Ted Kaczynski, Racist and Fascist?
age...@post.cz
and a fascist, at least according to the criteria that
leftists ordinarily use for deciding such things in the
case of people they don't like. For example, Art Jensen,
Glayde Whitney, Michael Levin, and Chris Brand, have all
been denounced as racists and fascists for their belief in
IQ as a valid measure of intelligence, and their belief in
the heretibility of racial differences generally. Indeed,
even a belief in the existence of various races of Homo
sapiens marks one, in PC eyes, as a racist.
But TK believes not only in the existence of races, he
even repeats and apparently believes what the PC'ers would
certainly consider to be a slander against the gypsies:
"Note 7. (Paragraph 52) A partial exception may
be made for a few passive, inward looking groups,
such as the Amish, which have little effect on
the wider society. Apart from these, some genuine
small-scale communities do exist in America
today. For instance, youth gangs and "cults".
Everyone regards them as dangerous, and so they
are, because the members of these groups are
loyal primarily to one another rather than to
the system, hence the system cannot control them.
Or take the gypsies. The gypsies commonly get away
with theft and fraud because their loyalties are
such that they can always get other gypsies to give
testimony that "proves" their innocence. Obviously
the system would be in serious trouble if too many
people belonged to such groups. Some of the
early-20th century Chinese thinkers who were
concerned with modernizing China recognized the
necessity of breaking down small-scale social
groups such as the family: "(According to Sun
Yat-sen) The Chinese people needed a new surge
of patriotism, which would lead to a transfer of
loyalty from the family to the state. . .
(According to Li Huang) traditional attachments,
particularly to the family had to be abandoned if
nationalism were to develop to China." (Chester C.
Tan, Chinese Political Thought in the Twentieth
Century," page 125, page 297.)"
TK also appears to hold what the PC'ers would call
stereotyped views of Blacks:
"29. Here is an illustration of the way in which
the oversocialized leftist shows his real
attachment to the conventional attitudes of our
society while pretending to be in rebellion
against it. Many leftists push for affirmative
action, for moving black people into high-prestige
jobs, for improved education in black schools and
more money for such schools; the way of life of
the black "underclass" they regard as a social
disgrace. They want to integrate the black man
into the system, make him a business executive,
a lawyer, a scientist just like upper-middle-class
white people. The leftists will reply that the
last thing they want is to make the black man
into a copy of the white man; instead,
they want to preserve African American culture.
But in what does this preservation of African
American culture consist? It can hardly consist
in anything more than eating black-style food,
listening to black-style music, wearing
black-style clothing and going to a black-style
church or mosque. In other words, it can express
itself only in superficial matters. In all ESSENTIAL
respects more leftists of the oversocialized type
want to make the black man conform to white,
middle-class ideals. They want to make him study
technical subjects, become an executive or a scientist,
spend his life climbing the status ladder to prove
that black people are as good as white. They
want to make black fathers "responsible." they want
black gangs to become nonviolent, etc. But
these are exactly the values of the industrial-
technological system. The system couldn't care less
what kind of music a man listens to, what kind of
clothes he wears or what religion he believes in as
long as he studies in school, holds a respectable job,
climbs the status ladder, is a "responsible" parent, is
nonviolent and so forth. In effect, however much he may
deny it, the oversocialized leftist wants to integrate
the black man into the system and make him adopt its
values."
In other words, TK believes that Blacks, without the
meddling influence of leftists, would not naturally
want to act like Whites; he believes that Black
culture differs from White culture in that Blacks are
not interested in technical subjects, are not readily
made into successful scientists or executives, are
not naturally "responsible fathers", but ARE naturally
prone to gang violence, etc.
TK also ostensibly believes in the utility of
IQ tests:
"18. Modern leftist philosophers tend to dismiss
reason, science, objective reality and to insist
that everything is culturally relative. It is
true that one can ask serious questions about the
foundations of scientific knowledge and about how,
if at all, the concept of objective reality can be
defined. But it is obvious that modern leftist
philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians
systematically analyzing the foundations of
knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in
their attack on truth and reality. They attack
these concepts because of their own psychological
needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for
hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful,
it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly,
the leftist hates science and rationality because
they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e.,
successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e.
failed, inferior). The leftist's feelings of
inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any
classification of some things as successful or superior
and other things as failed or inferior. This also
underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept
of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests.
Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of
human abilities or behavior because such explanations
tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior
to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit
or blame for an individual's ability or lack of it. Thus
if a person is "inferior" it is not his fault, but
society's, because he has not been brought up properly."
In other words, the objections the left usually mounts
to the concept of IQ testing, or the existence of
genetically-based differences in IQ, do not spring
from a scientific examination of facts, but rather
arise from the neurotic need of leftists to overcome
their own deep-seated feelings of inferiority. He
spurns the deconstructionist approach used by those
who would object to IQ tests on logical or philosophical
grounds as neurotic as well.
Now, these several passages I've quoted are more than
enough to prove, by PC standards, the fact that TK is
himself a racist and a fascist. But what are TK's
thoughts on the concepts of racism and fascism? Para.
28 and its associated note is a useful jumping off
point for our analysis:
"28. The leftist of the oversocialized type
tries to get off his psychological leash and
assert his autonomy by rebelling. But usually
he is not strong enough to rebel against the
most basic values of society. Generally speaking,
the goals of today's leftists are NOT in conflict
with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the
left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it
as its own, and then accuses mainstream society
of violating that principle. Examples: racial
equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor
people, peace as opposed to war, nonviolence
generally, freedom of expression, kindness to
animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the
individual to serve society and the duty of society
to take care of the individual. All these have been
deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of
its middle and upper classes [4] for a long time.
These values are explicitly or implicitly expressed
or presupposed in most of the material presented to
us by the mainstream communications media and the
educational system. Leftists, especially those of the
oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against
these principles but justify their hostility to
society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that
society is not living up to these principles.
Note 4. (Paragraph 28) There are many individuals of
the middle and upper classes who resist some of
these values, but usually their resistance is
more or less covert. Such resistance appears in
the mass media only to a very limited extent. The
main thrust of propaganda in our society is in favor
of the stated values.
The main reasons why these values have become,
so to speak, the official values of our society
is that they are useful to the industrial system.
Violence is discouraged because it disrupts the
functioning of the system. Racism is
discouraged because ethnic conflicts also
disrupt the system, and discrimination wastes the
talent of minority-group members who could be useful
to the system. Poverty must be "cured" because the
underclass causes problems for the system and contact
with the underclass lowers the moral[e] of the other
classes. Women are encouraged to have careers
because their talents are useful to the system
and, more importantly because by having regular
jobs women become better integrated into the system
and tied directly to it rather than to their
families. This helps to weaken family solidarity.
(The leaders of the system say they want to
strengthen the family, but they really mean is that
they want the family to serve as an effective tool for
socializing children in accord with the needs of the
system. We argue in paragraphs 51,52 that the
system cannot afford to let the family or other
small-scale social groups be strong or
autonomous.)"
TK's point is twofold: First, that leftists
only adopt the morality of the system, and do
not actually rebel against it; hence leftist
PC hand-wringing and agitation about the evils
of racism actually SERVE the system and help to
perpetuate it. The system is itself, at the
present time, leftist. Indeed, he makes
the quite obviously true statement that the
thrust of the system's propaganda efforts is
to eliminate racism too. Second, TK says
that racism is only discouraged by the system
because ethnic conflicts would disrupt it; n.b.
he does NOT say that it is wrong in itself.
The PC members of this forum who have a neurotic
need to identify with TK will be quick to point
out that although TK never condemns racism,
neither does he ever endorse it directly. Indeed,
in para. 192 he even says:
"192. But the way to discourage ethnic conflict
is NOT through militant advocacy of minority rights
(see paragraphs 21, 29). Instead, the revolutionaries
should emphasize that although minorities do suffer
more or less disadvantage, this disadvantage is of
peripheral significance. Our real enemy is the
industrial-technological system, and in the struggle
against the system, ethnic distinctions are of
no importance."
Yet this passage discussing tactics has nothing at
all to do with a rejection of racism as an idea.
Rather, TK seeks here merely to advise his
revolutionaries to avoid inadvertently aiding the
industrial system by insisting on recruiting minorities
to its power elite. This becomes clear when we repeat
the context of its preceding paragraph:
"191. One should think twice before encouraging
any other social conflict than that between the
power-holding elite (which wields technology)
and the general public (over which technology exerts
its power). For one thing, other conflicts tend
to distract attention from the important conflicts
(between power-elite and ordinary people,
between technology and nature); for another thing,
other conflicts may actually tend to encourage
technologization, because each side in such a
conflict wants to use technological power to gain
advantages over its adversary. This is clearly
seen in rivalries between nations. It also appears
in ethnic conflicts within nations. For example,
in America many black leaders are anxious to gain
power for African Americans by placing black
individuals in the technological power-elite. They
want there to be many black government officials,
scientists, corporation executives and so forth. In
this way they are helping to absorb the African
American subculture into the technological system.
Generally speaking, one should encourage only
those social conflicts that can be fitted into the
framework of the conflicts of power--elite vs.
ordinary people, technology vs nature."
Yet, it is clear that in TK's view some types of
racism and ethnic conflict should be encouraged,
so long as they are stresses useful in breaking
down the industrial system:
"134. For all of the foregoing reasons,
technology is a more powerful social force than
the aspiration for freedom. But this statement
requires an important qualification. It appears
that during the next several decades the
industrial-technological system will be
undergoing severe stresses due to economic and
environmental problems, and especially due to
problems of human behavior (alienation, rebellion,
hostility, a variety of social and psychological
difficulties). WE HOPE THAT THE STRESSES THROUGH
WHICH THE SYSTEM IS LIKELY TO PASS WILL CAUSE IT
TO BREAK DOWN, or at least weaken it
sufficiently so that a revolution occurs and is
successful, then at that particular moment the
aspiration for freedom will have proved more
powerful than technology." [Emphasis added.]
And in para. 150, he defines some of the stresses
that he hopes for to originate from race hatred
and ethnic rivalry, politcal extremism, anti-
government groups, and hate groups:
"150. As we mentioned in paragraph 134,
industrial society seems likely to be entering
a period of severe stress, due in part to
problems of human behavior and in part to
economic and environmental problems. And a
considerable proportion of the system's economic
and environmental problems result from the way
human beings behave. Alienation, low self-esteem,
depression, hostility, rebellion; children who
won't study, youth gangs, illegal drug use,
rape, child abuse , other crimes, unsafe sex,
teen pregnancy, population growth, political
corruption, race hatred, ethnic rivalry, bitter
ideological conflict (i.e., pro-choice vs. pro-life),
political extremism, terrorism, sabotage,
anti-government groups, hate groups. All these
threaten the very survival of the system. The system
will be FORCED to use every practical means of
controlling human behavior."
So on the one hand, racism and other social
stresses are good and should be encouraged,
insofar as they may precipitate the breakdown
of the industrial system. On the other hand,
they are bad, in TK's view, insofar as they
would tend to uphold the system, i.e., insofar
as they provoke the pursuit of a leftist goal of
social justice, which, if it is achieved at all,
will only strengthen and expand the system, making
it more inclusive, and postpone its eventual
collapse. But what does TK see as an international
manifestation of this apocalyptic tactical vision?
"195. The revolution must be international and
worldwide. It cannot be carried out on a
nation-by-nation basis. Whenever it is
suggested that the United States, for example,
should cut back on technological progress or
economic growth, people get hysterical and start
screaming that if we fall behind in technology
the Japanese will get ahead of us. Holy robots!
The world will fly off its orbit if the Japanese
ever sell more cars than we do! (Nationalism is
a great promoter of technology.) More reasonably,
it is argued that if the relatively democratic
nations of the world fall behind in technology
while nasty, dictatorial nations like China,
Vietnam and North Korea continue to progress,
eventually the dictators may come to dominate
the world. That is why the industrial system
should be attacked in all nations simultaneously,
to the extent that this may be possible. True,
there is no assurance that the industrial system
can be destroyed at approximately the same time
all over the world, and it is even conceivable
that the attempt to overthrow the system could
lead instead to the domination of the system by
dictators. That is a risk that has to be taken.
And it is worth taking, since the difference
between a "democratic" industrial system and one
controlled by dictators is small compared with the
difference between an industrial system and a
non-industrial one. [33] It might even be argued that
an industrial system controlled by dictators would
be preferable, because dictator-controlled systems
usually have proved inefficient, hence they are
presumably more likely to break down. Look at
Cuba."
For all of these reasons then: his acknowledgment
of the existence of race, and that the races differ
in their talents, predispositions, and abilities;
his upholding of the utility of IQ tests and other
forms of scientific objectivity as opposed to a
leftist, relativist, deconstructionist view, which
he dismisses as only an outgrowth of the leftist's
own intense personal feelings of inferiority;
his endorsement of racism, hate groups, and other
social conflict if it can help destroy the industrial
system; his encouragement of his revolutionaries
to embark on a course of action that may well lead
to a dictatorship, or even a world dictatorship;
it is both proper and necessary to consider that
there is some validity to the claim that anyone
espousing such views is a racist, and a fascist.
Is he a fascist in the classic sense, i.e., both a
nationalist and a racist? Are we to imagine that
TK would have felt at home in the SS? ;-) No, not at
all. He is too much of a loner, and his love of
individual liberty and his dislike of large-scale
collectivism would argue persuasively against that.
But not every Nazi was in the SS, and it is not too
much, I believe, to say that ISAIF is certainly
entirely compatible with an anarcho-fascist world-view,
which holds as desiderata a world in which personal
freedom is at a maximum, the power of government and
technology is at a minimum, and the ability of groups
-- quite possibly racial groups, or groups breaking
down along racial or cultural lines -- to form voluntary
associations for their mutual benefit, is fully allowed
and even foreseen and encouraged. Further, the leftist
bogeyman of the fascist police state may be just that,
only a scare story made up to frighten the general public
into conformity. Indeed, his remarks in para. 195, above,
appear to regard a dictatorship as an *improvement* over
the present situation. Thus, it is entirely conceivable that
a national socialist state could exist more in conformity
with TK's anarcho-fascist vision of freedom than the leftist
nightmare of totalitarian control that the left loves to use
to depict fascism in its cartoonish imagination, and which
nevertheless appears to be at the present time threatening
to envelop us all -- but this time not from the right, but
from the left itself, the putative defenders.
But perhaps it will soon be time to put TK's ideas to the
test, and find out!
Cheers,
99
--
FBI Suzie sez:
"The rest of your post should earn you a pen register
with the FBI, if you don't already have one. A recent
post would have done the same thing. Three cheers for
the FBI, who may still be monitoring this group."
--susan...@aol.com (SusanJ1111) to 99 in message
<19990813194840...@ng-cm1.aol.com>,
trying to intimidate using the American secret police.
Mignarda
journal entries.
__
"Where be the true men?"
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~mignarda
Unabomber/Zodiac--Now on CD-Rom!
Pyro 1488
>He did use the "n" word, in a more-or-less disparaging way, in one of his
>journal entries.
You mean NIGGER?
Pyro
--
"Wir müssen den Fortbestand unserer Rasse bewahren und auch die Zukunft
arischer Kinder sicherstellen."
Mignarda
Pyro 1488 wrote in message ...
|Mignarda wrote:
|
|>He did use the "n" word, in a more-or-less disparaging way, in one of his
|>journal entries.
|
|You mean NIGGER?
|
|Pyro
|--
|
Yes. Nigger. Nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger. Pretty cheeky coming from a
damned Pollack, I'd say.
Nine Of Eight
Oct 1999 07:05:23 +0200, i came across a post from age...@post.cz.
They felt we would all be much better off if we knew the following
about Ted Kaczynski, Racist and Fascist?:
>It is very easy to show that Ted Kaczynski is a racist
>and a fascist, at least according to the criteria that
>leftists ordinarily use for deciding such things in the
>case of people they don't like. For example, Art Jensen,
>Glayde Whitney, Michael Levin, and Chris Brand, have all
>been denounced as racists and fascists for their belief in
>IQ as a valid measure of intelligence,
I don't know enough about the others to comment, but Brand had two
problems. As well as claiming in his book _The U-Factor_ that blacks
are less intelligent than whites, he also advocated the legalisation
of non-coercive consensual relationships between adult and child.
All of the available research tends to indicate that non-coercive
relationships are not what results in any short- or long-term
psychological harm, rather it is the parental and societal reaction
and that these are relatively recent phenomena rooted in a combination
of our Judaeo-christian and Victorian value systems. Anthropologists
have noted that this pedophilic behaviour is fairly prevalent amongst
cultures who have not been exposed to these value systems, as well as
being endemic amongst our simian cousins. In one study conducted in
Sweden using a group of 44 females who had been the child in an
adult-child relationship, the group was found to be in a better state
of psychological health than you would expect to find in society as a
whole.
His position on colour and intelligence, however, was a rather
different position. It simply noted that nations with a lower IQ tend
to black, and came to the conclusion that those who are black must
therefore be less intelligent. It totally ignored evidence that
indicates that access to education and the quality of that education
demonstrably play an important factor in IQ - most of those who are
black do not have the access to education or quality of education that
most whites have access to. Consequently you would expect that those
who are black would tend to have lower IQs than those who are white -
something Brand totally ignored.
>and their belief in
>the heretibility of racial differences generally. Indeed,
>even a belief in the existence of various races of Homo
>sapiens marks one, in PC eyes, as a racist.
Perhaps because modern biology makes a mockery of the concept. Race is
a concept it junked quite a while ago, and in the face of recent
research that indicates the current human population is descended from
fewer than one thousand individuals and that the human population
would appear to have less genetic diversity than you would expect to
find in a tribe of approx 60 chimps it does appear to be a laughable
concept. The concept of race is a hangover from the days when the
human population was considered to consist of several different
sub-species, whereas it would appear we actually all belong to the one
sub-species of homo sapiens (with neanderthalensis having been the
other sub-species of homo sapiens).
>But TK believes not only in the existence of races, he
>even repeats and apparently believes what the PC'ers would
>certainly consider to be a slander against the gypsies:
Teddy-boy may well believe in the concept, but that doesn't make it
true.
I'm trying to recall who first suggested that the ultra-equalitarian
face of political correctness was a CIA-introduced ploy to distance
the middle-ground from the left to isolate them politically. If it
wasn't for the incompetence the CIA has oft demonstrated, you could
well believe it to be the case. But the point is that very few people
believe that equality of opportunity equates to equality of
circumstance - rather that if you give people the same opportunities
then they will tend to find their own point and that any disparity
between individuals is not the fault of societal structures.
>In other words, TK believes that Blacks, without the
>meddling influence of leftists, would not naturally
>want to act like Whites; he believes that Black
>culture differs from White culture in that Blacks are
>not interested in technical subjects, are not readily
>made into successful scientists or executives, are
>not naturally "responsible fathers", but ARE naturally
>prone to gang violence, etc.
The irony of this is it would tend to ignore the often, brutal and
gang-type mentality that has pervaded most of european history - a
predominantly white group - and that violent gang cultures are as
prevalent in deprived, predominantly white areas as they are in
deprived, predominantly black areas.
>"18. Modern leftist philosophers tend to dismiss
>reason, science, objective reality and to insist
>that everything is culturally relative. It is
>true that one can ask serious questions about the
>foundations of scientific knowledge and about how,
>if at all, the concept of objective reality can be
>defined. But it is obvious that modern leftist
>philosophers are not simply cool-headed logicians
>systematically analyzing the foundations of
>knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in
>their attack on truth and reality.
A point i first recall being made by Nietzsche as a criticism leveled
at all philosophers irrespective of where they lay on the political
spectrum.
>They attack
>these concepts because of their own psychological
>needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for
>hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful,
>it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly,
>the leftist hates science and rationality because
>they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e.,
>successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e.
>failed, inferior).
So of course the right bear no guilt in the denial of science. Remind
me of the political believes of those on the Kansas Board of Education
- they sure as fuck were not what could be termed 'leftist' unless the
Christian Coalition and its compadres have suddenly switched their
political position without telling anyone...
>The leftist's feelings of
>inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any
>classification of some things as successful or superior
>and other things as failed or inferior. This also
>underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept
>of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests.
I was under the impression that the reason for criticism of IQ tests
is no-one has really managed to demonstrate what it is they are meant
to be testing for, and that they would appear to have a significant
?right-brain bias thereby equating intelligence solely with
mathematical and spatial abilities.
>Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of
>human abilities or behavior because such explanations
>tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior
>to others.
My criticism of looking for genetic explanations is that they are
often advocated by those you seem to have an amazing lack of
comprehension of genetics. Yeah, there must surely be a single gene
for criminality <guffaws>. A claim which handily ignores that
criminality is the result of breaking often arbitrary rules there only
to protect the self-interest of some specific group - do people
honestly believe that nature has somehow managed to encode a gene to
make us break speed limits in our automobiles??? Because that is an
example of criminal behaviour. It also ignores that genes rarely act
in isolation.
> Leftists prefer to give society the credit
>or blame for an individual's ability or lack of it. Thus
>if a person is "inferior" it is not his fault, but
>society's, because he has not been brought up properly."
Behaviours have a genetic basis. That is not the same thing as saying
that there is a gene for every aspect and manifestation of our
behaviour. It is also important to note that environment does affect
development, and some recent research into behaviour would suggest
that it affects behaviour to a degree never previously expected
although this research does remain to be tested more thoroughly.
>In other words, the objections the left usually mounts
>to the concept of IQ testing, or the existence of
>genetically-based differences in IQ, do not spring
>from a scientific examination of facts, but rather
>arise from the neurotic need of leftists to overcome
>their own deep-seated feelings of inferiority. He
>spurns the deconstructionist approach used by those
>who would object to IQ tests on logical or philosophical
>grounds as neurotic as well.
In other words, the objections usually mounted against IQ testing do
arise because of an examination of available scientific data. No-one
seriously claims that there is no genetic basis to IQ, what they
debate is whether what IQ tests are a good test of intelligence and
whether IQ is solely determined genetically (the evidence is against
that one) and whether distinctions made on the basis of a genetic link
between 'race' and IQ are valid.
>"28. The leftist of the oversocialized type
>tries to get off his psychological leash and
>assert his autonomy by rebelling. But usually
>he is not strong enough to rebel against the
>most basic values of society. Generally speaking,
>the goals of today's leftists are NOT in conflict
>with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the
>left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it
>as its own, and then accuses mainstream society
>of violating that principle. Examples: racial
>equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor
>people, peace as opposed to war, nonviolence
>generally, freedom of expression, kindness to
>animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the
>individual to serve society and the duty of society
>to take care of the individual. All these have been
>deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of
>its middle and upper classes [4] for a long time.
Here Teddy-boy makes something he would never do in his particular
field - mathematics. As he was a damn good mathematician, by all
accounts, he would know that merely asserting something to be the case
does not make it so - you are required to prove the predicates on
which your argument is based.
I would dearly love to know what is considered to be 'for a long time'
and how exactly a believe in sexual and racial equality etc has been
held to by the middle- and upper-classes for that period. On casual
observation it would appear that that time-frame is a decade or three
and that the believe is a slight one at best.
