Seneca shows with his use of Vergil.