As for helping the poor, my position is a fairly Machiavellian one -
defend a weak, new neighbour to destabilise a old, powerful one. You
cannot know whether that new neighbour will become powerful or remain
weak, but it is in your long-term interests to ensure that if they do
become powerful then do so as your potential ally than your potential
enemy. Neo-Darwinian selfishness and outright Machiavellianism - those
are the reasons for my belief in positions that would often be
considered to lie on the left of the political spectrum.
Here Teddy-boy is partly correct, much of the reason for the adoption
of what were predominantly socialist positions in the latter-half of
the twentieth century have been because it massively increase the
potential market as well as actually serving to diminish costs (a
greater pool of labour means that you can get away with paying less).
But it also ignores that women (for example) were an integral part of
the labour pool in heavily-industrialised towns as early as the
mid-nineteenth century but they did not possess the same rights as
men. The extension of rights has only really engendered the changes
that the industrial and post-industrial economies find beneficial in
the middle-classes.
Teddy-boy also ignores the fact that the changes were not ones made
willingly he has merely identified why they have come to be accepted
and encouraged. The industrial complexes would have been faced with
outright revolution if in the period following World War II it had
attempted to reverse the changes that the workforce demanded at the
conflicts conclusion. People would rather hold power over a system
they dislike than have no power and be without their heads (funnily
enough).
That's all i can be arsed going over for the moment.
--
E-mail: flat...@freeuk.com
Web URL: http://go.to/nine-of-eight
ICQ: #40608571
"This job would be great if it wasn't for the fucking customers."
- Randal, 'Clerks'
PGP Key info - ID: 0x610F1921
3B3B DBF7 1E2D 508B A781 4347 4878 48CF 610F 1921
Pyro 1488
>I don't know enough about the others to comment, but Brand had two
>problems. As well as claiming in his book _The U-Factor_ that blacks
>are less intelligent than whites, he also advocated the legalisation
>of non-coercive consensual relationships between adult and child.
It's _G-Factor_, BTW.
He didn't advocate the legalization of anything, nor did he bring up issues
of morality. He merely stated what all reputable psychologists already
know: adolescents who have sex with adults willingly, and who happen to be
of above-average intelligence, will tend not to have psychological
difficulties as a result of the relationship later in life. Again, he was
_not_ advocated the legalization of paedophilia.
OTOH, Andrea Dworkin is a proponent of such behavior:
"The parent-child relationship is primarily erotic because all human
relationships are primarily erotic. The incest taboo is a particularized
form of repression, one which functions as the bulwark of all other
repressions. The incest taboo ensures that however free we become, we never
become genuinely free. The incest taboo, because it denies us essential
fulfillment with the parents whom we love with our primary energy, forces us
to internalize those parents and constantly seek them... The incest taboo
does the worst work of the culture: it teaches us the mechanisms of
repressing and internalizing erotic feeling -- it forces us to develop those
mechanisms in the first place; it forces us to particularize sexual feeling,
so that it congeals into a need for a particular sexual 'object'; it demands
that we place the nuclear family above the human family. The destruction of
the incest taboo is essential to the developmentof cooperative human
community based on the free-flow of natural androgynous eroticism."
(Dworkin 1974, "Woman Hating", p.189)
Not a single PC'er has said a thing about such statements from Dworkin.
That means the paedophilia charge on Brand was a pretence. What really
bugged the establishment was his views on RACE! Clearly, they are
hypocrits.
>His position on colour and intelligence, however, was a rather
>different position. It simply noted that nations with a lower IQ tend
>to black, and came to the conclusion that those who are black must
>therefore be less intelligent. It totally ignored evidence that
>indicates that access to education and the quality of that education
>demonstrably play an important factor in IQ - most of those who are
>black do not have the access to education or quality of education that
>most whites have access to. Consequently you would expect that those
>who are black would tend to have lower IQs than those who are white -
>something Brand totally ignored.
His focus was on RACE, not one's nationality. In Britain, as well as in the
U.S., blacks score lower than their white and Asian counterparts. Your
suggestion that it has to do with "opportunity" is absurd, given the fact
that upper-class blacks tend to underperform even middle and
lower-middle-lass whites. Moreover, what about the Asians who come to the
U.S. and Britain with absolutely no resources, and end up succeeding
(economically, educationally, etc.) on average more than whites? And what
about Native Americans who are poorer than blacks and score higher on IQ
tests?
>The irony of this is it would tend to ignore the often, brutal and
>gang-type mentality that has pervaded most of european history - a
>predominantly white group - and that violent gang cultures are as
>prevalent in deprived, predominantly white areas as they are in
>deprived, predominantly black areas.
What white group, specifically? Even the most unrefined of the ancient
Germanic tribes appeared to be more advanced than the hunter-gatherer
societies in Africa among the blacks, or even most peoples in Asia and the
Americas. The Germans have since produced some of the greatest musicians,
artists, philosophers, and innovators through history. Tell me of a great
Negro philosopher? Tell me of a black Mozart?
Even the Vikings were the best shipbuilders in the world as they plundered
the coasts of Europe and the British Isles!
Pyro
Pyro 1488
>Again, he was _not_ advocated the legalization of paedophilia.
Sorry, I meant to say "advocating".
jum...@my-deja.com
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~psd/1996/meaning.html
---------------------------------------------
A Degree of Meaning:
The Idea of Political Science and the teaching of politics
Political Science Specialist Group Roundtable
Discussants: Elizabeth Meehan (Queen's, Belfast),
Geraint Parry (Manchester), and Frederick Ridley (LIPAM, Liverpool).
Paper: Fred Nash (Southampton)
PSA Annual Conference,
University of Glasgow,
12th April, 1996.
1: "Political Science" as a University subject
It is well known that a degree in politics is not given any
professional recognition. This is as it should be for a degree in
this subject is not a preparation for any activity associated with
it and its course contents. A moment's reflection will show that
graduates in politics should be divided into two categories: a
minority who continue and, perhaps, join the academic profession,
and the majority who do not. The former are clearly engaged in what
is recognisably a continuation of their studies and training which,
nowadays, almost certainly means a postgraduate course. However, a
second degree is also a point of entry into this profession for
those whose initial training is not in politics. Thus, a first
degree in politics is not even a necessary requirement in producing
more political scientists; we have all known colleagues whose first
and only formal qualification was a joint Honours degree, a History
Tripos or "Greats", albeit that this trend has largely disappeared
as competition for jobs has placed a premium on holding, or the
imminence of, a doctorate in a relevant area of the subject.
The majority of graduates in Political Science make, at best, an
indirect and limited use of their studies and training. Put bluntly,
the fact that they have a degree in politics is not as important as
the mere fact that they have a degree. A quick perusal of three
University Careers Advisory statistics for 1993 and 1994 shows that,
other than those who went on to take a further degree (not
necessarily in politics), graduates in politics (Single and joint
Honours courses) have been recruited into as a diverse a field as
may be imagined: from becoming an Evangelist, to an officer in the
Child Support Agency; from an Army or Police officer, to an AA
insurance inspector; H. M. Treasury civil servant (with an
Economics/Politics degree); production and management assistants;
House of Commons researcher or assistant for Member of Parliaments;
publications telesale, bookseller, and software sales; medical
personnel officers; a University Hall of Residence assistant; a
Resident Social Worker (with a Politics/Sociology degree); English
Language teachers in Greece and Italy; security guard, and, no less,
sail making! The only factor common between all of these is the fact
of being a graduate, not having a Single or Joint Honours degree in
politics. More than that, even holders of doctorates feed into other
activities, from the police force to stock control, and desk editors
for publishing firms.
The use that a student will make of a University degree is not
entirely predetermined for each candidate. All students in all
departments are, potentially, recruits into that "profession", and
must be treated as such. Of course, there is an inevitable rate of
fall-off for each subject; but while this is the lowest in Medicine,
or Engineering, it tends to go up a little for pure sciences, and
shoots up when we come to Arts, Humanities and social science
subjects. Whereas a degree in politics as such prepares the student
only for more Political Science, the fact of the degree is more
important in that it offers the student a "better" chance of
recruitment into a field of activity where he/she will have to learn
new, but largely different, skills. For the majority a degree is
only an enabling devise; one must assume that a degree in any
subject would do just as well. However, there is no reasonable way
of separating the potentially more interested student in advance.
Perhaps we should stop the dithering, go the whole hog and fully
adopt the American system rather than just a few features of it, and
accept what is already operationally the ruling idea, namely that
the really serious study begins at the postgraduate level in
"Graduate Schools". For the present, however, the existing hybrid
condition is our immediate reality.
Our difficulties are also the result of other factors, specifically
the current system of funding Universities which puts a significant
premium upon the number of undergraduates in each department. This
has given a fillip to the development of an "internal" market within
Universities, in which an increasing number of departments make some
of their options available to other departments. A first year module
in sociology for students of Medicine is now well established. More
recently, European Union has become a popular module for students of
engineering, Economics, Humanities, et cetera, increasingly also at
the postgraduate instructional level. This is all very good, except
that it means these options have to be offered as free standing
units, designed with the learning "needs" and "choices" of students
of subjects other than Political Science in mind. Whether Political
Science can be dished out in necessarily self-contained "modules"
raises the more serious question of whether it can be offered in
measured doses and at different levels of complexity without doing
injury to the subject. Those who wish to argue that it can be done
must face the fact that such a stance is predicated on two
assumptions: firstly, that a simpler and a more complicated account
of, say, Human Rights or the European Union, specially parliamentary
government/democracy, are, in fact, just that; a simpler and a more
complicated accounts of the same subject, both of which remain
transparently intelligible and equally worthwhile. Easy to say, it
is not clear that such a view can successfully be defended; after
all, the object of study in our field is not memorising facts,
formulæ, or technique, but learning to think in a certain way. That
cannot be sliced up into individual portions, nor can it be cut into
chunks. Secondly, such a stance requires that we accept that facile
familiarity is a form of knowledge which does not mislead. This can
only be so if that familiarity is with some supposed hard, as it
were, objective, reality out there against which facile knowledge
can be readily checked, but can never be meaningful when the only
reality we have comes in the form of some linguistic "account" that
requires unpacking and examination in more than one way. However,
these assumptions cannot be sustained. A simplification is, first
and last, an intellectual arrest: a simple account of parliamentary
government will leave untouched the meaningfulness of democracy, but
that "ignorance" will also serve to legitimate this form of
"democracy"; equally, the arguments of Aristotle, Plato, Hegel or
Marx, cannot be simplified and reduced to a few extracts and
summaries without doing serious injustice to their "thought".
What principles, then, guide the construction of a degree course in
politics in conditions governed by the need to reconcile two
incompatible objectives, namely, the desire to reproduce the subject
- essentially by training the next generation of political
scientists and publishing research findings - and the need to
maintain students numbers so as to ensure the viability of a given
department and, with it, the continuity of the academic profession.
The problem is, of course, that the principles that inform the first
objective are in every respect different from those that guide the
second.
There is a still lingering agreement within the academic profession
that courses in Political Science ought to be guided by
"professional" considerations or, put negatively, that courses ought
not to be pitched at the level of interest, academic background,
intellectual competence, and/or the immediate motivation of
students. But, we also know that such a course of action will
rapidly deplete every department of most of their students:
departments of politics will join the rank of departments of
Philosophy or Classics; few members of staff and fewer students,
incapable of generating any research funding and, to that measure, a
financial burden upon the rest, always treated by the "useful"
departments as the Aunt Sally of the University.
The fear is that because the other principle - financial
considerations - is now firmly established, departments are caught
in a vertigo of continuing struggle to maintain a reasonable balance
between the two. As numbers go up, staff/student ratio becomes
unfavourable; classes become too large for meaningful discussion,
and we end up with acquiring new "skills" in teaching definitely
large groups, with greater emphasis on "teaching transferable
skills" in order to attract the numbers. But this is only one side
of the story. The other side is more difficult to pin-point, for it
is concerned with quality: there is enough living memory evidence to
support the view that academic standards have plummeted, and course
contents diluted to such an extent that often it is not clear how
various course units actually hang together, nor how the combined
outcome of diverse units, so to say, add up to a "Political Science"
understanding. This trend has been exacerbated by the process of
semesterisation which, to the chagrin of many, has in effect reduced
the actual teaching term to ten weeks, if that: given that most
students can change courses within the first three weeks of each
semester - and there are fewer compulsory units - some students have
only seven weeks in which to complete the syllabus. One inevitable
result has been the dilution of course contents, the necessary
removal of pre-requisite courses or units, and a resultant lowering
of the expected level of competence for each grade. The net effect
of these elements, when combined with the actual effect of numbers
on library resources means that the one thing that can give, gives:
standards are lowered. From experience a script that would have been
awarded a Third fifteen years is now, routinely, awarded a Lower
Second, and associated with this is the rather disturbing fact that
there is a tendency to fail only the truly disastrous scripts.
As a matter of fact, degree subjects which have a distinct
professional identity - i.e. other than that of the profession that
caters for the subject - and are, in an obvious sense, "useful" have
a better chance of defending their academic integrity and freedom.
"Useless" subjects - i.e. subjects which have no immediate "use"
value (see Roger Scruton, 'In Praise of Useless Knowledge', The
Times, 2/4/1996, p. 18) - are, in this day and age, at a huge
disadvantage, especially when intellectual philistines - those whose
understanding is guided only by "use" value - are in charge. That
said, we ought, even if only in the privacy of the mind, to ask some
forbidden questions: is "Political Science" a separate and
independent academic discipline? Do we need it, or would
contemporary history courses do just as nicely? Why should it be
publicly funded? If it should, how do we measure its output, which
must mean its "use" value, so as to justify public funding for it?
And then, because there is a real fear that these will elicit
answers we do not like, we must prepare for the ultimate forbidden
question: is "real" Political Science only for the pleasure and
intellectual satisfaction of political scientists?
The view that ours is a "useless" subject may evoke a sharp response
from some who will challenge it. There are many, especially in
defence and peace studies, or, more generally, in International
Relations, and not a few in policy studies, who would argue the
opposite view. Far from being "useless", Political Science may be
seen feeding into policy and informing policy makers. It is a
definitely "useful" subject, or so it should be. "Looking around
Britain, you would expect social science to be booming. High crime,
persistent unemployment, underachieving men and under-performing
institutions are crying out for explanation and illumination", so
declares the director of Demos, in The Time Higher of 15th March,
1996. British Universities are, on this view, expected to be infused
with "creative ferment", supplying the needs created by the first
post-industrial society. A view of this kind assigns a rôle to
social science which, if spelt out, will, rightly, cause outrage,
but that is not a point that the director of Demos wishes to
address: he wants solutions to what he thinks are the problems, and
wants social science to produce them; otherwise, what is their
"use"? He criticises existing social sciences for not being "useful"
enough. It should be otherwise: the House of Lords is in need of
reform, technical experts should tell the nation what sort of a
Second Chamber it ought to have; if there is a problem with the
behaviour of some Members of Parliament, then include a political
scientists in the Committee to examine the issues (I have often
wondered what his rôle was supposed to be?); the House of Commons
appears to be failing in its duty of holding the government to
account, political scientists should recommend reform measures. Yet,
the innovative electoral system proposed for the June 1996 elections
in Northern Ireland does not appear to be the brain-child of any
academic.
A "useful" view of social, including Political Science is supported
by those who have, what is for some, a terrifying view of what human
life is all about: a critical look at the kind of idea that informs
and sustains the profession of the Social Worker will have a
sobering effect upon those who think Political Science, too, ought
to concentrate on the technical management of detail. One wants to
argue that it is precisely the business of social, including
political science to point out what such a view may mean and to warn
them against the folly of their own beliefs, not give advise on
technicality of social control or constitutional reform. The rôle of
the conscience of society is not one that is publicly and generally
recognised, but if Political Science can make any claim to exist and
be funded, it can only be to speak truth to power, as a famous
phrase has it. This also makes it a thoroughly theoretical subject.
But theoretical subjects are prone to being misunderstood. Perhaps
because each generation of political scientists tend to re-examine
the same and limited number of issues and principles it may appear
that we cannot produce anything as such, not even definite answers
to a few questions. It is always the uninformed critic who accuses
Metaphysics of failure to give definitive answers. This is also the
case with us. The ultimate reality is that there are no final
answers, and the continuous debating of a few principles is
important not because we are still trying to understand them, but
because they are so fragile and so easily and imperceptibly
destroyed that there is need for each generation to be reminded of
their truth and relevance. It is instructive to recall that enduring
texts are few and far in between, that they are almost to the last
one theoretical and philosophical - hardly ever the work of
professional political scientists - and, equally importantly,
although historical, they are characteristically "timeless". We do
not invent the important principles at will, and it is not everyday
that we wake up to the fact that a new principle has been added
which we cannot, and should not forget. It is in this sense that one
must understand and accept Feminism as such (i.e. ignoring the
history of feminist thought) as the most profoundly important recent
Political (/Social) Science contribution.
On the other hand, we can debate ideas and publicise the
ramification of issues, and, when necessary, be critical of
governments and policies only if there is the freedom to speak truth
to power in a society which recognises the need for this intensely
public service and accepts that there is no way in which the "use"
value of this service can, or ought to be measured. The real meaning
of the claim that each generation ought to re-examine the same
principles and issues is, precisely, that each generation must come
to terms with the implications of these principles, and work out how
to organise and re-organise the prevailing and "evolving" conditions
in order to maintain a few and precious, but cherished, objectives
which are important to the quality of human existence.
This line of thinking leads to the view that the question of "use"
and practical relevance, in fact, turns on a misunderstanding about
the nature of Political Science: the "use" that we may have is not
measured by what we may produce or what can be done with it. The
very fact that this discipline exists and is supported says
something important about our society, for Political Science is only
possible and meaningful in a society that cares for freedom. And we
exemplify this freedom by questioning and examining issues, ideas,
intentions, proposed policies and, not least, consequences, and on
which we speak our mind. Public funding is a necessary part of this
process. But funding for theoretical research projects are very hard
to come by. It may be thought that research assessment exercises are
intended to be, in this respect, policy-neutral, allowing the
profession to decide what is successful Political Science and, by
ranking each department accordingly, to enable an appropriate
allocation of research funding to each. But this is never so; such a
system only raises further questions, not least about gate-keeping,
and other issues, including "justice". On the other hand, policy
studies, which have a significant rôle to play in the research
output of departments, are more readily funded. This fact, in part,
explains the changing balance in favour of policy oriented courses
and generally the outlook of departments, albeit that policy
oriented research also tend to be the least enduring of all
Political Science contributions.
2: Political Science
In examining "Political Science" the focus of attention is, in most
cases, on the broadly "introductory" parts of the text and their
necessary though, often, un-stated assumptions, but hardly ever on
the main body of the text as such. Furthermore, and for good reason,
no meta-analytic exercise concerned with the nature of "Political
Science" has ever been a development, as it were, building upon
similar studies. This is so because the disagreement is about
fundamentals, and is increasingly translated into a proclaimed
absence of a commonly agreed definition of it. Yet, each is meant to
be a contribution to the debate about the nature and rôle of
Political Science.
The procedure requires the critical examination of a number of
"leading" texts. But what follows is not a reflection upon anyone in
particular. This must be said because any attempt at a
self-reflexive examination of what we do is liable to be read as an
ad hominem attack on some. That is simply not a part of this present
exercise. What follows, therefore, though ostensibly an analysis of
three texts is, in fact, a limited but critical look at the idea of
Political Science as such.
2a : The dominant - "mainstream" - view
In the "Introduction" to Theory and Methods in Political Science,
(edited by David Marsh and Gerry Stoker, Macmillan, Autumn 1995)
Gerry Stoker offers a general over-view of Political Science. The
arguments of that chapter relevant to the purpose may be analysed
into seven salient points:
the tendency has been to do it, rather than think and talk about
Political Science; meanwhile this "it" has grown into many
branches and sub-fields. As a result an assessment is indicated;
in thinking and talking about Political Science, we are,
necessarily, concerned with the question: "what is Political
Science?". This raises issues about "science" and "political" in
Political Science (but not "politics"); for us "science" means
"organised knowledge" which, in the manner of W. J. M. Mackenzie,
may be "communicated from teacher to pupil, by speech or writing".
It is not "science" in the manner of the "natural sciences": for
the methods of the one are not appropriate to that of the other.
Nevertheless it has certain features: qua "knowledge" it "is
public and subject to challenge"; there are no hidden truths, and
all purveyors of "truth" can be wrong. It follows that validity
claims for the findings of Political Science depend upon
convincing evidence supporting the argument. The need for logical
coherence is obviously paramount, which, in the least, requires
that we avoid inconsistencies and vagueness. In short, we are
always concerned to examine the adequacy of the evidence for the
purpose in hand.
Relying on Andrew Heywood for the meaning of 'the political'
(discussed below) Stoker makes the pregnant point that the
expansion of the discipline is related to the expanding meaning of
"the political". However, this raises questions which Stoker does
not address, and, therefore, the implied relationship between "the
political" and "Political Science" remains obscure. On the other
hand, his brief construction of "politics" and "the political" is
so wide that, in effect, these terms become irrelevant. Such an
approach has important implications.
A discourse of this type leads to a certain view of the question
of method. The claim is that Political Science is not a "hard and
fast" area of study; rather, that "it is defined by those who do
it" (emphasis added). This takes the argument back to the very
first issue which, Stoker suggested, defined the need for an
assessment of the discipline in the first place, namely the
existing tendency simply to do it. Diversity of approach is,
therefore, - I am now surmising - simply a sign of the expanded
richness of the discipline, not a problem to examine.
But there is another aspect to the question of methods in
Political Science: the six different approaches given expression
in the book are said, nevertheless, to be "ways of producing
knowledge". The point to highlight is that the emphasis is on
"knowledge" and "science". But these terms have consequences, and
their use in the context of social science clearly indicates a
rather naive view of "reality", "theory" and "knowledge", which
combine to exclude the need to understand social reality in terms
of linguistic "accounts".
Finally, the banality of the treatment of the rôle and importance
of theory in Political Science reveals a further, this time more
serious complication. Whereas six methods are discussed in the
text, there are, in fact, at least, seven methods in use: the
"seventh" being precisely the theory and method available to
Stoker within and according to the terms of which he can identify
and discuss the six methods. And this other un-accounted method
is, so to speak, the necessary meta-theory within which Political
Science as such can be discussed. In other words, if it is the
case that the discipline is, broadly, the "sum-plus" of those who
do it, we need to have a framework within which this it, which
obviously cannot be accounted for in terms, so to say, of the
discourse of any one doer of it, can be understood. If not, there
can be no recognition and understanding of an it which one may
claim can only be understood in terms of the doing of those who do
it. Moreover, it is arguments about theory and method that define
a discipline; theory and method arguments in the discipline have
little, if anything, to say on this.
The burden of Stoker's argument is that of the two elements
definitive of the nature of Political Science, "science" is easier
to identify and it is also the element that defines the continuity
of its identity. On the other hand, the "political" cannot be so
readily located and focused upon, for it is a characterised by
change. Noting the fact that this account relies upon Heywood for
the meaning and relevance of the "political", two points must be
made about Stoker's position.
Firstly, the "science" identity of Political Science in conjunction
with the open-ended nature of the "political" defines the author's
preferred argument in favour of methods: since Political Science is
what political scientists do, so long that they remain true to the
requirements of "science", they are all engaged in producing valid
knowledge about the world of politics in their different ways.
This is strong claim for Political Science: "knowledge" is, despite
all disclaimers, nevertheless, an attempt to discover valid
generalisations that will stand the test of criticism. It seeks
certainty, while accepting the theoretical possibility that it may
not have been achieved yet. More than that, it is in the very nature
of the idea of knowledge to spawn technical recommendations. Whereas
it is possible to accommodate both requirements for certain types of
scientific activities, the application of these notions to the world
of the "political" raises some very complex issues. The social and
human consequences of scientific recommendations and predications,
inevitably at the mercy of the extent to which the science in
question has "got it right", can, nevertheless, be extremely high;
the current case of "mad cow disease" is a case in point. On the
other hand, political action, always purposive, is based on
judgement, always on the basis of what we know, but this is
"knowledge" in an extremely weak sense. Whereas scientific knowledge
is subject to verification, refutation, or confirmatory testing, we
only have concepts and conceptions which are always contested: not
only is there no eternal truth, there is no right or wrong decision
except in the circumstances, which historians are bound to view in
more than one way. In other words, while an emphasis on logic,
coherence and consistency are indispensable, even a most rigorous
application of logic will not necessarily generate knowledge for us.
To require "adequacy" of supporting evidence is fine, but it is not
clear how "adequacy" is to be understood and "measured". To offer
textual and historical evidence that one man at a given time said
this and that, does not make what is thus reported and adequately
supported, in itself, meaningful. Gobineau, Houston Chamberlain,
Richard Wagner, Hitler, and Alfred Rosenberg, can be studied with
all the scientific vigour and attention to adequacy of evidence we
can muster; but racism remains a highly contested and clearly
abhorrent idea, never mind policy. It is only the perceived
meaningfulness of a proposed action that enjoins us to do this
rather than that, and accept the consequences, which is only a spur
to further action of the same kind. The refusal to recognise that
the material we must deal with are linguistic accounts, not extant
realities and external concepts, is at the very foundation of the
difficulty with the kind of view that Stoker wishes to propose.
Secondly, as has been mentioned before, the identification and
discussion of the six approaches in the text requires a seventh,
irrespective of whether it is explicitly recognised or simply
accepted: a view is always from where we are, sit or stand, but
where we are, sit or stand must itself be understood, for the
perspective makes a difference. Thus meta-analytic accounts must be
conducted in a self-reflexive manner, and analysts ought to take
into account their own place and rôle, and examine the concepts to
which they appeal. This process of regressive thinking is ultimately
limited, but it is part of our "scientific" duty to push at the
limit. Moreover, political action is not simply doing things, for
each possible political action must be subject to four inter-related
questions: what we ought to do, and why; and how we should do it,
and why. Thus, concentrating on approaches and methods to the
exclusion of arguments about the nature of the enterprise is
misleading. It will, as it must, lead to technical answers and
solutions: but political answers are, quintessentially,
non-technical. In other words, what is conspicuous by its all but
complete absence in the Marsh/Stoker volume is any argument about
the "doability" of Political Science: are the various forms of
"Political Science" discussed possible? What sort of sense do their
conclusions make? Is comparative analysis a meaningful enterprise?
Does it achieve a justified purpose? What does "empirical" Political
Science mean? Does it make any sense to speak of "normative"
Political Science? And not least, what is the contribution that such
a Political Science can make? Marsh and Stoker simply assume the
essential "doability" of Political Science, while others appeal to
the long history of the subject as its legitimation. But, that
Aristotle collected and examined 158 constitutions is an arresting
historical fact about Aristotle and the Greeks, it is not, in
itself, a recommendation for "comparison" as the mainstay of
Political Science, nor an example of it. If we are to propose
comparison as a scientific procedure in Political Science, we must
examine how it works, in what way it is a way of knowing, and to
what extent it is capable of yielding answers. We must also seek to
find out if the answers thus produced are, in fact, the result of
our comparison or not. But in all cases, a claimed historical
heritage while interesting is, for all that, also irrelevant. On the
other hand, simply asserting that because we cannot experiment, we
must compare does not tell us how it is possible to compare.
Besides, a single approach study in politics is a definite oddity:
reading an account of the six approaches in quick succession evoked
the response that, more than once, I have actually used most, if not
all of these, in one analysis: they are only limited tools necessary
for specific types of analysis, none of which can, on its own,
produce a satisfactory answer to most topics under examination.
In all this, Stoker has imported the meaning of the "political" from
Heywood's analysis, to which we must now turn. He quotes from page
16, in chapter 2 of Andrew Heywood's Political Ideas and Concepts.
(Macmillan, 1994) in order to reveal the complexity of the meaning
of "politics" and "the political". Heywood's view of the "politics"
is predicated upon the arguments of his introductory chapter. His
discussion of language and politics, instead of identifying and
discussing the importance of the fact that politics is, first and
last, a loquacious activity - i.e. that words are only and the only
instrument of attending to arrangement in common - and that,
therefore, Political Science must, necessarily, be concerned with
the language of politics, offers a positivistic view of language
such that "we" are seen as "users" of it. On this view, language is,
at best, a neutral medium for expression of thought, not the very
manifestation of thought; not as concepts rendered, but as "words"
and "concepts" to be instrumentally understood and used, albeit that
the use thus made must be understood "in the light of the
ideological perspective of those who use them" (p. 7). Consistent
with this, he offers an unspecified vision of political "reality"
out there, and emphasises the rôle of theory in, as it were,
"creating" "knowledge" about that reality. This necessitates that we
clarify the meaning of concepts in the first place - presumably on
their own and in vacuum. His one reference to "social construction
of reality" which is said to be "always possessed of an ideological
character" is offered as a "may simply be" alternative. It is,
therefore, not at all surprising that he should confuse the
conception of ideology - a theoretical understanding - with the
possibility of ideological thinking prior to such a conception.
There is also a confusion which issues out of eliding "politics" and
"Politics", or the significant failure to recognise that identifying
points of distinction between two realities is a matter of
theoretical input, not simply looking at "the world". But, then, the
reason for this kind of confusion becomes very clear when we read
that "Political Science is ... essentially empirical, claiming to
describe, analyse and explain government and other political
institutions in a rigorous and impartial manner" (p. 12) which is
really no more than an eristical device to distinguish a separate
and segregated domain for political philosophy. This supposed
distinction, and its assumed correctness, is underlined when Heywood
states that whereas political scientists study the democratic
process at work, philosophers are more interested in what is meant
by "democracy". More than that, whereas Political Science is
impartial, philosophers cannot be, but theorists can and, therefore,
that his book should be seen as an exercise in political theory: it
offers the view from nowhere!
( cont'd )
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Against such a background of ideas Heywood makes an altogether
peculiar assertion about defining "politics" and "the political": it
is possible to state with some clarity and presumably also some
authority the "what is" of, say, Physics, History, or Economics; but
when it comes to "Politics" the answer is "more likely to generate
confusion than comfort or reassurance. The problem with politics is
that debate, controversy and disagreement lie at its very heart, and
the definition of the 'political' is no exception.
To classify the basic feature of politics, namely that it is a
(linguistic) process whereby different views may be reconciled by
debate and controversy, as a "problem" is odd. "Talk" and "debate"
are the very essence of the political, and it is this that we need
to understand; the problem is how to do that. That said, this kind
of account is a gift to those who want to argue that there is no
such thing as Political Science except as a conditioned response to
politics.
Often this view is associated with the notion that politics is an
epiphenomenon based on other forces, and, by necessary extension,
that Political Science is an epiphenomenon based on politics. What
is always disturbing about arguments intended to deny the
meaningfulness of an account is that they must first assert it. We
are, therefore, justified in asking a rather silly question: what is
this "politics" now understood as an epiphenomenon based on other
forces? Why can we not know it by its substance? Is "politics" only
a word? If so, what is the status of this word? And because
Political Science too is said to be an epiphenomenon, this type of
question can be asked about it too. The tragedy, incidentally, is
that this destructive outcome is the result of views proposed by
friends of Political Science as a discipline, albeit that they too
have an agenda they wish to pursue, such as to argue that
"mainstream" Political Science is inherently sexist, and that
feminism would and should change it. That this approach, too, is
entirely eristical is, of course, very clear: they must argue that
politics is an epiphenomenon, as is Political Science, in order to
be able to argue that because Feminism has now changed the agenda of
politics, by definition, the Political Science of this liberated
generation will be different, and better. Incidentally, I agree with
the view that Feminism is probably the most important development
with which Political Science must come to terms, but not for reasons
that such an eristical approach would invite one to accept.
Both Stoker and Heywood seem to want to leave politics an open-ended
concept. Stoker would see it as a process, often orderly, but
sometimes violent and revolutionary, whereby compromise solutions
for conflict are "created". Heywood is more circumspect about the
meaning of politics: it is said to be a social activity within a
context marked by conflict of interests and views where decisions on
matters in common have to be taken. This is fine as far as it goes,
but it leaves the nature of this activity out of the picture; it
omits to state that politics is a quintessentially loquacious
activity, as assertion which will, in itself, rule out violence and
war. If politics is a loquacious and purposive social activity, and
given that Political Science must focus on the nature of political
rule, it must have a primary concern with the language of politics.
But Political Science is not a study of language; we are concerned
with purposive activity, and it follows that Political Science must
be concerned with the conceptual structure of language in politics.
This still does not help with the problem of the relationship
between politics and Political Science. It is clear that Political
Science can have politics as part of its subject; but the argument
has been that politics is not simply an epiphenomenon, and that it
has certain definite features and characteristics. The point is that
the identification of these features and characteristics is an
exercise in Political Science, not an importation into it. It is
always an element of exclusion that defines the outer limit of the
meaningfulness of what is to be examined; else nothing can make
sense. This does not mean that we no longer need to examine
terrorism, civil war, et cetera, but the fact of terror and civil
war indicate the failure of political activity. It is supremely
important to examine the reasons and, as it were, the causes, not
of, say, civil war, but of the ineffectiveness of the loquacious
process to resolve the issue. It becomes important to admit that
some societies are not organised on this principle, or governed in
this way. Politics is not government: governing is not, in itself, a
political process, but it can be. Put differently, Political Science
is not about politics as such; rather, it is about the larger
process of governing a society and a people, where that rule and
government may be political, or not. If it is political, then the
focus of attention must be on the conceptual structure of its
language.
On this reading, the idea of Political Science assumes an identity
which derives from both an understanding of how it ought to be done,
and what it must focus on. This is precisely what the kind of
conception briefly examined above does not recognise. Of course,
Political scientists must recognise and respond to the fact that the
intentions and objectives of each generation are, to that measure,
different, but this is a difference against the background of a
continuing identity.
The dominant view discussed above is a broadly relativising and
relativised conception, with a largely positivistic view of the
nature of Political Science. And true to form, they do not even see
the extent to which they are functioning within the limitation of a
language while denying its actual properties.
2b: A contrasting view
On the currently dominant view, the object of the exercise is to
produce knowledge about the world of politics. To be sure, we are
not told what knowledge thus produced is for, which, by direct
implication, also means we are not told what Political Science is
for. At one time, if we accept the historical lineage of this
discipline, it was thought to be an attempt to find out the best
form of government, or the necessary collective conditions conducive
to happy human existence. But, no such prime objective can now be
claimed for Political Science. Given that any science must, in the
first instance be for its own sake and be guided by the requirements
of that science, we must ask "What is Political Science for"?
Maurice Cowling (The Nature and Limits of Political Science, CUP,
1963) answered this question in a certain way when he examined the
then state of the subject in order to re-claim the discipline: "At a
certain stage in the development of an academic discipline, when the
landmarks have disappeared from sight, attempts must be made to
bring them back to view." (p. 17) Whereas the contemporary dominant
view would see the diversity of approaches as a good reason to
expand the ambit of Political Science and account for that
expansion, back in 1963, Cowling saw the evident diversity of
approaches as a threat to the study of politics. By "diversity of
approaches" Cowling understood what we would today recognise as the
fragmentation of social science subjects into independent
disciplines. That the six approaches which Marsh and Stoker examine
draw, at least in large measure, their methodological identity from
other social science subjects only means that the fragmentation has
taken place at two levels: between broadly defined subjects and
within each subject area; now we have sociology and political
sociology; philosophy and political philosophy, et cetera. However,
Cowling was also concerned to argue that when the objective of an
academic activity is mistaken for some other objective the academic
subject becomes sterile. Thus, when the objective of political
explanation is replaced, or even diluted, by that of political
practice, our output will be a piece in politics, not an explanation
of it, we will have moved from the academic to the practical world,
and, in the process, replaced "explanation" by "guidance". On this
reading, then, Cowling would classify the product of the currently
dominant Political Science as nothing less than political writing
with guidance in mind; What he would make of the "useful" view of
social science is a different matter.
Cowling's project was noting less than a defence of the view that
explanation was the only meaningful objective for an academic
subject, and that the authority of its offering did not depend upon
their acceptance, but upon the degree of the intelligibility of the
account.
Explanation naturally means the acceptance of a certain view of
science, and in this respect Cowling accords to reason much the same
sort of over-riding place and importance as do, for instance, Marsh
and Stoker. But the object of the exercise for the academic is to
give an account of how we may see the world in a given way, not how
to live a life that way. On the other hand, political theory which
is an invitation to rational action must be distinguished from
explanation, which has no bearing on the world of practice.
For Cowling, political explanation will be corrupted and collapse
into political writing - and become a piece in politics -
when we forget that that consequences matter,
and that intentions are at least as important as consequences, and
they cannot be inferred from the consequences,
when we forget that it is illusory to assume that by studying the
structure of contemporary government we can know how government
works,
when we assume that the history of ideas is a contribution to
political practice,
and forget that there is danger is using big words - i.e. cusp
words - as though they have self-evident moral content outside of,
or apart from the situation to which they apply, and
when we forget that political explanations are not an account of
what we ought to do, and forget that they are not injunctions to
action. Explanations deal with a given subject matter, and nothing
more.
Cowling accepts that looking at the world of practice will enhance
our explanations, but is keen to argue that this does not work the
other way round. To understand the world of practice, one must be in
the world of practice, but to explain we must isolate the "world of
activity" from the "whole of activity".
This in principle makes political explanation irrelevant to the
world of activity: it only expands understanding of the civilisation
of which we are a part. More than that, explanations lead to further
explanations, but it is easy to misunderstand the nature of this,
and cross the line to political action. Crossing this divide is
dangerous: while intrusion into the world of academic explanation is
to be resisted, when explanation leads to political action it may be
more difficult to resist reactions to it in the form of control of
Universities. Moreover, all manner of concepts that are relevant to
the world of activity are irrelevant to the world of explanation:
natural law, democracy, et cetera, have no necessary standing in
explanation.
Cowling's reasoning is based on a rather important distinction
between the world of explanation and practice: in the former
transparency is the only subject worth pursuing, whereas the world
of practice is never transparent, for here we cannot escape the
arbitrary category. In fact, he argues, the political structure is
the result of arbitrary acts, repeated and eventually rigidified.
Thus, none of the positions thought necessary for the maintenance of
political society can be said to be an embodiment of absolutely
right judgement flowing from philosophy. Whereas history gives an
account of what people have thought it right to do, philosophy gives
an explanation of the arbitrary and relative character of causes and
slogans of human action. However, philosophical explanation is
infused with scepticism; metaphysical accounts do not offer
certainty. Nevertheless, political explanation exists as history and
philosophy, and other explanations - sociology, "political science",
comparative government, et cetera - when looked at critically
dissolve into these two, "and if they do not, they have not been
looked at critically enough." (p. 209) This view does not privilege
the academic professor of politics above the ordinary practitioner
of politics: that is to say, knowing some explanations is an
irrelevant addition, for political action is ultimately just that,
action guided by arbitrary views.
It may be thought that Cowling makes too much of the arbitrary;
after all the range of options for action are ultimately limited.
More than that, political action takes place within the framework of
a "system" now rigidified, albeit that none of its principles were
deduced from right reason, but were the result of political action
on the basis of arbitrary views. "The merit, character and nature of
the reaction each man makes to his world is effected by him and in
part known to him and then lost to all time.... [and it].. can be
grasped so imperfectly by the others that the judgements of others
are likely to be inadequate." (p. 213) On this basis it may be
possible to argue that Cowling's position is an extreme one. This
may also be said about his understanding of explanation and its
rôle: here, too, Cowling argues that the rôle of explanation is to
state the limitations imposed by thought upon the thinker. Moreover,
since the world the thinker assumes is thought to be rational and
intelligible, turns out to be arbitrary and unsatisfactory,
explanation must expose its limitations, and recognise that its
responsibility is not to the world of action but to that of thought.
"The only substantial knowledge in these matters is self-knowledge
and the only use of self-knowledge ....[is to confirm].. the fact
that Mind, Being, Goodness and Energy are everywhere struggling to
exist before us." (p. 213)
Clearly, Cowling privileges political explanation as an academic
activity. He does not discount reason and "knowledge" as the baggage
of each in their actions, but is concerned to point out that human
action is not on the basis of knowledge, and that in politics
arbitrary views, which are not transparent, play a much greater rôle
than might be thought. It is only towards the end of the book that
we begin to see the extent to which his thought is influenced by
"existentialism", which reveals the extent to which he is guided and
exercised by a certain view of what human existence and life is all
about, and allows this to guide his thoughts about the way in which
we may act and, as a separate activity, explain those actions but
always with reference to nothing other than "passing prejudices".
For Cowling, therefore, the use of political explanation is very
limited: it reflects upon and feeds into the civilisation of which
we are a part. This can be done only by an understanding that is
both historical and philosophical. Political explanation has no
other value, and political writing is not relevant to the world of
explanation. The proximity of Cowling's position and views to that
of Michael Oakeshott is unmistakable.
4: Concluding remarks
"Political Science" may be taken to mean nothing more or less than
an organised attempt to understand and explain the political. The
naming game - "Political Science", "political explanation",
"political philosophy", "normative political theory", et cetera - is
a distraction, leading to a concentration on "difference". But any
"difference" postulates some "sameness": evidently we are all
concerned with explanation.
Our two views - for brevity sake, the "scientific" and the
"philosophical" - both assign much the same importance to reason and
the rigorous procedure of explanation. They both want the
explanatory account to be as clear of ambiguity and vagueness as may
be possible; both want to avoid confusing and irrelevant elements.
Both accept that theory plays the by far most important rôle in any
explanation. Both argue that the accounts must be meaningful,
consistent, and adequate to the issues. On the face of it, not a
great deal divides them in this respect.
They also share a good deal on the subject to be explained.
Politics, rule and government are understood in much the same sort
of terms by both sides. Indeed Marsh and Stoker, and Cowling share
Britain as both the cultural context of their understanding and,
broadly, also the object of their thought. They also seem to share
the view that people are unpredictable actors, that they have a
sense of, and in fact function within a framework of, "bounded
freedom". Whereas Cowling makes a point of his view that people act
on the basis of arbitrary thought, Marsh and Stoker remain silent on
this, but seem to imply that it is possible to see reason in their
action. As was argued before, Cowling does not discount reason in
action, but refuses to accept that purposive action is on the basis
of calculated reason. It is hard to see how, when pushed to the
limit, Cowling's "arbitrary" is that much different from rational
choice understanding: arbitrary does not mean random, it means
unexplained in terms of principles, and even though Michael
Oakeshott would not refer to it in this way, the point is also
consistent with his view that everything is temporary and only
figures by comparison with the whole. ('Politics Education' 1951, in
Rationalism in Politics and other essays, CUP, 1962)
Cowling is concerned also to say something about the use and
relevance of Political Science, and comes to the view that it has,
and ought to have no practical relevance. To the extent that Marsh
and Stoker are silent on the ultimate relevance of Political
Science, one can infer that they have no special purpose in mind for
it. But to the extent that they are concerned with a certain type of
question, their orientation is the practical world of politics. Thus
the fundamental difference between the two is the character of their
desired objective: if it is the case that the unity of a text is in
its destination (attributed to Roland Barthes), then these two views
differ in where each thinks they can be, and are, going.
It does appear that the "scientific" view has become too involved in
what is regular and regulated in the historically determined
organised context within which human life is understood and lived.
In this sense a permanent concern with reform is an understandable
predilection. Conversely, such a view can have little interest in
the big questions: "Being"; "Being there"; how to live a meaningful
life where meaning is derived from life, not life lived for some
desideratum always just that little bit out of reach. They are
preoccupied with the social and political structure - the ossified
residue of arbitrary actions of others before us, which are only
means of attending to matters that must be attended to in common
amongst a multitude of "Beings" in a given context - and do not
appear to be much concerned with the fact that far from important
givens with which we must start, they have taken over and have
become a self-perpetuating machine. The "scientific" view, so it
would appear, seeks to account for the features and requirements of
this ossified machine, together with the "universe and everything".
This process also reduces people to, and treats them as, a cipher.
Statistics become more important than views, arguments and
judgement. To be sure, even these are collected and analysed
statistically, while opinion surveys replace debate, talk and
discussion of differing views - shared intimations are displaced by
statistical evidence of support for one alternative or another. This
being so, then the "philosophical" view, often dismissed as abstract
and irrelevant, is clearly more firmly tied to the important matter
of "life" of each "arbitrary Being" conducted in the only way
possible, by appeal to the arbitrary and the inexplicable.
The character of the "scientific" is akin to what Michael Oakeshott
('The study of "Politics" in a University (1961), in Rationalism in
Politics and other essays, CUP, 1962) called "vocational" training.
This is clearly indicated by the type of questions focused on - e.g.
Is this country a democracy? Is it moving from a two party system to
a dominant party system? Has the House of Lords outlived its
usefulness? Was Mill a democrat? - in the discussion of which one
may display one's attainments. Here one attends to the condition of
things, not focus upon the manner of explanation. The vocational is
only training in preparation for practical participation, it is not
even political education ('Politics Education' in Rationalism in
Politics) which is what one has learnt when one has been initiated
into an inheritance in which one has a life interest, and the
exploration of its intimations. For this "conversation" no
vocational training is necessary. Far less is "vocational training"
political explanation, for it has no concern with the language of
explanation. The problem, then, is that the "vocational/scientific"
is distinguished from the "philosophical" in that only the latter
has a genuine interest in explaining. Now, there is room for both;
but two points must be made. Firstly, that whereas "philosophical"
Political Science can do without the "scientific", it is not clear
that "scientific" Political Science can avoid a collapse into
"quality journalism" or "contemporary history" without the support
of "philosophical" Political Science. And, according to Oakeshott,
this collapse is, as it were, prevented by additional interest in
some genuine historical study, a few notable texts and some less
notable ones. But this is not genuine political explanation.
Moreover as an education it is "worthless", while as a training for
participation in the practice, it may have some relevance.
Secondly, both Oakeshott (1962) and Cowling (1963) feared that the
University teaching of politics was becoming dominated by the
vocational type at the expense of "genuine" University education
focusing on the language of explanation concerned with politics. To
the extent that the "vocational" type is now the norm, their fear
was justified. Therefore, the question that exercised them is still
with us: what is the University teaching (in particular, of
politics) for? Of course, by direct implication, both Oakeshott and
Cowling would tend to argue that the "scientific" "vocational" type
is not on a par with political explanation with its concern with the
language of explanation, and that, despite misguided focus on names,
only one has a proper claim to being a "science", a way of knowing
and explaining. They are not different ways of doing the same: they
are not united in their destination, that is to say they are
different doings.
The burden of the point has been that vocational type training is
not University education, but that, in this sense, it is an
impostor. Moreover, given that a degree in Political Science as it
is now understood does not attract any special recognition, one must
wonder to what extent it is meaningful to proceed without serious
reform. Graduates, for whom a degree in Political Science is only an
enabling device are, surely, better served if, instead of a training
they cannot use, they are given an education. Scruton is right in
suggesting that a good university education leads to scholarship,
involving the whole person, invading and ordering the mind, the soul
and the emotions of those who are engaged in it. This requires, as
Oakeshott understood so well, that undergraduates be taught modes of
thought and manners of speaking of an historian and a philosopher,
the two manners of understanding and explanatory languages relevant
to the human condition and, therefore, to politics.
Responses and Comments (up to 500 words) clearly identifying the paper
to which they refer, and giving your own details and contact address,
should be sent to Fred Nash, p...@soton.ac.uk
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http://www.conservativeforum.org/EssaysForm.asp?ID=61
-----------------------------------------------------
The Canadian Conservative Forum - Requested Essay
PubDate
1/1/47
Title
Rationalism in Politics - Parts 1 to 3 of 5
Author
Michael Oakeshott
Synopsis
Originally published in The Cambridge Journal, Volumne I, 1947
Essay
ONE
The object of this essay is to consider the character and pedigree
of the most remarkable intellectual fashion of post-Renaissance
Europe. The Rationalism with which I am concerned is modern
Rationalism. No doubt its surface reflects the light of rationalisms
of a more distant past, but in its depth there is a quality
exclusively its own, and it is this quality that I propose to
consider, and to consider mainly in its impact upon European
politics. What I call Rationalism in politics is not, of course, the
only (and it is certainly not the most fruitful) fashion in modern
European political thinking. But it is a strong and a lively manner
of thinking which, finding support in its filiation with so much
else that is strong in the intellectual composition of contemporary
Europe, has come to colour the ideas, not merely of one, but of all
political persuasions, and to flow over every party line. By one
road or another, by conviction, by its supposed inevitability, by
its alleged success, or even quite unreflectively, almost all
politics today have become Rationalist or near-Rationalist.
The general character and disposition of the Rationalist are, I
think., difficult to identify. At bottom he stands (he always
stands) for independence of mind on all occasions, for thought free
from obligation to any authority save the authority of reason'. His
circumstances in the modern world have made him contentious: he is
the enemy of authority, of prejudice, of the merely traditional,
customary or habitual. His mental attitude is at once sceptical and
optimistic: sceptical, because there is no opinion, no habit, no
belief, nothing so firmly rooted or so widely held that he hesitates
to question it and to judge it by what he calls his 'reason';
optimistic, because the Rationalist never doubts the power of his
'reason (when properly applied) to determine the worth of a thing,
the truth of an opinion or the propriety of an action. Moreover, he
is fortified by a belief in a reason' common to all mankind, a
common power of rational consideration, which is the ground and
inspiration of argument: set up on his door is the precept of
Parmenides--judge by rational argument. But besides this, which
gives the Rationalist a touch of intellectual equalitarianism, he is
something also of an individualist, finding it difficult to believe
that anyone who can think honestly and clearly will think
differently from himself.
But it is an error to attribute to him an excessive concern with a
priori argument. He does not neglect experience, but he often
appears to do so because he insists always upon it being his own
experience (wanting to begin everything de novo), and because of the
rapidity with which he reduces the tangle and variety of experience
to a set of principles which he will then attack or defend only upon
rational grounds. He has no sense of the cumulation of experience,
only of the readiness of experience when it has been converted into
a formula: the past is significant to him only as an encumbrance He
has none of that negative capability (which Keats attributed to
Shakespeare), the power of accepting the mysteries and uncertainties
of experience without any irritable search for order and
distinctness, only the capability of subjugating experience; he has
no aptitude for that close and detailed appreciation of what
actually presents itself which Lichtenberg called negative
enthusiasm, but only the power of recognizing the large outline
which a general theory imposes upon events. His cast of mind is
gnostic, and the sagacity of Ruhnken's rule, Oportet quaedam
nescire, is lost upon him. There are some minds which give us the
sense that they have passed through an elaborate education which was
designed to initiate them into the traditions and achievements of
their civilization; the immediate impression we have of them is an
impression of cultivation, of the enjoyment of an inheritance. But
this is not so with the mind of the Rationalist, which impresses us
as, at best, a finely tempered, neutral instrument, as a
well-trained rather than as an educated mind. Intellectually, his
ambition is not so much to share the experience of the race as to be
demonstrably a self-made man. And this gives to his intellectual and
practical activities an almost preternatural deliberateness and
self-consciousness, depriving them of any element of passivity,
removing from them all sense of rhythm and continuity and dissolving
them into a succession of climacterics, each to be surmounted by a
tour de raison. His mind has no atmosphere, no changes of season and
temperature; his intellectual processes, so far as possible, are
insulated from all external influence and go on in the void. And
having cut himself off from the traditional knowledge of his
society, and denied the value of any education more extensive than a
training in a technique of analysis, he is apt to attribute to
mankind a necessary inexperience in all the critical moments of
life, and if he were more self-critical he might begin to wonder how
the race had ever succeeded in surviving. With an almost poetic
fancy, he strives to live each day as if it were his first, and he
believes that to form a habit is to fail. And if, with as yet no
thought of analysis, we glance below the surface, we may, perhaps,
see in the temperament, if not in the character, of the Rationalist,
a deep distrust of time, an impatient hunger for eternity and an
irritable nervousness in the face of everything topical and
transitory.
Now, of all worlds, the world of politics might seem the least
amenable to rationalist treatment--politics, always so deeply veined
with both the traditional, the circumstantial and the transitory.
And, indeed, some convinced Rationalists have admitted defeat here:
Clemenceau, intellectually a child of the modern Rationalist
tradition (in his treatment of morals and religion, for example),
was anything but a Rationalist in politics. But not all have
admitted defeat. If we except religion, the greatest apparent
victories of Rationalism have been in politics: it is not to be
expected that whoever is prepared to carry his rationalism into the
conduct of life will hesitate to carry it into the conduct of public
affairs. [1]
But what is important to observe in such a man (for it is
characteristic) is not the decisions and actions he is inspired to
make, but the source of his inspiration, his idea (and with him it
will be a deliberate and conscious idea) of political activity. He
believes, of course, in the open mind, the mind free from prejudice
and its relic, habit. He believes that the unhindered human 'reason'
(if only it can be brought to bear) is an infallible guide in
political activity. Further, he believes in argument as the
technique and operation of reason'; the truth of an opinion and the
'rational' ground (not the use) of an institution is all that
matters to him. Consequently, much of his political activity
consists in bringing the social, political, legal and institutional
inheritance of his society before the tribunal of his intellect; and
the rest is rational administration, 'reason' exercising an
uncontrolled jurisdiction over the circumstances of the case. To the
Rationalist, nothing is of value merely because it exists (and
certainly not because it has existed for many generations),
familiarity has no worth, and nothing is to be left standing for
want of scrutiny. And his disposition makes both destruction and
creation easier for him to understand and engage in, than acceptance
or reform. To patch up, to repair (that is, to do anything which
requires a patient knowledge of the material), he regards as waste
of time: and he always prefers the invention of a new device to
making use of a current and well-tried expedient. He does not
recognize change unless it is a self-consciously induced change, and
consequently he falls easily into the error of identifying the
customary and the traditional with the changeless. This is aptly
illustrated by the rationalist attitude towards a tradition of
ideas. There is, of course, no question either of retaining or
improving such a tradition, for both these involve an attitude of
submission. It must be destroyed. And to fill its place the
Rationalist puts something of his own making--an ideology, the
formalized abridgment of the supposed substratum of rational truth
contained in the tradition. The conduct of affairs, for the
Rationalist, is a matter of solving problems, and in this no man can
hope to be successful whose reason has become inflexible by
surrender to habit or is clouded by the fumes of tradition. In this
activity the character which the Rationalist claims for himself is
the character of the engineer, whose mind (it is supposed) is
controlled throughout by the appropriate technique and whose first
step is to dismiss from his attention everything not directly
related to his specific intentions. This assimilation of politics to
engineering is, indeed, what may be called the myth of rationalist
politics. And it is, of course, a recurring theme in the literature
of Rationalism. The politics it inspires may be called the politics
of the felt need; for the Rationalist, politics are always charged
with the feeling of the moment. He waits upon circumstance to
provide him with his problems, but rejects its aid in their
solution. That anything should be allowed to stand between a society
and the satisfaction of the felt needs of each moment in its history
must appear to the Rationalist a piece of mysticism and nonsense.
And his politics are, in fact, the rational solution of those
practical conundrums which the recognition of the sovereignty of the
felt need perpetually creates in the life of a society. Thus,
political life is resolved into a succession of crises, each to be
surmounted by the application of reason'. Each generation, indeed,
each administration, should see unrolled before it the blank sheet
of infinite possibility. And if by chance this tabula rasa has been
defaced by the irrational scribblings of tradition-ridden ancestors,
then the first task of the Rationalist must be to scrub it clean; as
Voltaire remarked, the only way to have good laws is to burn all
existing laws and to start afresh. [2]
Two other general characteristics of rationalist politics may be
observed. They are the politics of perfection, and they are the
politics of uniformity; either of these characteristics without the
other denotes a different style of politics. The essence of
rationalism is their combination. The evanescence of imperfection
may be said to be the first item of the creed of the Rationalist. He
is not devoid of humility; he can imagine a problem which would
remain impervious to the onslaught of his own reason. But what he
cannot imagine is politics which do not consist in solving problems,
or a political problem of which there is no 'rational' solution at
all. Such a problem must be counterfeit. And the 'rational' solution
of any problem is, in its nature, the perfect solution. There is no
place in his scheme for a 'best in the circumstances', only a place
for 'the best'; because the function of reason is precisely to
surmount circumstances. Of course, the Rationalist is not always a
perfectionist in general, his mind governed in each occasion by a
comprehensive Utopia; but invariably he is a perfectionist in
detail. And from this politics of perfection springs the politics of
uniformity; a scheme which does not recognize circumstance can have
no place for variety. 'There must in the nature of things be one
best form of government which all intellects, sufficiently roused
from the slumber of savage ignorance, will be irresistibly incited
to approve,' writes Godwin. This intrepid Rationalist states in
general what a more modest believer might prefer to assert only in
detail; but the principle holds --there may not be one universal
remedy for all political ills, but the remedy for any particular ill
is as universal in its application as it is rational in its
conception. If the rational solution for one of the problems of a
society has been determined, to permit any relevant part of the
society to escape from the solution is, ex hypothesis, to
countenance irrationality. There can be no place for preferences
that is not rational preference, and all rational preferences
necessarily coincide. Political activity is recognized as the
imposition of a uniform condition of perfection upon human conduct.
The modern history of Europe is littered with the projects of the
politics of Rationalism. The most sublime of these is, perhaps, that
of Robert Owen for 'a world convention to emancipate the human race
from ignorance, poverty, division, sin and misery'--so sublime that
even a Rationalist (but without much justification) might think it
eccentric. But not less characteristic are the diligent search of
the present generation for an innocuous power which may safely be
made so great as to be able to control all other powers in the human
world, and the common disposition to believe that political
machinery can take the place of moral and political education. The
notion of founding a society, whether of individuals or of States,
upon a Declaration of the Rights of Man is a creature of the
rationalist brain, so also are 'national' or racial
self-determination when elevated into universal principles. The
project of the so-called Re-union of the Christian Churches, of open
diplomacy, of a single tax, of a civil service whose members 'have
no qualifications other than their personal abilities', of a
self-consciously planned society, the Beveridge Report, the
Education Act of 1944, Federalism, Nationalism, Votes for Women, the
Catering Wages Act, the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
the World State (of H. G. Wells or anyone else), and the revival of
Gaelic as the official language of fire, are alike the progeny of
Rationalism. The odd generation of rationalism in politics is by
sovereign power out of romanticism.
TWO
The placid lake of Rationalism lies before us in the character and
disposition of the Rationalist, its surface familiar and not
unconvincing. its waters fed by many visible tributaries. But in its
depths there flows a hidden spring, which, though it was riot the
original fountain from which the lake grew, is perhaps the
pre-eminent source of its endurance. This spring is a doctrine about
human knowledge. That some such fountain lies at the heart of
Rationalism will not surprise even those who know only its surface:
the superiority of the unencumbered intellect lay precisely in the
fact that it could reach more, and more certain, knowledge about man
and Society than was otherwise possible: the superiority of the
ideology Over the tradition lay in its greater precision and its
alleged demonstrability. Nevertheless, it is not, properly speaking,
a philosophical theory of knowledge, and it can be explained with
agreeable informality.
Every science, every art, every practical activity requiring skill
of any sort, indeed every human activity whatsoever, involves
knowledge. And, universally, this knowledge is of two sorts, both of
which are always involved in any actual activity. It is not, I
think, making too much of it to call them two sorts of knowledge,
because (though in fact they do not exist separately) there are
certain important differences between them. The first sort of
knowledge I will call technical knowledge or knowledge of technique.
In every art and science, and in every practical activity, a
technique is involved. In many activities this technical knowledge
is formulated into rules which are, or may be, deliberately learned,
remembered, and, as we say, put into practice; but whether or not it
is, or has been, precisely formulated, its chief characteristic is
that it is susceptible of precise formulation, although special
skill and insight may be required to give it that formulation. [3]
The technique (or part of it) of driving a motor car on English
roads is to be found in the Highway Code, the technique of cookery
is contained in the cookery book, and the technique of discovery in
natural science or in history is in their rules of research, of
observation and verification. The second sort of knowledge I will
call practical, because it exists only in use, is not reflective and
(unlike technique) cannot be formulated in rules. This does not
mean, however, that it is an esoteric sort of knowledge. It means
only that the method by which it may be shared and becomes common
knowledge is not the method of formulated doctrine. And if we
consider it from this point of view, it would not, I think, be
misleading to speak of it as traditional knowledge. In every
activity this sort of knowledge is also involved; the mastery of any
skill, the pursuit of any concrete activity is impossible without
it.
These two sorts of knowledge, then, distinguishable but inseparable,
are the twin components of the knowledge involved in every concrete
human activity. In a practical art, such as cookery, nobody supposes
that the knowledge that belongs to the good cook is confined to what
is or may be written down in the cookery book; technique and what I
have called practical knowledge combine to make skill in cookery
wherever it exists.
And the same is true of the fine arts, of painting, of music, of
poetry; a high degree of technical knowledge, even where it is both
subtle and ready, is one thing; the ability to create a work of art,
the ability to compose something with real music qualities, the
ability to write a great sonnet, is another, and requires, in
addition to technique, this other sort of knowledge. Again, these
two sorts of knowledge are involved in any genuinely scientific
activity. [4] The natural scientist will certainly make use of the
rules of observation and verification that belong to his technique,
but these rules remain only one of the components of his knowledge;
advance in scientific discovery was never achieved merely by
following the rules. [5] The same situation may be observed also in
religion. It would, I think, be excessively liberal to call a man a
Christian who was wholly ignorant of the technical side of
Christianity, who knew nothing of creed or formulary, but it would
be even more absurd to maintain that even the readiest knowledge of
creed and catechism ever constituted the whole of the knowledge that
belongs to a Christian. And what is true of cookery, of painting, of
natural science and of religion, is no less true of politics: the
knowledge involved in political activity is both technical and
practica1. [6] Indeed, as in all arts which have men as their
plastic material, arts such as medicine, industrial management,
diplomacy, and the art of military command, the knowledge involved
in political activity is pre-eminently of this dual character. Nor,
in these arts, is it correct to say that whereas technique will tell
a man (for example, a doctor) what to do, it is practice which tells
him how to do it--the 'bed-side manner', the appreciation of the
individual with whom he has to deal.
Even in the what, and above all in diagnosis, there lies already
this dualism of technique and practice: there is no knowledge which
is not 'know how'. Nor, again, does the distinction between
technical and practical knowledge coincide with the distinction
between a knowledge of means and a knowledge of ends, though on
occasion it may appear to do so. In short, nowhere, and
pre-eminently not in political activity, can technical knowledge be
separated from practical knowledge, and nowhere can they be
considered identical with one another or able to take the place of
one another. [7]
Now, what concerns us are the differences between these two sorts of
knowledge; and the important differences are those which manifest
themselves in the divergent ways in which these sorts of knowledge
can be expressed and in the divergent ways in which they can be
learned or acquired.
Technical knowledge, we have seen, is susceptible of formulation in
rules, principles, directions, maxims -- comprehensively, in
propositions. It is possible to write down technical knowledge in a
book. Consequently, it does not surprise us that when an artist
writes about his art, he writes only about the technique of his art.
This is so, not because he is ignorant of what may be called
aesthetic element, or thinks it unimportant, but because what he has
to say about that he has said already (if he is a painter) in his
pictures, and he knows no other way of saying it. And the same is
true when a religious man writes about his religion [8]; or a cook
about cookery.
And it may be observed that this character of being susceptible of
precise formulation gives to technical knowledge at least the
appearance of certainty: it appears to be possible to be certain
about a technique. On the other hand, it is a characteristic of
practical knowledge that it is not susceptible of formulation of
this kind. Its normal expression is in a customary or traditional
way of doing things, or, simply, in practice. And this gives it the
appearance of imprecision and consequently of uncertainty, of being
a matter of opinion, of probability rather than truth. It is,
indeed, a knowledge that is expressed in taste or connoisseurship,
lacking rigidity and ready for the impress of the mind of the
learner.
Technical knowledge can be learned from a book; it can be learned in
a correspondence course. Moreover, much of it can be learned by
heart, repeated by rote, and applied mechanically: the logic of the
syllogism is a technique of this kind. Technical knowledge, in
short, can be both taught and learned in the simplest meanings of
these words. On the other hand, practical knowledge can neither be
taught nor learned, but only imparted and acquired. It exists only
in practice, and the only way to acquire it is by apprenticeship to
a master--not because the master can teach it (he cannot), but
because it can be acquired only by continuous contact with one who
is perpetually practising it. In the arts and in natural science
what normally happens is that the pupil, in being taught and in
learning the technique from his master, discovers himself to have
acquired also another sort of knowledge than merely technical
knowledge, without it ever having been precisely imparted and often
without being able to say precisely what it is. Thus a pianist
acquires artistry as well as technique, a chess-player style and
insight into the game as well as a knowledge of the moves, and a
scientist acquires (among other things) the sort of judgment which
tells him when his technique is leading him astray and the
connoisseurship which enables him to distinguish the profitable from
the unprofitable directions to explore.
Now, as I understand it, Rationalism is the assertion that what I
have called practical knowledge is not knowledge at all, the
assertion that, properly speaking, there is no knowledge which is
not technical knowledge. The Rationalist holds that the only element
of knowledge involved in any human activity is technical knowledge,
and that what I have called practical knowledge is really only a
sort of nescience which would be negligible if it were not
positively mischievous. The sovereignty of reason: for the
Rationalist, means the sovereignty of technique. The heart of the
matter is the pre-occupation of the Rationalist with certainty.
Technique and certainty are, for him, inseparably joined because
certain knowledge is, for him, knowledge which does not require to
look beyond itself for its certainty; knowledge, that is, which not
only ends with certainty but begins with certainty and is certain
throughout.
And this is precisely what technical knowledge appears to be. It
seems to be a self-complete sort of knowledge because it seems to
range between an identifiable initial point (where it breaks in upon
sheer ignorance) and an identifiable terminal point, where it is
complete, as in learning the rules of a new game. It has the aspect
of knowledge that can be contained wholly between the two covers of
a book, whose application is, as nearly as possible, purely
mechanical, and which does not assume a knowledge not itself
provided in the technique. For example, the superiority of an
ideology over a tradition of thought lies in its appearance of being
self-contained It can be taught best to those whose minds are empty;
and if it is to be taught to one who already believes something, the
first step of the teacher must be to administer a purge, to make
certain that all prejudices and preconceptions are removed, to lay
his foundation upon the unshakable rock of absolute ignorance. In
short, technical knowledge appears to be the only kind of knowledge
which satisfies the standard of certainty which the Rationalist has
chosen.
Now, I have suggested that the knowledge involved in every concrete
activity is never solely technical knowledge. If this is true, it
would appear that the error of the Rationalist is of a simple sort
--the error of mistaking a part for the whole, of endowing a part
with the qualities of the whole. But the error of the Rationalist
does not stop there. If his great illusion is the sovereignty of
technique, he is no less deceived by the apparent certainty of
technical knowledge. The superiority of technical knowledge lay in
its appearance of springing from pure ignorance and ending in
certain and complete knowledge, its appearance of both beginning and
ending with certainty. But, in fact, this in an illusion. As with
every other sort of knowledge, learning a technique does not consist
in getting rid of pure ignorance, but in reforming knowledge which
is already there. Nothing, not even the most nearly self-contained
technique (the rules of a game), can in fact be imparted to an empty
mind; and what is imparted is nourished by what is already there. A
man who knows the rules of one game will, on this account, rapidly
learn the rules of another game; and a man altogether unfamiliar
with 'rules' of any kind (if such can be imagined) would be a most
unpromising pupil. And just as the self-made man is never literally
self-made, but depends upon a certain kind of society and upon a
large unrecognized inheritance, so technical knowledge is never, in
fact, self-complete, and can be made to appear so only if we forget
the hypotheses with which it begins. And if its self-completeness is
illusory, the certainty which was attributed to it on account of its
self-completeness is also an illusion.
But my object is not to refute Rationalism; its errors are
interesting only in so far as they reveal its character. We are
considering not merely the truth of a doctrine, but the significance
of an intellectual fashion in the history of post-Renaissance
Europe. And the questions we must try to answer are: What is the
generation of this belief in the sovereignty of technique? Whence
springs this supreme confidence in human 'reason' thus interpreted?
What is the provenance, the context of this intellectual character?
And in what circumstances and with what effect did it come to invade
European politics?
THREE
The appearance of a new intellectual character is like the
appearance of a new architectural style; it emerges almost
imperceptibly, under the pressure of a great variety of influences,
and it is a misdirection of inquiry to seek its origins. Indeed,
there are no origins; all that can be discerned are the slowly
mediated changes, the shuffling and reshuffling, the flow and ebb of
the tides of inspiration, which issue finally in a shape
identifiably new. The ambition of the historian is to escape that
gross abridgment of the process which gives the new shape a too
early or too late and a too precise definition, and to avoid the
false emphasis which springs from being over-impressed by the moment
of unmistakable emergence. Yet that moment must have a dominating
interest for those whose ambitions are not pitched so high. And I
propose to foreshorten my account of the emergence of modern
Rationalism, the intellectual character and disposition of the
Rationalist, by beginning it at the moment when it shows itself
unmistakably, and by considering only one element in the context of
its emergence. This moment is the early seventeenth century, and it
was connected, inter alia, with the condition of knowledge -
knowledge of both the natural and the civilized world - at that
time.
The state of European knowledge at the beginning of the seventeenth
century was peculiar. Remarkable advances had already been achieved,
the tide of inquiry flowed as strongly as at any other period in our
history, and the fruitfulness of the presuppositions which inspired
this inquiry showed no sign of exhaustion. And yet to intelligent
observers it appeared that something of supreme importance was
lacking. 'The state of knowledge,' wrote Bacon, 'is not prosperous
nor greatly advancing. [9] And this want of prosperity was not
attributable to the survival of a disposition of mind hostile to the
sort of inquiry that was on foot: it was observed as a hindrance
suffered by minds already fully emancipated from the presuppositions
(though not, of course, from some of the details) of Aristotelian
science. What appeared to be lacking was not inspiration or even
methodical habits of inquiry, but a consciously formulated technique
of research, an art of interpretation, a method whose rules had been
written down. And the project of making good this want was the
occasion of the unmistakable emergence of the new intellectual
character I have called the Rationalist.
The dominating figures in the early history of this project are, of
course, Bacon and Descartes, and we may find in their writings
intimations of what later became the Rationalist character.
Bacon's ambition was to equip the intellect with what appeared to
him necessary if certain and demonstrable knowledge of the world in
which we live is to be attained. Such knowledge is not possible for
'natural reason', which is capable of only 'petty and probable
conjectures', not of certainty. [10] And this imperfection is
reflected in the want of prosperity of the state of knowledge. The
Novum Organum begins with a diagnosis of the intellectual situation.
What is lacking is a clear perception of the nature of certainty and
an adequate means of achieving it. 'There remains,' says Bacon, 'but
one course for the recovery of a sound and healthy condition-namely,
that the entire work of understanding be commenced afresh, and the
mind itself be from the very outset not left to take its own course,
but guided at every step. [11] What is required is a 'sure plan', a
new 'way'' of understanding, an 'art' or 'method' of inquiry, an
'instrument' which (like the mechanical aids men use to increase the
effectiveness of their natural strength) shall supplement the
weakness of the natural reason: in short, what is required is a
formulated technique of inquiry. [12] He recognizes that this
technique will appear as a kind of hindrance to the natural reason,
not supplying it with wings but hanging weights upon it in order to
control its exuberance;[13] but it will be a hindrance of hindrances
to certainty, because it is lack of discipline which stands between
the natural reason and certain knowledge of the world. And Bacon
compares this technique of research with the technique of the
syllogism, the one being appropriate to the discovery of the truth
of things while the other is appropriate only to the discovery of
the truth of opinions. [14]
The art of research which Bacon recommends has three main
characteristics. First, it is a set of rules; it is a true technique
in that it can be formulated as a precise set of directions which
can be learned by heart. [15] Secondly, it is a set of rules whose
application is purely mechanical; it is a true technique because it
does not require for its use any knowledge or intelligence not given
in the technique itself. Bacon is explicit on this point. The
business of interpreting nature is 'to be done as if by machinery',
[16] 'the strength and excellence of the wit (of the inquirer) has
little to do with the matter'[17], the new method 'places all wits
and understandings nearly on a level'. [18] Thirdly, it is a set of
rules of universal application; it is a true technique in that it is
an instrument of inquiry indifferent to the subject-matter of the
inquiry.
Now, what is significant in this project is not the precise
character of the rules of inquiry, both positive and negative, but
the notion that a technique of this sort is even possible. For what
is proposed--infallible rules of discovery--is something very
remarkable, a sort of philosopher's stone, a key to open all doors,
a 'master science'. Bacon is humble enough about the details of this
method, he does not think he has given it a final formulation; but
his belief in the possibility of such a 'method' in general is
unbounded. [19] From our point of view, the first of his rules is
the most important, the precept that we must lay aside received
opinion, that we must 'begin anew from the very foundations'. [20]
Genuine knowledge must begin with a purge of the mind, because it
must begin as well as end in certainty and must be complete in
itself. Knowledge and opinion are separated absolutely: there is no
question of ever winning true knowledge out of 'the childish notions
we at first imbibed'. And this, it may be remarked, is what
distinguishes both Platonic and Scholastic from modern Rationalism:
Plate is a rationalist, but the dialectic is not a technique, and
the method of Scholasticism always had before it a limited aim.
The doctrine of the Novum Organum may be summed up, from our point
of view, as the sovereignty of technique. It represents, not merely
a preoccupation with technique combined with a recognition that
technical knowledge is never the whole of knowledge, but the
assertion that technique and some material for it to work upon are
all that matters. Nevertheless, this is not itself the beginning of
the new intellectual fashion, it is only an early and unmistakable
intimation of it: the fashion itself may be said to have sprung from
the exaggeration of Bacon's hopes rather than from the character of
his beliefs.
Descartes, like Bacon, derived inspiration from what appeared to be
the defects of contemporary inquiry; he also perceived the lack of a
consciously and precisely formulated technique of inquiry. And the
method propounded in the Discours de la Methode and the Regulae
corresponds closely to that of the Novum Organum. For Descartes, no
less than for Bacon, the aim is certainty. Certain knowledge can
spring up only in an emptied mind; the technique of research begins
with an intellectual purge. The first principle of Descartes is 'de
ne recevoir jamais aucune chose pour vraie que je ne la connusse
evidemment etre telle, c'est-a-dire d'eviter soigneusement la
precipitation et la prevention','de batir dans un fonds qui est tout
a moi'; and the inquirer is said to be 'comme un homme qui marche
seul et dans les tenebres'. [21] Further, the technique of inquiry
is formulated in a set of rules which, ideally, compose an
infallible method whose application is mechanical and universal. And
thirdly, there are no grades in knowledge, what is not certain is
mere nescience. Descartes, however, is distinguished from Bacon in
respect of the thoroughness of his education in the Scholastic
philosophy and in the profound impression that geometrical
demonstration had upon his mind, and the effect of these differences
in education and inspiration is to make his formulation of the
technique of inquiry more precise and in consequence more critical.
His mind is oriented towards the project of an infallible and
universal method or research, but since the method he propounds is
modelled on that of geometry, its limitation when applied, not to
possibilities but to things, is easily apparent. Descartes is more
thorough than Bacon in doing his scepticism for himself and, in the
end, he recognizes it to be an error to suppose that the method can
ever be the sole means of inquiry. [22] The sovereignty of technique
turns out to be a dream and not a reality. Nevertheless, the lesson
his successors believed themselves to have learned from Descartes
was the sovereignty of technique and not his doubtfulness about the
possibility of an infallible method. By a pardonable abridgment of
history, the Rationalist character may be seen springing from the
exaggeration of Bacon's hopes and the neglect of the scepticism of
Descartes; modern Rationalism is what commonplace minds made out of
the inspiration of men of discrimination and genius. Les grands
hommes, en apprenant auxfaibles a reflechir, les ont mis sur la
route de I'erreur. But the history of Rationalism is not only the
history of the gradual emergence and definition of this new
intellectual character; it is, also, the history of the invasion of
every department of intellectual activity by the doctrine of the
sovereignty of technique.
Descartes never became a Cartesian; but, as Bouillier says of the
seventeenth century, 'le cartesianisme a triomphe; il s'est empare
du grand siecle tout entier, il a penetre de son esprit, non
seulement la philosophie, mais les sciences et les lettres
ellesmemes'. [23] It is common knowledge that, at this time, in
poetry and in drama, there was a remarkable concentration on
technique, on rules of composition, on the observance of the
bienseances of literature, which continued unabated for nearly two
centuries. A stream of books flowed from the presses on the 'art of
poetry', the 'art of living', the 'art of thinking'. Neither
religion, nor natural science, nor education, nor the conduct of
life itself escaped from the influence of the new Rationalism; no
activity was immune, no society untouched. [24]
The slowly mediated changes by which the Rationalist of the
seventeenth century became the Rationalist as we know him today, are
a long and complicated story which I do not propose even to abridge.
It is important only to observe that, with every step it has taken
away from the true sources of its inspiration, the Rationalist
character has become cruder and more vulgar. What in the seventeenth
century was 'L'art de penser' has now become Your mind and how to
use it, a plan by world-famous experts for developing a trained mind
at a fraction of the usual cost. What was the Art of Living has
become the Technique of Success, and the early and more modest
incursions of the sovereignty of technique into education have
blossomed into Pelmanism.
The deeper motivations which encouraged and developed this
intellectual fashion are, not unnaturally, obscure; they are hidden
in the recesses of European society. But among its other
connections, it is certainly closely allied with a decline in the
belief in Providence: a beneficient and infallible technique
replaced a beneficient and infallible God; and where Providence was
not available to correct the mistakes of men it was all the more
necessary to prevent such mistakes. Certainly, also, its provenance
is a society or a generation which thinks what it has discovered for
itself is more important than what it has inherited, [25] an age
over-impressed with its own accomplishment and liable to those
illusions of intellectual grandeur which are the characteristic
lunacy of post-Renaissance Europe, an age never mentally at peace
with itself because never reconciled with its past. And the vision
of a technique which puts all minds on the same level provided just
the short-cut which would attract men in a hurry to appear educated
but incapable of appreciating the concrete detail of their total
inheritance.
And, partly under the influence of Rationalism itself, the number of
such men has been steadily growing since the seventeenth century.
[26] Indeed it may be said that all, or almost all, the influences
which in its early days served to encourage the emergence of the
Rationalist character have subsequently become more influential in
our civilization.
Now, it is not to be thought that Rationalism established itself
easily and without opposition. It was suspect as a novelty, and some
fields of human activity-literature, for example -- on which at
first its hold was strong, subsequently freed themselves from its
grasp. Indeed, at all levels and in all fields there has been
continuous criticism of the resistance to the teachings of
Rationalism. And the significance of the doctrine of the sovereignty
of technique becomes clearer when we consider what one of its first
and profoundest critics has to say about it. Pascal is a judicious
critic of Descartes, not opposing him at all points, but opposing
him nevertheless, on points that are fundamental. [27] He perceived,
first, that the Cartesian desire for certain knowledge was based
upon a false criterion of certainty. Descartes must begin with
something so sure that it cannot be doubted, and was led, as a
consequence, to believe that all genuine knowledge is technical
knowledge.
Pascal avoided this conclusion by his doctrine of probability: the
only knowledge that is certain is certain on account of its
partiality; the paradox that probable knowledge has more of the
whole truth than certain knowledge Secondly, Pascal perceived that
the Cartesian raisonnement is never in fact the whole source of the
knowledge involved in any concrete activity. The human mind, he
asserts, is not wholly dependent for its successful working upon a
conscious and formulated technique; and even where a technique is
involved, the mind observes the technique 'tacitement, naturellement
et sans art'. The precise formulation of rules of inquiry endangers
the success of the inquiry by exaggerating the importance of method.
Pascal was followed by others, and indeed much of the history of
modern philosophy revolves round this question. But, though later
writers were often more elaborate in their criticism, few detected
more surely than Pascal that the significance of Rationalism is not
its recognition of technical knowledge, but its failure to recognize
any other: its philosophical error lies in the certainty it
attributes to technique and in its doctrine of the sovereignty of
technique; its practical error lies in its belief that nothing but
benefit can come from making conduct self-conscious.
[Notes appear the end of "Rationalism in Politics (parts 4 - 5)",
published elsewhere in this collection]
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http://www.conservativeforum.org/EssaysForm.asp?ID=62
-----------------------------------------------------
The Canadian Conservative Forum - Requested Essay
PubDate
1/1/47
Title
Rationalism in Politics - Parts 4 & 5 of 5
Author
Michael Oakeshott
Synopsis
Originally published in The Cambridge Journal, Volumne I, 1947
Essay
FOUR
It was, of course, improbable that politics should altogether escape
the impress of so strong and energetic an intellectual style as that
of the new Rationalism. But what, at first sight, is remarkable is
that politics should have been earlier and more fully engulfed by
the tidal wave than any other human activity. The hold of
Rationalism upon most departments of life has varied in its firmness
during the last four centuries but in politics it has steadily
increased and is Stronger now than at any earlier time. We have
considered already the general intellectual disposition of the
Rationalist when he turns to politics: what remains to be considered
are the circumstances in which European politics came to surrender
almost completely to the Rationalist and the results of the
surrender.
That all contemporary politics are deeply infected with Rationalism
will be denied only by those who choose to give the infection
another name. Not only are our political vices rationalistic, but so
also are our political virtues. Our projects are, in the main,
rationalist in purpose and character; but, what is more significant,
our whole attitude of mind in politics is similarly determined. And
those traditional elements, particularly in English politics, which
might have been expected to continue some resistance to the pressure
of Rationalism, have now almost completely conformed to the
prevailing intellectual temper, and even represent this conformity
to be a sign of their vitality, their ability to move with the
times. Rationalism has ceased to be merely one style in politics and
has become the stylistic criterion of all respectable politics.
How deeply the rationalist disposition of mind has invaded our
political thought and practice is illustrated by the extent to which
traditions of behaviour have given place to ideologies, the extent
to which the politics of destruction and creation have been
substituted for the politics of repair, the consciously planned and
deliberately executed being considered (for that reason) better than
what has grown up and established itself unselfconsciously over a
period of time. This conversion of habits of behaviour, adaptable
and never quite fixed or finished, into comparatively rigid systems
of abstract ideas, is not, of course, new; so far as England is
concerned it was begun in the seventeenth century, in the dawn of
rationalist politics. But, while formerly it was tacitly resisted
and retarded by, for example, the informality of English politics
(which enabled us to escape, for a long time, putting too high a
value on political action and placing too high a hope in political
achievement--to escape, in politics at least, the illusion of the
evanescence of imperfection), that resistance has now itself been
converted into an ideology. [28] This is, perhaps, the main
significance of Hayek's Road to Serfdom --not the cogency of his
doctrine, but the fact that it is a doctrine, A plan to resist all
planning may be better than its opposite, but it belongs to the same
style of politics.
And only in a society already deeply infected with Rationalism will
the conversion of the traditional resources of resistance to the
tyranny of Rationalism into a self-conscious ideology be considered
a strengthening of those resources. It seems that now, in order to
participate in politics and expect a hearing, it is necessary to
have, in the strict sense, a doctrine; not to have a doctrine
appears frivolous, even disreputable. And the sanctity, which in
some societies was the property of a politics piously attached to
traditional ways, has now come to belong exclusively to rationalist
politics.
Rationalist politics, I have said, are the politics of the felt
need, the felt need not qualified by a genuine, concrete knowledge
of the permanent interests and direction of movement of a society,
but interpreted by 'reason' and satisfied according to the technique
of an ideology: they are the politics of the book. And this also is
characteristic of almost all contemporary politics: not to have a
book is to be without the one thing necessary, and not to observe
meticulously what is written in the book is to be a disreputable
politician. Indeed, so necessary is it to have a book, that those
who have hitherto thought it possible to get on without one, have
had, rather late in the day, to set about composing one for their
own use. This is a symptom of the triumph of technique which we have
seen to be the root of modern Rationalism; for what the book
contains is only what it is possible to put into a book--rules of a
technique. And, book in hand (because, though a technique can be
learned by rote, they have not always learned their lesson well),
the politicians of Europe pore over the simmering banquet they are
preparing for the future; but, like jumped-up kitchen-porters
deputizing for an absent cook, their knowledge does not extend
beyond the written word which they read mechanically--it generates
ideas in their heads but no tastes in their mouths.
Among the other evidences of Rationalism in contemporary politics,
may be counted the commonly admitted claim of the 'scientist' as
such the chemist, the physicist, the economist or the psychologist)
to be heard in politics; because, though the knowledge involved in a
science is always more than technical knowledge, what it has to
offer to politics is never more than a technique. And under this
influence, the intellect in politics ceases to be the critic Of
political habit and becomes a substitute for habit, and the life of
a society loses its rhythm and continuity and is resolved into a
succession of problems and crises. Folk-lore, because it is not
technique, is identified with nescience, and all sense of what Burke
called the partnership between present and past is lost. [29]
There is, however, no need to labour the point that the most
characteristic thing about contemporary politics is their
rationalist inspiration; the prevailing belief that politics are
easy is, by itself, evidence enough. And if a precise example is
required we need look no further for it than the proposals we have
been offered for the control of the manufacture and use of atomic
energy. The rationalist faith in the sovereignty of technique is the
presupposition both of the notion that some over-all scheme of
mechanized control is possible and of the details of every scheme
that has so far been projected: it is understood as what is called
an 'administrative' problem. But, if Rationalism now reigns almost
unopposed, the question which concerns us is, What are the
circumstances that promoted this state of affairs? For the
significance of the triumph lies not merely in itself, but in its
context.
Briefly, the answer to this question is that the politics of
Rationalism are the politics of the politically inexperienced, and
that the outstanding characteristic of European politics in the last
four centuries is that they have suffered the incursion of at least
three types of political inexperience--that of the new ruler, of the
new ruling class, and of the new political society--to say nothing
of the incursion of a new sex, lately provided for by Mr. Shaw. How
appropriate rationalist politics are to the man who, not brought up
or educated to their exercise, finds himself in a position to exert
political initiative and authority, requires no emphasis. His need
of it is so great that he will have no incentive to be sceptical
about the possibility of a magic technique of politics which will
remove the handicap of his lack of political education.
The offer of such a technique will seem to him the offer of
salvation itself; to be told that the necessary knowledge is to be
found, complete and self-contained, in a book, and to be told that
this knowledge is of a sort that can be learned by heart quickly and
applied mechanically, will seem, like salvation, something almost
too good to be true. And yet it was this, or something near enough
to be mistaken for it, which he understood Bacon and Descartes to be
offering him. For, though neither of these writers ventures upon the
detailed application of his method to politics, the intimations of
rationalist politics are present in both, qualified only by a
scepticism which could easily be ignored. Nor had he to wait for
Bacon and Descartes (to wait, that is, for a general doctrine of
Rationalism); the first of these needy adventurers into the field of
politics was provided for on his appearance a century earlier by
Machiavelli.
It has been said that the project of Machiavelli was to expound a
science of politics, but this, I think, misses the significant
point. A science, we have seen, is concrete knowledge and
consequently neither its conclusions, nor the means by which they
were reached, can ever, as a whole, be written down in a book.
Neither an art nor a science can be imparted in a set of directions;
to acquire a mastery in either is to acquire an appropriate
connoisseurship. But what can be imparted in this way is a
technique, and it is with the technique of politics that
Machiavelli, as a writer, is concerned. He recognized that the
technique of governing a republic was somewhat different from that
appropriate to a principality, and he was concerned with both. But
in writing about the government of Principalities he wrote for the
new prince of his day, and this for two reasons, one of principle
and the other personal. The well-established hereditary ruler,
educated in a tradition and heir to a long family experience, seemed
to be well enough equipped for the position he occupied: his
politics might be improved by a correspondence course in technique,
but in general he knew how to behave. But with the new ruler, who
brought to his task only the qualities which had enabled him to gain
political power and who learnt nothing easily but the vices of his
office, the caprice de prince, the position was different. Lacking
education (except in the habits of ambition), and requiring some
short-cut to the appearance of education, he required a book. But he
required a book of a certain sort; he needed a crib: his
inexperience prevented him from tackling the affairs of State
unseen. Now, the character of a crib is that its author must have an
educated man's knowledge of the language, that he must prostitute
his genius (if he has any) as a translator, and that it is powerless
to save the ignorant reader from all possibility of mistake. The
project of Machiavelli was, then, to provide a crib to politics, a
political training in default of a political education, a technique
for the ruler who had no tradition. He supplied a demand of his
time; and he was personally and temperamentally interested in
supplying the demand because he felt the 'fascination of what is
difficult'. The new ruler was more interesting because he was far
more likely than the educated hereditary ruler to get himself into a
tricky situation and to need the help of advice. But, like the great
progenitors of Rationalism in general (Bacon and Descartes),
Machiavelli was aware of the limitations of technical knowledge; it
was not Machaivelli himself, but his followers, who believed in the
sovereignty of technique, who believed that government was nothing
more than 'public administration' and could be learned from a book.
And to the new prince he offered not only his book, but also, what
would make up for the inevitable deficiencies of his book--himself:
he never lost the sense that politics, after all, are diplomacy, not
the application of a technique.
The new and politically inexperienced social classes which, during
the last four centuries, have risen to the exercise of political
initiative and authority, have been provided for in the same sort of
way as Machiavelli provided for the new prince of the sixteenth
century. None of these classes had time to acquire a political
education before it came to power: each needed a crib, a political
doctrine, to take the place of a habit of political behaviour. Some
of these writings are genuine works of political vulgarization: they
do not altogether deny the existence or worth of a political
tradition (they are written by men of real political education), but
they are abridgments of a tradition, rationalizations purporting to
elicit the 'truth' of a tradition and to exhibit it in a set of
abstract principles, but from which, nevertheless, the full
significance of the tradition inevitably escapes. This is
pre-eminently so of Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government,
which was as popular, as long-lived and as valuable a political crib
as that greatest of all cribs to a religion, Paley's Evidences of
Christianity. But there are other writers, like Bentham or Godwin,
who, pursuing the common project of providing for the political
inexperience of succeeding generations, cover up all trace of the
political habit and tradition of their society with a purely
speculative idea: these belong to the strictest sect of Rationalism.
But, so far as authority is concerned, nothing in this field can
compare with the work of Marx and Engels. European politics without
these writers would still have been deeply involved in Rationalism,
but beyond question they are the authors of the most stupendous of
our political rationalisms--as well they might be, for it was
composed for the instruction of a less politically educated class
than any other that has ever come to have the illusion of exercising
political power. And no fault can be found with the mechanical
manner in which this greatest of all political cribs has been
learned and used by those for whom it was written. No other
technique has so imposed itself upon the world as if it were
concrete knowledge; none has created so vast an intellectual
proletariat with nothing but its technique to lose. [30]
The early history of the United States of America is an instructive
chapter in the history of the politics of Rationalism. The situation
of a society called upon without much notice to exercise political
initiative on its own account is similar to that of an individual or
a social class rising not fully prepared to the exercise of
political power; in general, its needs are the same as theirs. And
the similarity is even closer when the independence of the society
concerned begins with an admitted illegality, a specific and express
rejection of a tradition. which consequently can be defended only by
an appeal to something which is itself thought not to depend upon
tradition. Nor, in the case of the American colonists, was this the
whole Of the pressure which forced their revolution into the pattern
of Rationalism.
The founders of American independence had both a tradition of
European thought and a native political habit and experience to draw
upon. But, as it happened, the intellectual gifts of Europe to
America (both in philosophy and religion) had, from the beginning,
been predominantly rationalistic: and the native political habit,
the product of the circumstances of colonisation, was what may be
called a kind of natural and unsophisticated rationalism. A plain
and unpretending people, not given over-much to reflection upon the
habits of behaviour they had in fact inherited, who, in frontier
communities, had constantly the experience of setting up law and
order for themselves by mutual agreement, were not likely to think
of their arrangements except as the creation of their own unaided
initiative; they seemed to begin with nothing, and to owe to
themselves all that they had come to possess. A civilization of
pioneers is, almost unavoidably, a civilization of self-consciously
self-made men, Rationalists by circumstance and not by reflection,
who need no persuasion that knowledge begins with a tabula rasa and
who regard the free mind, not even as the result of some artificial
Cartesian purge, but as the gift of Almighty God, as Jefferson said.
Long before the Revolution, then, the disposition of mind of the
American colonists, the prevailing intellectual character and habit
of politics, were rationalistic. And this is clearly reflected in
the constitutional documents and history of the individual colonies.
And when these colonies came 'to dissolve the political bands which
have connected them with another', and to declare their
independence, the only fresh inspiration that this habit of politics
received from the outside was one which confirmed its native
character in every particular. For the inspiration of Jefferson and
the other founders of American independence was the ideology which
Locke had distilled from the English political tradition. They were
disposed to believe, and they believed more fully than was possible
for an inhabitant of the Old World, that the proper organization of
a society and the conduct of its affairs were based upon abstract
principles, and not upon a tradition which, as Hamilton said, had
'to be rummaged for among old parchments and musty records'. These
principles were not the product of civilization; they were natural,
'written in the whole volume of human nature'. [31] They were to be
discovered in nature by human reason, by a technique of inquiry
available alike to all men and requiring no extraordinary
intelligence in its use. Moreover, the age had the advantage of all
earlier ages because, by the application of this technique of
inquiry, these abstract principles had, for the most part recently,
been discovered and written down in books. And by using these books,
a newly made political society was not only not handicapped by the
lack of a tradition, but had a positive superiority over older
societies not yet fully emancipated from the chains of custom. What
Descartes had already perceived, 'que souvent ii n'y a pas tant de
perfection dans les ouvrages composes de plusieurs pieces et faits
de la main de divers maitres qu'en ceux anquels un seul a
travaille', was freshly observed in 1777 by John Jay-'The Americans
are the first people whom Heaven has favoured with an opportunity of
deliberating upon, and choosing the forms of government under which
they should live. All other constitutions have derived their
existence from violence or accidental circumstances, and are
therefore probably more distant from their perfection....'[32] The
Declaration of Independence is a characteristic product of the
saeculum rationalisticum. It represents the politics of the felt
need interpreted with the aid of an ideology. And it is not
surprising that it should have become one of the sacred documents of
the politics of Rationalism, and, together with the similar
documents of the French Revolution, the inspiration and pattern of
many later adventures in the rationalist reconstruction of society.
The view I am maintaining is that the ordinary practical politics of
European nations have become fixed in a vice of Rationalism, that
much of their failure (which is often attributed to other and more
immediate causes [33]) springs in fact from the defects of the
Rationalist character when it is in control of affairs, and that
(since the rationalist disposition of mind is not a fashion which
sprang up only yesterday) we must not expect a speedy release from
our predicament. It is always depressing for a patient to be told
that his disease is almost as old as himself and that consequently
there is no quick cure for it, but (except for the infections of
childhood) this is usually the case. So long as the circumstances
which promoted the emergence of rationalist politics remain, so long
must we expect our politics to be rationalist in disposition. I do
not think that any or all of the writers whom I have mentioned are
responsible for our predicament. They are the servants of
circumstances which they have helped to perpetuate (on occasion they
may be observed giving another turn to the screw), but which they
did not create. And it is not to be supposed that they would always
have approved of the use made of their books. Nor, again, am I
concerned with genuinely philosophical writing about politics; in so
far as that has either promoted or retarded the tendency to
Rationalism in politics, it has always been through a
misunderstanding of its design, which is not to recommend conduct
but to explain it. To explore the relations between politics and
eternity is one thing: it is something different, and less
commendable, for a practical politician to find the intricacy of the
world of time and contingency so unmanageable that he is bewitched
by the offer of a quick escape into the bogus eternity of an
ideology. Nor, finally, do I think we owe our predicament to the
place which the natural sciences and the manner of thinking
connected with them has come to take in our civilization. This
simple diagnosis of the situation has been much put about, but I
think it is mistaken. That the influence of the genuine natural
scientist is not necessarily on the side of Rationalism follows from
the view I have taken of the character of any kind of concrete
knowledge.
No doubt there are scientists deeply involved in the rationalist
attitude, but they are mistaken when they think that the rationalist
and the scientific points of view necessarily coincide. The trouble
is that when the scientist steps outside his own field he often
carries with him only his technique, and this at once allies him
with the forces of Rationalism. [34] In short, I think the great
prestige of the natural sciences has, in fact, been used to fasten
the rationalist disposition of mind more firmly upon us, but that
this is the work, not of the genuine scientist as such, but of the
scientist who is a Rationalist in spite of his science.
FIVE
To this brief sketch of the character, and the social and
intellectual context of the emergence of Rationalism in politics,
may be added a few reflections. The generation of rationalist
politics is by political inexperience out of political opportunity.
These conditions have often existed together in European societies;
they did so in the ancient world, and that world at times suffered
the effects of their union. But the particular quality of
Rationalism in modern politics derives from the circumstance that
the modern world succeeded in inventing so plausible a method of
covering up lack of political education that even those who suffered
from that lack were often left ignorant that they lacked anything.
Of course, this inexperience was never, in any society, universal;
and it was never absolute. There have always been men of genuine
political education, immune from the infection of Rationalism (and
this is particularly so Of England, where a political education of
some sort has been much more widely spread than in some other
societies): and sometimes a dim reminder of the limitations of his
technique has penetrated even the mind of the Rationalist.
Indeed, so impractical is a purely 'rationalist politics, that the
new man, lately risen to power, will often be found throwing away
his book and relying upon his general experience of the world as,
for example, a business man or a trade union official. This
experience is certainly a more trustworthy guide than the book--at
least it is real knowledge and not a shadow--but still, it is not a
knowledge of the political traditions of his society, which, in the
most favourable circumstances, takes two or three generations to
acquire.
Nevertheless, when he is not arrogant or sanctimonious, the
Rationalist can appear a not unsympathetic character. He wants so
much to be right. But unfortunately he will never quite succeed. He
began too late and on the wrong foot. His knowledge will never be
more than half-knowledge, and consequently he will never be more
than half-right. [35] Like a foreigner or a man out of his social
class, he is bewildered by a tradition and a habit of behaviour of
which he knows only the surface; a butler or an observant house-maid
has the advantage of him. And he conceives a contempt for what he
does not understand; habit and custom appear bad in themselves, a
kind of nescience of behaviour. And by some strange self-deception,
he attributes to tradition (which, of course, is pre-eminently
fluid) the rigidity and fixity of character which in fact belongs to
ideological politics. Consequently, the Rationalist is a dangerous
and expensive character to have in control of affairs, and he does
most damage, not when he fails to master the situation (his
politics, of course, are always in terms of mastering situations and
surmounting crises), but when he appears to be successful; for the
price we pay for each of his apparent successes is a firmer hold of
the intellectual fashion of Rationalism upon the whole life of
society.
Without alarming ourselves with imaginary evils, it may, I think, be
said that there are two characteristics, in particular, of political
Rationalism which make it exceptionally dangerous to a society. No
sensible man will worry greatly because he cannot at once hit upon a
cure for what he believes to be a crippling complaint; but if he
sees the complaint to be of a kind which the passage of time must
make more rather than less severe, he will have a more substantial
cause for anxiety. And this unfortunately appears to be so with the
disease of Rationalism.
First, Rationalism in politics, as I have interpreted it, involves
identifiable error, a misconception with regard to the nature of
human knowledge, which amounts to a corruption of the mind. And
consequently it is without the power to correct its own
shortcomings; it has no homeopathic quality; you cannot escape its
errors by becoming more sincerely or more profoundly rationalistic.
This, it may be observed, is one of the penalties of living by the
book; it leads not only to specific mistakes, but it also dries up
the mind itself: living by precept in the end generates intellectual
dishonesty. And further, the Rationalist has rejected in advance the
only external inspiration capable of correcting his error; he does
not merely neglect the kind of knowledge which would save him, he
begins by destroying it. First he turns out the light and then
complains that he cannot see, that he is 'comme un homme qui marche
seul et dans les tenebres In short, the Rationalist is essentially
ineducable: and he could be educated out of his Rationalism only by
an inspiration which he regards as the great enemy of mankind. All
the Rationalist can do when left to himself is to replace one
rationalist project in which he has failed by another in which he
hopes to succeed. Indeed, this is what contemporary politics are
fast degenerating into: the political habit and tradition, which,
not long ago, was the common possession of even extreme opponents in
English politics, has been replaced by merely a common rationalist
disposition of mind.
But, secondly, a society which has embraced a rationalist idiom Of
politics will soon find itself either being steered or drifting
towards an exclusively rationalist form of education. I do not mean
the crude purpose of National Socialism or Communism of allowing "O
education except a training in the dominant rationalist doctrine, I
mean the more plausible project of offering no place to any form of
education which is not generally rationalistic in character. [36]
And when an exclusively rationalist form of education is fully
established, the only hope of deliverance lies in the discovery by
some neglected pedant, 'rummaging among old parchments and musty
records', of what the world was like before the millennium overtook
it.
From the earliest days of his emergence, the Rationalist has taken
an ominous interest in education. He has a respect for 'brains', a
great belief in training them, and is determined that cleverness
shall be encouraged and shall receive its reward of power. But what
is this education in which the Rationalist believes? It is certainly
not an initiation into the moral and intellectual habits and
achievements of his society, an entry into the partnership between
present and past, a sharing of concrete knowledge; for the
Rationalist, all this would be an education in nescience, both
valueless and mischievous. It is a training in technique, a
training, that is, in the half of knowledge which can be learnt from
books when they are used as cribs. And the Rationalist's affected
interest in education escapes the suspicion of being a mere
subterfuge for imposing himself more firmly on society, only because
it is clear that he is as deluded as his pupils. He sincerely
believes that a training in technical knowledge is the only
education worth while, because he is moved by the faith that there
is no knowledge, in the proper sense, except technical knowledge. He
believes that a training in 'public administration' is the surest
defence against the flattery of a demagogue and the lies of a
dictator.
Now, in a society already largely rationalist in disposition, there
will be a positive demand for training of this sort. Half-knowledge
(SO long as it is the technical half) will have an economic value;
there will be a market for the 'trained' mind which has at its
disposal the latest devices. And it is only to be expected that this
demand will be satisfied; books of the appropriate sort will be
written and sold in large quantities, and institutions offering a
training of this kind (either generally or in respect of a
particular activity) will spring up. [37] And so far as our society
is concerned, it is now long since the exploitation of this demand
began in earnest; it was already to be observed in the early
nineteenth century. But it is not very important that people should
learn the piano or how to manage a farm by a correspondence course;
and in any case it is unavoidable in the circumstances. What is
important, however, is that the rationalist inspiration has now
invaded and has begun to corrupt the genuine educational provisions
and institutions of our society: some of the ways and means by
which, hitherto, a genuine (as distinct from a merely technical]
knowledge has been imparted have already disappeared, others are
obsolescent, and others again are in process of being corrupted from
the inside. The whole pressure of the circumstances of our time is
in this direction. Apprenticeship, the pupil working alongside the
master who in teaching a technique also imparts the sort of
knowledge that cannot be taught, has not yet disappeared; but it is
obsolescent, and its place is being taken by technical schools whose
training (because it can be a training only in technique) remains
insoluble until it is immersed in the acid of practice. Again,
professional education is coming more and more to be regarded as the
acquisition of a technique,[38] something that can be done through
the post, with the result that we may look forward to a time when
the professions will be stocked with clever men, but men whose skill
is limited and who have never had a proper opportunity of learning
the nuances which compose the tradition and standard of behaviour
which belong to a great profession. [39]. One of the ways in which
this sort of knowledge has hitherto been preserved (because it is a
great human achievement, and if it is not positively preserved it
will be lost) and transmitted is a family tradition. But the
Rationalist never understands that it takes about two generations of
practice to learn a profession; indeed, he does everything he can to
destroy the possibility of such an education, believing it to be
mischievous.
Like a man whose only language is Esperanto, he has no means of
knowing that the world did not begin in the twentieth century. And
the priceless treasure of great professional traditions is, not
negligently but purposefully, destroyed in the destruction of
so-called vested interests.
But perhaps the most serious rationalist attack upon education is
that directed against the Universities. The demand for technicians
is now so great that the existing institutions for training them
have become insufficient, and the Universities are in process of
being procured to satisfy the demand. The ominous phrase,
'university trained men and women', is establishing itself, and not
only in the vocabulary of the Ministry of Education.
To an opponent of Rationalism these are local, though not
negligible, defeats, and, taken separately, the loss incurred in
each may not be irreparable. At least an institution like a
University has a positive power of defending itself, if it will use
it. But there is a victory which the Rationalist has already won on
another front from which recovery will be more difficult because,
while the Rationalist knows it to be a victory, his opponent hardly
recognizes it as a defeat. I mean the circumvention and
appropriation by the rationalist disposition of mind of the whole
field of morality and moral education. The morality of the
Rationalist is the morality of the self-conscious pursuit of moral
ideals, and the appropriate form of moral education is by precept,
by the presentation and explanation of moral principles. This is
presented as a higher morality (the morality of the free man: there
is no end to the clap-trap) than that of habit, the unselfconscious
following of a tradition of moral behaviour; but, in fact, it is
merely morality reduced to a technique, to be acquired by training
in an ideology rather than an education in behaviour. In morality,
as in everything else, the Rationalist aims to begin by getting rid
of inherited nescience and then to fill the blank nothingness of an
open mind with the items of certain knowledge which he abstracts
from his personal experience, and which he believes to be approved
by the common 'reason' of mankind. [40]
He will defend these principles by argument, and they will compose a
coherent [though morally parsimonious) doctrine. But, unavoidably,
the conduct of life, for him, is a jerky, discontinuous affair, the
solution of a stream of problems, the mastery of a succession of
crises. Like the politics of the Rationalist (from which, of course,
it is inseparable), the morality of the Rationalist is the morality
of the self-made man and of the self-made society: it is what other
peoples have recognized as 'idolatry'. And it is of no consequence
that the moral ideology which inspires him today (and which, if he
is a politician, he preaches] is, in fact, the desiccated relic of
what was once the unselfconscious moral tradition of an aristocracy
who, ignorant of ideals, had acquired a habit of behaviour in
relation to one another and had handed it on in a true moral
education. For the Rationalist, all that matters is that he has at
last separated the ore of the ideal from the dress of the habit of
behaviour; and, for us, the deplorable consequences of his success.
Moral ideals are a sediment; they have significance only so long as
they are suspended in a religious or social tradition, so long as
they belong to a religious or a social life. [41] The predicament of
our time is that the Rationalists have been at work so long on their
project of drawing off the liquid in which our moral ideals were
suspended (and pouring it away as worthless) that we are left only
with the dry and gritty residue which chokes us as we try to take it
down. First, we do our best to destroy parental authority [because
of its alleged abuse], then we sentimentally deplore the scarcity of
'good homes', and we end by creating substitutes which complete the
work of destruction.
And it is for this reason that, among much else that is corrupt and
unhealthy, we have the spectacle of a set of sanctimonious,
rationalist politicians, preaching an ideology of unselfishness and
social service to a population in which they and their predecessors
have done their best to destroy the only living root of moral
behaviour; and opposed by another set of politicians dabbling with
the project of converting us from Rationalism under the inspiration
of a fresh rationalization of our political tradition.
NOTES
1. A faithful account of the politics of rationalism (with all its
confusions and ambivalences) is to be found in H.J. Blackham.
Political Discipline in a Free Society.
2. Cf. Plato. Republic. 501A. The idea that you can get rid of a law
by burning it is characteristic of the Rationalist. who can think of
a law only as something written down.
3. G. Polya. How to Solve It.
4. Some excellent observations on this topic are to be found in M.
Polanyi. Science. Faith and Society.
5. Polya. for example. in spite of the fact that his book is
concerned with heuristic. suggests that the root renditions of
success in scientific research are, first, 'to have brains and good
luck`, and secondly, 'to sit tight and wait till you get a bright
idea', neither of which are technical rules.
6. Thucydides puts an appreciation of this truth into the mouth of
Pericles. To be a politician and to refuse the guidance of technical
knowledge is. for Pericles. a piece of folly. And yet the main theme
of the Funeral Oration is not the value of technique in politics,
but the value of practical and traditional knowledge. ii, 40.
7. Duke Huan of Ch`i was reading a book at the upper end of the
hall: the wheelwright was making a wheel at the lower end. Putting
aside his mallet and chisel, he called to the Duke and asked him
what book he was reading. 'One that records the words of the Sages.'
answered the Duke. 'Are those Sages alive?` asked the wheelwright.
'Oh, no.` said the Duke. 'they are dead. ''In that case.` said the
wheelwright. 'what you are reading can be nothing but the lees and
scum of bygone men. `'How dare you, a wheelwright, find fault with
the book I am reading. IT you can explain your statement. I will let
it pass. IT not, you shall die. 'Speaking as a wheelwright.' he
replied.' l look at the matter in this way: when I am making a
wheel, if my stroke is too slow, then it bites deep but is not
steady: if my stroke is too fast, then it is steady. but it does not
go deep. The right pace, neither slow nor fast. cannot get into the
hand unless it comes from the heart. It is a thing that cannot be
put into words [rules]: there is an art in it that I cannot explain
to my son. That is why it is impossible for me to let him take over
my work, and here I am at the age of seventy still making wheels. In
my opinion it must have been the same with the men of old. All that
was worth handing on. died with them: the rest, they put in their
books. That is why I said that what you were reading was the lees
and scum of bygone men.' Chuang Tzu.
8. St. Francois de Sales was a devout man, but when he writes it is
about the technique of piety.
9. Bacon. Novum Organum (Fowler). p. 157.
10. Ibid. p. 184.
11. Ibid. p. 182
12. Ibid. p. 157.
13. Ibid. p. 295.
14. Ibid. p. 168.
15. Ibid. p. 168.
16. lbid. p. 182
17. lbid. p. 162
18. lbid. p. 233
19. lbid. p. 331
20. lbid. p. 295·
21. Discours de la Methode, ii.
22. lbid. vi.
23. Histoire de la philosophie cartesienne, i. 486
24. One important aspect of the history of the emergence of
Rationalism is the changing connotation of the word 'reason`. The
'reason' to which the Rationalist appeals is not, for example, the
Reason of Hooker. which belongs still to the tradition of Stoicism
and of Aquinas. It is a faculty of calculation by which men conclude
one thing from another and discover fit means of attaining given
ends not themselves subject to the criticism of reason, a faculty by
which a world believed to be a machine could be disclosed. Much of
the plausibility of Rationalism lies in the tacit attribution to the
new reason` of the qualities which belong properly to the Reason of
the older intellectual tradition. And this ambiguity, the emergence
of the new connotation out of the old, may be observed in many of
the writers of the early seventeenth century--in. for example, the
poetry of Malherbe, an older contemporary of Descartes. and one of
the great progenitors of the sovereignty of technique in literature
25. This was certainly true of the age of Bacon. And Professor
Bernal now tells us that more has been found out at large and in
detail about nature and man in the thirty years after 1915 than in
the whole of history.
26. Not so very long ago. I suppose. the spectators at horse-races
were mostly men and women who knew something at first-hand about
horses, and who (in this respect) were genuinely educated people.
This has ceased to be so, except perhaps in Ireland. And the
ignorant spectator. with no ability, inclination or opportunity to
educate himself, and seeking a short-cut out of his predicament,
demands a book. (The twentieth century vogue in cookery books
derives, no doubt, from a similar situation.) The authors of one
such book. A Guide to the Classics, or how to pick the Derby winner,
aware of the difference between technical and complete knowledge.
were at pains to point out that there was a limit beyond which there
were no precise rules for picking the winner, and that some
intelligence (not supplied by the rules themselves) was necessary
But some of its greedy, rationalistic readers, on the look-out for
an infallible method, which (like Bacon`s) would place their small
wits on a level with men of genuine education, thought they had been
sold a pup--which only goes to show how much better they would have
spent their time if they had read St. Augustine or Hegel instead of
Descartes: je ne puis pardonner a Descartes. [A Guide to the
Classics. or how to pick the Derby winner was co-authored by
Oakeshott and Guy Griffith. It was first published in 1936 by Faber
& Faber. It was reissued in a revised edition in 1947 under the
title A New Guide to the Derby. How to pick the winner. --T.F.]
27. Pensees (Brunschvicg). i. 76.
28 A tentative. and therefore not a fundamentally damaging,
conversion of this sort was attempted by the first Lord Halifax.
29. A poetic image of the politics of Rationalism is to be found in
Rex Warner`s book. The Aerodrome.
30. By casting his technique in the form of a view of the course of
events (past. present and future), and not of human nature'. Marx
thought he had escaped from Rationalism: but since he had taken the
precaution of first turning the course of events into a doctrine,
the escape was an illusion. Like Midas. the Rationalist is always in
the unfortunate position of not being able to touch anything,
without transforming it into an abstraction: he can never get a
square meal of experience.
31. There is no spare here to elucidate the exceedingly complicated
connections between the Politics of 'reason' and the politics of
nature But it may be observed that, since both reason and nature
were opposed to civilization. they began with a common ground: and
the 'rational` man. the man freed from the idols and prejudices of a
tradition, could, alternatively, be called the. natural. man. Modern
Rationalism and modern Naturalism in politics, in religion and in
education, are alike expressions of a general presumption against
all human achievement more than about a generation old.
32. Of course both .violence and 'accidental circumstances' were
there, but being present in an unfamiliar form they were
unrecognized.
33. War, for example. War is a disease to which a rationalist
society has little resistance; it springs easily from the kind of
incompetence inherent in rationalist politics. But it has certainly
increased the hold of the Rationalist disposition of mind on
politics, and one of the disasters of war has been the new customary
application to politics of its essentially rationalist vocabulary.
34. A celebrated scientist tells us: '1 am less interested than the
average person in politics because 1 am convinced that all political
principles today are makeshifts, and will ultimately be replaced by
principles of scientific knowledge.
35. There is a reminiscence here of a passage in Henry James. whose
study of Mrs. Headway in The Siege of London is the best I know of a
person in this position.
36. Something of this sort happened in France after the Revolution:
but it was not long before Sanity began to break In.
37. Some people regard this as the inevitable result of an
industrial civilization, but I think they have hit upon the wrong
culprit. What an industrial civilization needs is genuine skill: and
in so far as our industrial civilization has decided to dispense
with skill and to get along with merely technical knowledge It is an
industrial civilization gone to the bad.
38. Cf. James Boswell. The Artists Dilemma.
39. The army in wartime was a particularly good opportunity of
observing the difference between a trained and an educated man: the
intelligent civilian had little difficulty in acquiring the
technique of military leadership and command, but (in spite of the
cribs provided: Advice to Young Officers. etc.) he always remained
at a disadvantage beside the regular officer, the man educated in
the feelings and emotions as well as the practices of his
profession.
40. Of this, and other excesses of Rationalism. Descartes himself
was not guilty. Discours de la Methode. iii.
41. When Confucius visited Lao Tzu he talked of goodness and duty.
`Chaff from the winnower's fan.' said Lao Tzu. 'can so blear the
eyes that we do not know if we are looking north, South. east or
west: at heaven or at earth... All this talk of goodness and duty,
these Perpetual pin-pricks, unnerve and irritate the hearer:
nothing. indeed. could be more destructive of inner tranquillity.'
Chuang Tzu.
jum...@my-deja.com
http://dewey.rug.ac.be/CAMERspace/Camera/envEduc.html
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Art and Literature in Environmental Education: two research projects
SUMMARY
This paper deals with environmental education from the perspective
of literature teaching. We discuss two research projects, one
focusing on descriptions, interpretations and evaluations of
landscape paintings, and the other on the concept of 'nature' in
Robinson Crusoe, a prototypical example of modern European
literature. In both cases, the teaching materials were developed,
implemented and evaluated through feedback (action research) in
teacher training (pre-service and in-service). The article seeks to
illustrate the importance of art and literature for developing
environmental literacy and awareness.
Introduction
Within the global framework of the E.E.I.T.E-project (Environmental
Education in Initial Teacher Education in Europe), the Teacher
Training Department of the University of Ghent developed two
research projects to stimulate environmental education in literature
and arts education.1 In our view, these initiatives show that
humanities education can and should play a significant role in the
formation of environmentally conscious citizens.
A theoretical argument sustaining this belief can be found in the
concept of `environmental literacy'. Coined by Charles E. Roth as
early as 1968, the term implies that environmental education goes
beyond the pure knowledge of `hard', `scientific' facts. Roth argues
that whereas scientific literacy appears to be built on a
mechanistic paradigm, environmental literacy builds on an ecological
paradigm. It involves the integration, rather than the separation,
of knowledge, skills, affect and behaviour, and is inherently
interdisciplinary in kind (Roth 1992).
In public debate, the `environmental crisis' is indeed perceived as
a totality resulting from a `way of life' (industrialism,
consumerism) and requiring a new global attitude of man towards
nature. Education should not avoid this philosophical approach, but
rather welcome it as both a complement and a correction to science
and technology. As recent constructivist theory has pointed out, the
latter, too, can be described as historically dynamic constructions
that draw on global values and attitudes towards nature.
Literature and art are two excellent vehicles for interdisciplinary
education: through them, powerful and rich themes, motifs, heroes
etc. become the center of knowledge networks that extend to several
disciplines. Art works and literary texts, but also films, images on
TV, etc. play an important role in moral change and progress. The
recognition of this powerful influence was advocated by the
philosopher Richard Rorty as `a turn against theory and towards
narrative' (Rorty 1989).
Following Oakeshott (1975: 78-79), Rorty considers morality to be a
kind of literacy: "A morality is neither a system of general
principles nor a code of rules, but a vernacular language. (…) It is
not a device for formulating judgements about conduct or for solving
so-called moral problems, but a practice in terms of which to think,
to choose, to act, and to utter." Linguistic and literary items,
such as vocabulary, description and metaphor, are considered to be
building blocks of our consciousness, and hence of our moral
behaviour. As a consequence, cultural mediators like artists,
critics, teachers etc. are regaining the importance they seemed to
have lost in the face of universal truth-claims made by the natural
sciences.
Landscape in art
In 1990, we mounted an action-oriented project on "the landscape in
art". Since then, teaching materials have been developed,
implemented, evaluated and corrected through action research, i.e.
"the study of a social situation with a view to improve the quality
of action within it" (Elliott 1991: 1). Teachers do research on
their own teaching, and select the problems they want to tackle. Our
main focus was on the painted landscape, but attention was also
given to landscapes in literature, photography, film,
advertisements, land-art etc., including both 'high' and 'popular'
art forms. By showing historical changes in the perception of
landscape from its first appearance in medieval paintings up to the
recent resurgence of the genre in for example genetic art,
`landscape' is revealed to be a mental and cultural construct
(Lemaire 1970, Bijvoet 1994). The research focus of the project is
on the discourse on art in education.
Comparing the ways in which pupils discuss art with those in which
critics, academics ('experts') and the painters themselves discuss
the same works, we try to confront the `innocent eye' of the pupil
with 'his master's eye' (Gombrich 1960). Specific attention is given
to ethical lines of reasoning about the environment, drawing from
imaginative identification processes on the one hand, and rhetoric
on the other. The lessons aim at studying the argumentative speech
act: this is a highly important skill to be mastered by pupils - as
future citizens participating in public debate within society - both
in a receptive way (to be able to recognize kinds of arguments) and
in a productive way (to be able to use different kinds of
arguments).
To enhance the teacher's capacity for stimulating pupils' discourse,
all class interaction is recorded on audio- and/or video-cassettes,
transcribed and analyzed. This enables teachers to reflect on their
classroom practice, and improve their own discursive techniques: how
should the teacher, for instance, ask questions? Or what kind of
uptake is most appropriate to a given response? Because of
curricular restrictions, the suggested teaching materials have not
always been easy to implement. In the following, we give an example
of a lesson that caused no such problem because it complied with the
linear historical approach imposed by the curriculum. The subject
was 19th-century landscape painting.
In a first phase, we presented three paintings to three groups of
pupils: 'Landscape with Mont Sainte-Victoire' by Cézanne, 'Evening
in Honfleur' by Seurat, and 'Hay-stack in winter' by Monet. The
groups all received the same assignment: (1) "give an objective
description of what you see, regarding both content and form"; (2)
"give a subjective description of (give your opinion on) what you
see, regarding both content and form". An inventory was made of the
responses - often these implied a comment on the landscape genre as
a whole - and pupils' discourses were observed and partially
transcribed. In the next lesson, our intention was to enhance
pupils' consciousness of their `natural' way of watching by
confronting it with other perceptions (by other pupils, but also by
`experts' from other knowledge communities).
What did we learn on the pupils' attitude towards `landscape'?
Significant responses were noted with respect to 'Hay-stack in
winter'. Pupils frequently described this painting as trivial: a
hay-stack is not `worthy' of being painted; the style is `clumsy',
'uninteresting' etc. Critical comments on the painting interestingly
matched the amazement of 19th-century art critics: what possesses
those impressionists to depict these subjects in this way? Why
precisely the landscape?
The challenge for the teachers was to think of appropriate answers
(uptake) to these comments and questions. It proved important to be
well informed on the societal background of art. The overall
attention to landscape in the 19th century - for example the need to
paint outdoors - reveals a global attitude towards nature: the
industrial exploitation of nature created the need for another, more
aesthetic look upon nature.
Thus, the transcriptions helped us gain a better insight into how
art (in this case: landscapes) can be dealt with in class, how such
subject content can be turned into "pedagogic subject content"
(McNamara 1991: 118). As already mentioned, (research on) class
interaction in relation to landscape paintings can be extended to
(research on) a discussion of nature in other paintings and in other
artistic disciplines, or in society as a whole. Reaching this kind
of extension was the main goal of our second project, which started
off from a literary perspective.
Robinson Crusoe and nature
In a project on the teaching of European literature, we focused on
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. This classic novel forms a rewarding
subject because, due to all kinds of youth adaptations, it already
belongs to the life-world of young children well before it is
discussed in the literature class. Again, it was our intention to
make pupils' knowledge find its way into classroom interaction, to
record and transcribe the interaction, and to subject it to action
research. The teachers-as-researchers were asked to focus on uptake,
that is, the means by which they were to validate pupils' knowledge,
eventually bringing it onto `higher grounds' (Bruner 1986).
Retracing (part of) the intertextual history of Robinson Crusoe, we
found that the novel has been amply referred to from several
intellectual perspectives. One of the continuous threads in that
intertextual and interdisciplinary web is the relation of people to
nature. As a Western myth, Robinson Crusoe has functioned as a
shared reference for the purpose of discussing environmental
attitudes. The challenge for us was to show pupils why this is so,
and eventually to restage public debate in the secondary classroom.
For each lesson on Robinson Crusoe, we planned the following three
phases: (1) a reconstruction of the original story through
teacher-pupil interaction; (2) the reading and discussion of a
passage; and (3) the study of a related work - that is, a novel,
film, critical comment etc. that is intertextually related to
Robinson Crusoe and thematically germane to the passage read in
class. It was this third and last phase that provided us with the
opportunity to go into the environmental topic via literature. In
the second phase, teachers would for instance read the following:
"How mercifully can our great Creator treat His creatures, even in
those conditions in which they seemed to be overwhelmed in
destruction! How can He sweeten the bitterest providences, and give
us cause to praise Him for dungeons and prisons! What a table was
here spread for me in a wilderness, where I saw nothing at first but
to perish for hunger!
It would have made a stoic smile, to have seen me and my little
family sit down to dinner. There was my majesty, the prince and lord
of the whole island; I had the lives of all my subjects at my
absolute command. I could hang, draw, give liberty, and take it
away; and no rebels among all my subjects.
Then to see how like a king I dined, too, all alone, attended by my
servants. Poll, as if he had been my favourite, was the only person
permitted to talk to me. My dog, who was now grown very old and
crazy, and had found no species to multiply his kind upon, sat
always at my right hand, and two cats, one on one side of the table,
and one on the other, expecting now and then a bit from my hand, as
a mark of special favour" (Defoe 1993: 189).
This passage, which is typical of Crusoe's dramatic and religiously
coloured self-description, can not only be read as one of the peaks
in the novel's plot, but also as highlighting a specific attitude of
Western people towards nature. Indeed, Robinson Crusoe has often
been interpreted as an allegory of homo economicus and/or homo
faber, people who - through rational thinking and hard labour, and
driven by personal profit - succeed in dominating nature and
transforming it into `culture'. Having gone through the evolutionary
stages of hunting and picking, agriculture and handicraft, Robinson
Crusoe feels like a king, or even like a god, in his `own' paradise
- his Garden of Eden.
After having been read and discussed, this passage was then
confronted with two 2Oth-century novels that also draw on the island
motif but convey a very different message from Robinson Crusoe 's.
In William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1954), a group of young boys
fails to establish civilization in the wilderness; instead, they
turn savage themselves, destroying each other as well as the nature
around them. The other novel, Michel Tournier's Vendredi, ou les
limbes du Pacifique (1967) is a rewrite of Robinson Crusoe :
Robinson's colonization of both the island and Friday is turned into
a parody, until the whole thing reaches an impasse and is turned
upside down: at the end of the novel Robinson follows Friday into a
mystical cult of the sun on what he calls `the other island'.
By confronting these texts with Defoe's, and with each other, we
tried to show pupils that stories, and particularly the values that
they embody, are related to the time in which they are composed.
Lord of the Flies was written shortly after the war; Vendredi, ou
les limbes du Pacifique was written in the sixties.
About the latter Hutton writes :
"Robinson's rejection of society, his opting-out, perhaps
appeals to a part of all of us. Although most of us choose to
remain in society, and although Vendredi seems to advocate a
way of life which is untenable in that society, the text
touches that part of us which dreams of opting out, of
'getting away from it all', and in so doing, points to the
deficiencies of a society which provokes such desires and
dreams in its members, a hi-tech society of ambition and greed
which has lost touch with the natural world, with
spirituality, and with magic" (Hutton 1992: 86).
How can teachers make their pupils aware of this relatively complex
type of knowledge without simply lecturing it? How can they guide
the discussion towards this insight, while eliciting as much
response as possible? The following transcription illustrates an
attempt at doing so in a 12th Grade class:
Teacher
Defoe seems to advocate the Western colonization of nature and of
other cultures. And Tournier? He shows us an aspect of the twentieth
century.
Pupil 1
He questions everything.
Teacher
What is paradise to him?
Pupil 2
The unknown.
Pupil 3
Wild nature.
Teacher
Why would he have changed the story that way?
Pupils / Teacher
Think about May `68. Which ideas ... ?
Pupil 4
Not listening to ...
Pupil 1
Freedom of thought.
Pupil 5
Preservation of nature.
Teacher
Yes. Remember also that the Green Parties have emanated from that
period. In other words, what I have tried to show is that our
perception of nature is determined ... by what? Is it an objective
datum?
Pupil 1
No.
Teacher
It changes according to ...?
Pupil 3
Time.
Teacher
Time and space. In other words, the perception of nature is a
construct. It is culturally, historically determined.
By way of transcriptions such as this, actual lessons on Robinson
Crusoe were reflected upon during in-service-training. For questions
and uptakes that were deemed problematic, alternatives were
suggested and, if possible, tried out. There was mutual feedback
between researchers presenting the materials and suggesting teaching
strategies from a theoretical perspective, and teachers commenting
on both method and content, and remedying themselves through
practice.
Restaging an environmental debate in the classroom
Classics such as Robinson Crusoe provide teachers with the
opportunity to give lively accounts of the existence and cultural
relativity of environmental values.2 A next possible step is to have
pupils actively discuss contemporary values. As is shown from a
recent philosophical debate on environmental ethics, this, too, can
be approached from a literary perspective. In a critical comment on
a plea for a new environmental ethics made by the Flemish
philosopher Etienne Vermeersch, his Dutch colleague Hans Achterhuis
has made the following use of literature:
"Is Lord of the Flies a kind of parable of our own human
history and the changing attitude towards nature? (...) Maybe
environmental destruction has more to do with the way modern
people interact than with the way they relate to nature. Maybe
the latter relation is, as in Golding's novel, determined by
social relations" (Achterhuis 1993: 60; our translation).
Modern concepts such as `environment' - as opposed to `nature' - and
`scarcity' cannot be seen objectively, Achterhuis continues, but
should be regarded as ideological constructs, putting people up
against each other and preventing real change from taking place.
In preparing a series of lessons on Lord of the Flies, we shall try
to restage this philosophical debate in new terms: if our goal is to
preserve the natural environment, do we need a new ethical attitude
towards nature, or do we need, in the first place, a more adequate
ethical attitude towards other human beings? Is it a question of bad
management or of a bad way of (social) life?
Of course, the debates are not intended to stick to such a high
level of abstraction - neither do they do so in actual public life -
but are meant to focus on concrete environmental issues, such as the
`environmental tax' on plastic bottles (currently a hot political
issue in Belgium). It is, however, important to point out that this
case essentially involves the same value problem; what is more
important: individual consumer rights or care for the common natural
environment?
The classroom debate will be prepared by reading and discussing a
passage from the novel. Interestingly, Lord of the Flies itself
contains passages dealing with the organization of public
(democratic) debate. Our contention is that, after having read such
a passage, pupils will both have acquired a sense of what it is to
feel responsible for an `island', and be better equipped to take
part in public debate.
Conclusion
For the purpose of enhancing environmental literacy of pupils,
environmental education should not be restricted to scientific
disciplines only, but also incorporate disciplines from the
humanities. Building on this 'humanistic' approach, we try to
emphasize the importance of stimulating public debate about
environmental issues in education. In a number of research projects,
we have introduced artistic and literary models as a basis for
discussing attitudes towards nature, and action research as a method
for teachers to reflect upon their own classroom practice.
Ronald Soetaert, Luc Top & Bart Eeckhout
University of Ghent, Belgium
1995
References
Achterhuis, Hans (1993), `Sociale ethiek of milieu-ethiek?' In G.A.
van der Wal & R.M. Hogendoorn (red.), Natuur of milieu. Filosofische
overwegingen bij milieu en beleid. Rotterdam: Universiteitsdrukkerij
Erasmus.
Bijvoet, Marga (1994), Art As Inquiry. Rotterdam:
Universiteitsdrukkerij Erasmus.
Bruner, J (1986), Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Defoe, Daniel (1993), Robinson Crusoe. 1719, repr. Wordsworth
Classics.
Elliott, John (1991), Action Research for Educational Change. Milton
Keynes: Open Univ. Press.
Golding, William (1954), Lord of the Flies. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Gombrich, E.H. (1960), Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology
of Pictorial Representation. London: Phaidon Press.
Hutton, M.A. (1992), Michel Tournier, Vendredi ou les Limbes du
Pacifque. (Glasgow Introductory to French Literature 15). University
of Glasgow: French and German Publications.
Lemaire, Ton (1970), Filosofie van het landschap. Baarn: Ambo.
McNamara, David (1991), 'Subject Knowledge and its Application:
problems and possibilities for teacher educators.' Journal of
Education for Teaching, Vol. 17, 2, 1991, p. 113-128.
Oakeshott, Michael (1975), Of Human Conduct. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. Rorty, R. (1989), Contingency, Irony, and
Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roth, Charles E. (1992). Environmental literacy: Its roots,
evolution, and directions in the 1990s. Columbus, Oh.: ERIC/CSMEE.
Tournier, Michel (1967), Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique. Paris:
Gallimard. Wignell, P., J.R. Martin & S. Eggins (1989), "The
Discourse of Geography, Ordering and Explaining the Experiential
World". Linguistics and Education (1989), 1, 4, p359-391.
References
1 The members of the research group are E. Van Alboom, A. Mottart,
N. Rowan, R. Soetaert, L. Top, G. Van Belle, K. Van Heule. Try-outs
were run in the Instituut van Gent (supervised by A. Mottart), the
Stedelijk Atheneum Gent (supervised by E. Van Alboom), the K.A. I
Gent (supervised by R. De Paepe).
2 As noted before, this approach is not necessarily restricted to
literature lessons. We are currently working on a series of
interdisciplinary lessons involving both geography and literature.
Geography can be understood as revealing a cultural (Western)
attitude towards nature, put down in `writing'. (cf Wignell, Martin
& Eggins 1989) As such, it can be approached from the perspective of
famous Western literary travellers, from Ulysses down to Roberto de
la Grive (the hero of Umberto Eco's latest novel L'isola del Giorno
prima, which also draws on Robinson Crusoe).
========================================================
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--------------------------------------------------------
Posthumous Oakeshott
FromUpstream List <upstre...@cycad.com>
DateWed, 02 Sep 1998 13:41:17 -0400
Reply-...@cycad.com
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9704/berkowitz.html
Title: Books in Review:
The Politics of Faith & the Politics of Scepticism
[IMG]
Books in Review
Copyright (c) 1997 First Things 72 (April 1997): 38-42.
The Styles of Modern Politics
The Politics of Faith & the Politics of Scepticism.
By Michael Oakeshott. Edited by Timothy Fuller.
Yale University Press. 139 pp. $25. Reviewed by Peter Berkowitz
In his Editor's Introduction, Timothy Fuller informs the reader that
those who were best acquainted with Michael Oakeshott and his
thought cannot explain why he did not see fit in his lifetime even
to make known the existence of this manuscript, which Fuller has
published under the title The Politics of Faith & the Politics of
Scepticism. It is appropriate to raise the question of the extent to
which this posthumously published book reflects Oakeshott's
considered opinions, but there is no need to be long detained by it.
Though it may have fallen short of Oakeshott's own standards, this
small book illuminates, as do few recent publications, the
fascinating and treacherous terrain of modern European political
thought. Indeed, its deft and gracefully learned exposition puts to
shame the steady stream of hot-off-the-press scholarship that has
flooded the field of academic political theory. To read this
unexpected new book by Oakeshott is to be reminded of the artistry
of the intellect and the dignity of the human mind.
Michael Oakeshott, who was born in 1901, was appointed in 1950 to
the Chair of Political Science at the London School of Economics. At
the time of his death in 1990 he was revered by thoughtful
conservatives in England as perhaps their leading philosophical
spokesman. Yet Oakeshott's work is still not very well known in
America, either among conservative intellectuals or among scholars
of political theory.
This is regrettable but understandable. As a thinker, Oakeshott's
first and overriding allegiance was neither to party nor school but
to clarity of thought. He not only defies easy classification but
devotes himself to exposing and criticizing the intellectual
propensity to force the complexities of moral and political life
into tidy conceptual categories. He was a political theorist who
constantly warned against the dangers of allowing theory to govern
practice. In politics he was a trimmer, but not because he thought
that the complexities of political life were incomprehensible. On
the contrary, through a kind of theoretical inquiry-really an
eclectic mix of conceptual analysis, history of ideas, and political
history-he sought to show that a deep "ambiguity and ambivalence"
were constitutive characteristics of our political life and
therefore could not be removed but instead must be negotiated or
navigated. In The Politics of Faith & the Politics of Scepticism
Oakeshott seeks to identify the sources of the ambiguity and
ambivalence inhering in the fund of ideas we have inherited from
modern European political thought about the proper task and scope of
government. He argues that at the dawn of modernity, owing to the
sudden and dramatic increase of power available for controlling
nature and manipulating man, the question "What shall government
do?" became fresh and urgent and open to distinctive answers. But
the range of answers was not limitless and the variety was not
devoid of pattern. Indeed, it is Oakeshott's contention that views
about what government ought to do with its newfound ability to
control and supervise swung between two charged poles or historical
and theoretical extremes, "two opposed styles of politics."
At one extreme, the politics of faith affirms that the chief purpose
of government is the perfection, or improvement of the material
condition, of mankind. This purpose is accomplished by the
imposition of a "comprehensive pattern of activity upon the
community." In the quest to perfect mankind or to put it on the one
right road to improvement, the politics of faith proclaims that
government and not some other agency or agents must play the
decisive role. This style of politics, according to Oakeshott,
receives its classic exposition in the writings of Francis Bacon and
is also manifest in seventeenth-century English puritan politics and
the eighteenth-century projects of the philosophes. It welcomes
power, ineluctably seeks to expand the scope of government, prefers
the common good to individual rights, and shows little patience for
dissent or opposition. The "faith" in the politics of faith, it must
be emphasized, is not faith in God (though it appears in religiously
driven versions), but faith in the capacity of government to bring
about the condition "preeminently proper to mankind" by the exercise
of minute control over an ever increasing range of human activities.
At the other extreme of modern political life lies the politics of
scepticism. What the politics of faith enthusiastically embraces as
grand opportunities for government to set things right, the politics
of scepticism condemns as dangerous threats to human freedom and
dignity. The politics of scepticism rejects the view that it is
government's task to improve or perfect humanity, sometimes because
the very idea of perfection is thought to be absurd, but
predominantly on the grounds that government is far too blunt an
instrument to use in the pursuit of something so complex and elusive
as perfection.
Instead, the politics of scepticism views the preservation of public
order as government's primary task. This style of politics Oakeshott
finds animating the writings of Hobbes and Pascal, Hume and
Montequieu, The Federalist and Burke. It is not against strong
government but in favor of strength narrowly channeled in the
pursuit of limited goals; it tends to respect precedent and the rule
of law as means for maintaining order in an orderly fashion; and,
for fear of what imperfect human beings may do with unchecked power,
it is inclined to accept with equanimity the cost on the capacity of
government to do even its limited business effectively that comes
from institutionalized checks and balances. The "scepticism" in the
politics of scepticism is not in the first place scepticism about
God or morality, but doubt-sometimes driven by strong faith and high
moral principle-about the capacity of government officials, human
like the rest of us, to wield power efficiently and justly.
Oakeshott points out that modern politics has always been
heterogeneous and complex in practice, and that the politics of
faith and the politics of scepticism are equally extremes that never
appear in pure form. But he is also at pains to point out that as
styles of governing they have not proved to be equally influential
or equally wise. The spirit animating the politics of faith breeds
the pathology Oakeshott elsewhere diagnoses as rationalism in
politics: the search, through the exercise of theoretical reason,
for universal solutions to the problems of politics and the
reduction of governing to the exercise of technique for the
manipulation and regulation of human conduct. Our century has
witnessed unspeakably virulent and savage strains of this disease in
the totalitarian nightmares of fascism and communism.
But grasping that twentieth-century totalitarianism is a monstrous
manifestation of the extreme represented by the politics of faith
does not justify a headlong flight into the arms of the opposite
extreme. While the politics of scepticism, in Oakeshott's view, has
the better argument, the deeper insight into human nature, and the
more urgent message for politics today, left to its own devices it
reveals itself as partial and even self-defeating. For in its focus
on formality as the means for maintaining public order, the politics
of scepticism sinks into a rigid, passive, and impervious condition
that prevents it from adapting to changing circumstances and
unexpected events. And in its concentration on tempering and
limiting government, the politics of scepticism sends an uninspiring
message that works to deprive it of citizens' enthusiasm and
allegiance.
In their pure form, both the politics of faith and the politics of
scepticism are incomplete, unstable, and in need of a tendency or
truth only the other can supply. The virtue of the politics of faith
is an energy and enthusiasm in government that comes from viewing
politics as the pursuit of a great cause. The virtue of the politics
of scepticism is a forebearance in governing that is rooted in
understanding that maintaining a basic public order is always "a
great and difficult achievement never beyond the reach of decay and
dissolution." What is needed now, Oakeshott's analysis suggests, is
a complex or mixed style of politics that somehow combines the
virtues of the politics of faith and the politics of scepticism
while avoiding their defects and extreme tendencies. Perhaps such a
style of politics would involve energy, enthusiasm, and a high sense
of purpose exercised in keeping government focused on the limited
tasks it is best suited to achieve.
In its scepticism about principle and its faith in practice,
Oakeshott's thought can resemble such fashionable contemporary
schools of thought as postmodernism and pragmatism, but it must not
be confused with either. For both postmodernism and pragmatism,
contrary to their official tenets, exhibit a deep antipathy to the
ambiguity and ambivalence in our political life that it was one of
Oakeshott's abiding preoccupations to bring into focus. The
postmodern mind reveals a virtually unshakable faith in its progress
beyond the alleged narrowness and delusions of all previous thought.
The pragmatist sees only the uses and none of the disadvantages of
converting all questions about the good into questions about what
works. Oakeshott's thinking-his impressive resistance of the
powerful temptation (to which his thought is not altogether immune)
to turn the distrust of doctrine into a doctrine-provides a bracing
antidote to the false comforts conferred by postmodern and
pragmatist pieties.
Commenting on Friedrich von Hayek's critique of socialism in The
Road to Serfdom, Oakeshott memorably observed that "a plan to resist
all planning may be better than its opposite, but it belongs to the
same style of politics." In the same spirit, it needs also to be
noted that a principle to resist all principles may be better than
its opposite, but it belongs to the same style of thinking about
moral and political life. Pursuit of the intimations in our
tradition points beyond tradition to the things intimated, and
exploration of the ambiguities and ambivalences in our practice
leads in the direction of the principles that underlie our politics.
It is the encounter with complexities such as these that, in reading
Oakeshott, gives one pause and pleasure, sparks the imagination, and
excites the desire to understand.
Peter Berkowitz teaches government at Harvard and is the author of
Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist. His new book, Virtue and the
Making of Modern Liberalism, is forthcoming from Princeton
University Press.
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Also see:
HUNGER and ETHICS | HUMAN RIGHTS and BASIC NEEDS | DEMOCRACY |
FAMINE and HUNGER | FOOD SECURITY | MASS MEDIA IN INDIA |
INDIAN POLITICS | PLANNING and DEVELOPMENT | POVERTY |
AGRICULTURE and LAND REFORMS | PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN INDIA
| CORRUPTION
llen & Unwin.
jum...@my-deja.com
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First Things
Work and Play
Michael Oakeshott
Copyright (c) 1995 First Things 54 (June/July 1995): 29-33.
Without pretending to be scientific about it, the world may be
imagined to be a vast collection of existences-things and
substances of various compositions and kinds-each of which is
what it is, and moves, changes, grows, or decays as it does by
reason of its relation to other things: things existing in
various ways by, and in some cases, at the expense of, or on,
other things. This image is sometimes called the Economy of
Nature, and it is sometimes said to have a "balance" or
equilibrium of needs and satisfactions.
Human beings are recognizably part of this economy of nature.
They are also what they are, and they move, change, grow,
flourish, or decay as they do by reason of their relation to
other things. Like the lion, the rosebush, or the iceberg, a
human being has needs such that, if they are not supplied by
his environment, he perishes.
Nevertheless, it has also been recognized that human beings
have some characteristics that, at least partly, distinguish
them from the other components of this natural world. The
chief of these characteristics is commonly denoted by the
Latin word sapiens, "intelligence." Homo sapiens: human beings
distinguished by something called intelligence.
What "intelligence" means here is the ability and the
propensity not merely to accept what the world happens to
offer in satisfaction of needs but to seek for what it does
not immediately offer, to adapt, to use, to appropriate, and
to invent: the propensity to choose and to determine for
ourselves what our relationship to the world shall be. And in
this process, needs are replaced by wants. Indeed, to be
"intelligent" means to be a creature not merely of needs that
must be satisfied, but of wants that are imagined, chosen, and
pursued. Needs are limited and are related to some notion of
bare existence. Wants are inexhaustible because they are
related to no fixed condition of things.
Human beings, then, are distinguished as creatures of wants.
It is as a creature of wants that a human being has acquired,
not only other characteristics that have been said to
distinguish him (his disposition to make things, to fabricate,
and his invention and use of tools), but also his peculiar
attitude toward the world around him: both positive and
intelligent.
This world-the whole of it, all its components without
exception-he is disposed to think of as material for
satisfying his wants. It is something to be used; it is
something upon which he may impose his own purposes. It is
something to be subjected to himself. It is almost an enemy to
be conquered, and having been conquered, to be exploited.
Now, it is not to be supposed that this attitude to the world
was acquired all at once. In bygone times there were
sacrosanct trees that might not be used for firewood and holy
animals that might not be slaughtered. And there are peoples
(in India, for example) who have been more hesitant than we
have been to acquire this view of the world, or (at any rate)
hesitant about letting it become a dominant attitude. The
ancient Romans, oddly enough, had a much more reverent
attitude toward at least the earth than did the ancient Greeks
(who regarded it much more as an enemy to be subdued). But by
and large, the human race has come more and more to take the
attitude that understands the world as material for satisfying
wants. Of course, human history has not been confined to this
enterprise of doing and making, of using the resources of the
world in order to achieve that sort of human happiness which
comes from satisfying its inexhaustible wants. Other
activities have been discovered that we shall come to later.
Moreover, there have always been some recognized limits to
this enterprise. What we call morality is, in part, a refusal
to take this attitude to other human beings, a refusal to
regard them (like the other components of the natural world)
simply as materials to be used.
But it can hardly be denied that the major part of human
energies have been devoted, from earliest times, to this
enterprise of using the resources of the world to satisfy our
inexhaustible wants, or of making out of the world something
that corresponds to our desires.
Some people have tended to think of this enterprise as mainly
or fundamentally a matter of physical exertion. But this is an
obvious mistake. It has been an enterprise of immense thought
and intelligence. In order to master the world and to use it
for the satisfaction of human wants, we have had to learn from
nature. And the knowledge that has made possible our current
mastery of the world, knowledge of the qualities of the
different components of the world and of their eligibility to
be used in satisfying our wants, has been accumulated over
thousands of years.
The inventiveness of human beings has devised new means for
exploiting the natural resources of the world-tools and
machines of all kinds; and materials have been contrived by
human beings out of combinations of natural materials in order
to satisfy new wants.
And all this knowledge and these skills have been handed down
from generation to generation in an appropriate sort of
education-an education in "useful knowledge," as we call
it-knowledge that enables us to use nature to satisfy our
wants.
Having moved from the realm of needs to the realm of wants,
from desiring to live to desiring to live well (that is,
better and better), and having acquired the uniquely human
propensity to attempt things that we did not know quite how to
achieve, we should not be surprised that the best energies
have been spent on this enterprise.
Every success, every want satisfied in this enterprise, must
be only a prelude to a new adventure. For how could this
process be halted? Only by ceasing to have wants or by having
wants that we choose not to satisfy. But many wants demand
recurrent satisfaction, and it would be almost a contradiction
to imagine refusing to give thought to how they might be
satisfied better or more easily. And while men have often
exercised choice, it has usually been a choice between which
of their wants they will seek a satisfaction for now and which
satisfactions shall for the moment be postponed. It is only
the odd and rare individual who has made a choice to have done
with wants-to turn back to needs.
It is not, then, surprising that this effort to achieve the
sort of happiness that is to be had from satisfying human
wants should have come to be regarded as "the great business
and occupation of life" (as an eighteenth-century writer put
it), and that it should have been given a name: "work."
"Work" is a continuous and toilsome activity, unavoidable in
creatures moved by wants, in which the natural world is made
to supply satisfaction for those wants. It is something from
which animals are exempt, except those who have the misfortune
to be harnessed to human enterprise, and it is something
unknown to a creature of mere needs. Indeed, "work" is so far
typical of the human species that it is reasonable to add it
to the epithets by which we distinguish it: Homo sapiens is
Homo laborans -a "worker."
The mastery of the human race over its natural environment has
not, of course, been a uniform process. There have been
periods of rapid advance, periods of relative stagnation, and
even periods when useful knowledge about the world has been
forgotten and skills have been lost. Wood, stone, and iron
each were used and experimented with for long periods before
even their simple uses were discerned.
We happen to live at a time when this process has been quite
remarkably accelerated. And we know enough to be able to see
the beginning of this acceleration about four centuries ago.
There began to emerge at that time two beliefs that have
gradually gained a firm hold upon us.
First, it came to be believed that "work" (this activity of
exploiting the natural resources of the world for the
satisfaction of human wants and the attitude towards the world
that went with it) was not only typical of mankind but was our
proper attitude and occupation. Indeed, it came to be believed
that this ought to be the exclusive attitude and engagement to
which all else should be subordinated.
This belief, that human activity ought to be directed towards
promoting what John Locke called "the advantages and
conveniences of life," and that the human mind ought to
concern itself exclusively with gathering together and putting
in order the sort of knowledge this enterprise demanded-useful
knowledge-is a moral belief, that is, it is a belief about how
we ought to spend our lives. And, as the normal way of
thinking about moral obligations was to understand them as the
commands of God, the first defense or justification of this
belief was an attempt to show that this is what God commanded.
One of the earliest arguments was biblical. God, it was said,
as recorded in the Book of Genesis, had given to mankind the
natural world and everything in it; he had imposed no
restriction whatever upon its exploitation for the
satisfaction of human wants; and he had commanded mankind to
use this gift. The natural world existed to serve human
purposes.
The sin of Adam modified this situation only to the extent
that, instead of all our wants being automatically answered by
nature, we were condemned to "work," to toil and pain, in
order to satisfy them. Thus the proper pattern of human life
was understood to spring from a divine gift, a divine command,
and a divine penalty.
Now, this moral belief began to be partnered, about four
centuries ago, by a second belief of a different sort-namely,
an immense optimism about the success of this enterprise of
compelling the natural world to satisfy human wants.
It was believed that if we only set about it in a really
determined manner, if we bent all our energies and
intelligence to it, if our efforts were unrelaxed, the human
race in a relatively short time would actually achieve,
perhaps finally achieve, the sort of happiness that is to be
had from the satisfaction of wants.
Wants might proliferate; indeed, they surely would. But if we
worked hard enough and intelligently enough, they would all be
certainly satisfied. An all-out, organized assault upon nature
would be followed by success. Idleness and inefficiency in
exploiting the resoures of the natural world were not only
sinful, they were also foolish.
This, perhaps, was the dream of a generation that was not only
full of energy and fascinated by an enterprise in which it
thought of itself as a pioneer, but whose imagination more
readily embraced satisfactions than the new wants those
satisfactions would generate. But it is the dream we have
inherited; this is the tide that carries us along. It informs
all our politics; it binds us to the necessity of a 4 percent
per annum increase in productivity; and it is a dream we have
spread about the world so that it has become the dream common
to all mankind.
Since the sixteenth century, when the dream first began to
take hold of European peoples, there have been some ups and
downs of confidence. The nineteenth century was, in some
respects, a notable period of depression and anxiety. What was
called the Law of Diminishing Returns indicated that the work
devoted to satisfying wants must become progressively less
effective; and Malthus announced the depressing but undeniable
truth that, if left to themselves, the number of those seeking
satisfactions for their wants must increase faster than the
supply of those satisfactions.
But these thoughts, which greatly depressed the Victorians,
have inspired us with fresh energy, and I suppose that at no
time in the history of the world has mankind been more
determined to devote itself to exploitation of nature for the
satisfaction of its wants, less dismayed at the proliferation
of wants to be satisfied, or more confident of success.
This enterprise, I have suggested, is as old as the human
race, as old as our emergence as creatures of wants rather
than of needs. What is comparatively new is the faith and
fervor with which it is pursued and the manner in which all
else tends to be regarded as subordinate to the happiness that
comes from the satisfaction of wants.
And yet there is something lacking in this happiness and
something unsatisfying to human beings in this satisfaction. A
creature composed entirely of wants, who understands the world
merely as the means of satisfying those wants and whose
satisfactions generate new wants endlessly, is a creature of
unavoidable anxieties. If he is temporarily successful he may
forget these anxieties; but he is in the position of a man who
has mortgaged his future in a huge hire-purchase debt. And
this has often been recognized, and not only during the last
four centuries of our history when it has become particularly
noticeable.
I do not mean merely the observation that this sort of
happiness entails work and that work, because it is painful,
is something less than wholly desirable. This has always been
recognized. In the biblical story "work" itself is recognized
as a defect, a punishment, a curse.
I mean something much more than this. I mean the recognition
that to be a creature of wants-of desires that cannot have
more than a temporary satisfaction because each satisfaction,
however easily achieved, leads only to new wants-is itself a
curse, a condemnation to a life in which every achievement is
also a frustration.
It is not only that everything that is produced in
satisfaction of a want rapidly perishes, or that many wants
demand recurrent satisfactions, but that the satisfaction of
every want generates a new want that in turn calls for
satisfaction. Doing, and the attitude to the world it entails,
is (as the hymn says) "a deadly thing." It is an activity of
getting and spending, of making and consuming, endlessly.
Now, it has always been recognized that the life of a creature
of wants is frustrating and unsatisfactory. And wherever this
sort of life has tended to become predominant-as in the modern
world-this recognition has become more acute.
Rousseau, for example, went back behind the biblical story and
imagined a condition in which mankind had not yet discovered
wants; it had only needs that the world satisfied easily and
for the asking, and that consequently did not generate the
attitude towards nature in which it is regarded as something
to be conquered and used. Rousseau knew well enough that
mankind could never return to this imaginary condition, but,
because the frustration of wants was absent from it, he
imagined it as a kind of Golden Age.
Further, many of the great religions (including Christianity)
have, among other things, offered believers relief from the
treadmill existence of the creature of wants in a very
different view of the world and of the proper human
activities. They have taught the happiness that comes from not
having wants.
But apart from all this, and in spite of the fact that "work"
and the satisfaction of wants has usually engaged the greater
part of the attention of mankind, there is another form of
activity, peculiar to human beings, that does not suffer from
the defects inherent in "work" and the satisfaction of wants:
"play."
The complete character of a human being does not come into
view unless we add Homo ludens, man the player, to Homo
sapiens, intelligent man, Homo faber, man the maker of things,
and Homo laborans, man the worker. I have used the word
"work" in a wide sense, to stand for the activity of
satisfying wants in a world like ours that can be made to
satisfy wants but does not do so automatically. I shall also
use the word "play" in a wide sense, to stand for an activity
that, because it is not directed to the satisfaction of wants,
entails an attitude to the world that is not concerned to use
it, to get something out of it, or to make something of it,
and offers satisfactions that are not at the same time
frustrations. This, indeed, is what we usually mean by
"play." A game may, of course, be a contest for a prize, but
this is always regarded as incidental. In its proper character
a game is an experience of enjoyment that has no ulterior
purpose, no further result aimed at, and begins and ends in
itself. It is not a striving after what one has not got and it
is not an assault upon nature to yield the satisfaction of a
want.
Moreover, it is on account of these characteristics (which we
emphasize when we say: "the game's the thing") that a game
appears as a "free" activity. It may have rules of its own,
and it may be played with energy and require effort, but it is
emancipated from the seriousness, the purposefulness, and the
alleged "importance" of "work" and the satisfaction of wants.
"Play," in short, stands for something that is neither "work"
nor "rest." It is an activity, but not an activity that seeks
the satisfaction of wants. For this reason, Aristotle called
it "non- laborious activity"-activity that nevertheless is not
"work." It is a "leisure" activity, not only because it
belongs to the occasions when we are set free (or set
ourselves free) from "work," but because it is performed in a
"leisurely" manner. A "leisurely" manner does not mean merely
"slowly"; it means, "without the anxieties and absence of
cessation that belong to the satisfaction of wants."
To try to understand and to explain the world, or any part or
aspect of it, obviously entails an attitude towards the world
that is not one in which it is regarded as material that can
be used to satisfy wants. The aim of work is to change the
world, to use it, to make something out of it; the aim of
explanation is to illuminate the world, to see it as it is.
The aim of work is to exert power over the hostile world, to
subdue it, and to extract from it what may be useful for
satisfying wants; the aim of understanding is to discern the
intelligibility of the world. The aim of work is to impress
some temporary human purpose upon some component of the world;
the aim of explanation is to reveal the world as it is and not
merely in respect of its potential to satisfy human wants.
It is, then, in the thoughts of philosophers, of scientists,
and of historians that the great explanatory adventures of
mankind are to be found. Philosophy, science, and history are
different adventures into this realm of understanding and
explanation. In pursuing any of them we are emancipated from
the whole attitude towards the world that looks upon it as
material for satisfying wants and from the anxieties that
belong to this attitude.
I have not forgotten that I said that using the world for the
satisfaction of wants is a mental activity and that it
requires thought and knowledge-knowledge of the different
qualities and characteristics of the components of the world.
What I want to suggest is that this knowledge should not be
confused with scientific knowledge, and that winning this sort
of knowledge is not to be confused with the scientific
enterprise of understanding and explaining.
Of course, the thoughts about the world that scientists have
had and the discoveries that they have made are often eligible
to be used for the exploitation of the resources of the world
for the satisfaction of human wants. But science itself is a
great intellectual adventure of understanding and explaining
that is free from the necessity of providing useful knowledge.
What we have here are two entirely different attitudes towards
the world: the one concerned with truth and error, the other
with what is useful or useless; the one concerned to
understand the world and the other concerned to discover how
the world works in order to make use of it.
Philosophy, science, and history are, then, activities that
belong not to "work" but to "play." In pursuing them or in
reading the thoughts of those who pursue them we are not,
strictly speaking, "working" but "playing." The activity of
the poetic imagination is perhaps even more securely insulated
from any liability of being confused with the satisfaction of
wants than these explanatory activities. It is also less
likely to be corrupted by it.
The practical imagination of the statesman or of people in
business that sees what use the world can be put to, and that
foresees the condition of things that will appear when they
have imposed what they imagined upon the world, cannot be
confused with the poetic imagination.
The practical is a dream to be followed by an effort to make
it come true; the poetic is a dream enjoyed for its own sake.
The world for the poet is not material to be used for
satisfying wants, it is something to be contemplated. Poets
allow the world to form itself around them without any urge to
make it different from what it is. Poetic imagination is not a
preliminary to doing something, it is an end in itself. It is
not "work." It is "play."
To the ancient Greeks, who thought about these things, this
seemed to be much more clearly the case with what they called
the "musical arts," the arts of poetry, dancing, music, and
acting. They therefore distinguished these (which belonged to
the Muses) from other arts-the arts like sculpture and
painting that seemed to them to have so great an element of
using the materials of the world that they qualified to be
understood as crafts rather than arts and that were given not
to the Muses but to a god of "work." But I think we have risen
above this distinction and can recognize in the activity of
the painter and the sculptor, no less than in that of the poet
and the dancer, the emancipation from the "deadliness of
doing" that distinguishes art from "work."
My main point has been to suggest that, apart from "work," the
activity of using the world to satisfy human wants, mankind
has devised or stumbled upon other activities and attitudes
towards the world, the activities I have grouped together as
"play." It is in these activities that human beings have
believed themselves to enjoy a freedom and an illumination
that the satisfaction of wants can never supply. It is not
Homo sapiens and Homo laborans, the clever users of the
resources of the world, but Homo ludens, the one engaged in
the activities of "play," who is the civilized one.
The gifts these activities offer us are easily recognizable.
But the activities themselves are vulnerable and easily
corrupted. Our way of living has generated an enormous
pressure not merely to make the satisfaction of wants the
center of our attention but to subordinate all other
activities to it. This way lies corruption of "play."
Instead of regarding "work" and "play" as two great and
diverse experiences of the world, each offering us what the
other lacks, we are often encouraged to regard all that I have
called "play" either as a holiday designed to make us "work"
better when it is over or merely as "work" of another sort.
In the first of these attitudes the real gifts of art and
poetry and of all the great explanatory adventures are lost.
They become mere "recreation"-"relaxation" from the proper
business of life. In the second attitude, these gifts are
corrupted: philosophy, science, history, poetry are merely
recognized for the useful knowledge they may happen to supply
and are thus assimilated into the so-called great business of
human life-satisfying human wants.
The point at which this corruption is most likely to appear,
and where it is most dangerous when it does appear, is in
education. In these days when the satisfaction of human wants
is taken to be the only important activity, those who devise
our systems of education are apt to find a place for all that
I have called "play" only if they can regard it as "work" of
another sort. In this situation, generations may be deprived
of that acquaintance with the activities of Homo ludens that
was once thought to be the better part of education.
But, as it happens, we have a defense against this barbarity,
an old way of thinking about these things that has not quite
gone out of fashion. The word "school" we are apt to associate
with "work," and often with acquiring the sort of useful
knowledge and skill without which the "work" of satisfying
wants is ineffective. But the word itself means exactly the
opposite. It comes from a Greek word skole, which means
"leisure" or "free time." A school was understood to be a
place where one was introduced to those activities and
attitudes towards the world that were not concerned with
satisfying wants, where one was introduced to those activities
of explanation and imagination that were "free" because they
were pursued for their own sake and were emancipated from the
limitations and anxieties of "work."
This way of thinking about education reappeared among the
Romans in the expression liberalia studia, "liberal studies"
or studies liberated from the concerns of practical doing,
studies concerned with all the activities that belong to
"play." There must, to be sure, be a place for learning how to
use the resources of the world for the satisfaction of human
wants. But we are fortunate if we are not encouraged to
confuse the two quite different experiences of the world. And
if we are allowed to pursue our "liberal" studies undistracted
by what does not belong to them, we may thank the survival of
an ancient tradition of education for our good fortune.
Michael Oakeshott, the distinguished political philosopher who
died in 1990, taught at the London School of Economics from
1951 to 1968. His most famous book is Rationalism in Politics
(1962). This previously unpublished article is printed with
permission of William Letwin and the estate of Michael
Oakeshott.
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Brookhaven College Center for the Arts
Forum Gallery
Anitra Blayton
March 5 - 28, 1996
The Work of Anitra Blayton: Sites of Conversation
Curator's Essay
David Newman, Gallery Director
il n'y a pas de hors-texte
Jacques Derrida 1
To speak is to make words common, to create commonplaces.
Emmanuel Lévinas2
As civilized human beings, we are the inheritors, neither of
an inquiry about ourselves and the world, nor of an
accumulating body of information, but of a conversation,
begun in the primeval forests and extended and made more
articulate in the course of centuries. It is a conversation
which goes on both in public and within each of ourselves. Of
course there is argument and inquiry and information, but
wherever these are profitable they are to be recognized as
passages in this conversation, and perhaps they are not the
most captivating of passages.... Conversation is not an
enterprise designed to yield an extrinsic profit, a contest
where the winner gets a prize, nor it an activity of
exegesis: it is an unrehearsed intellectual adventure....
Education properly speaking, is an initiation into the skill
and partnership of this conversation in which we learn to
recognize the voices, to distinguish the proper occasion of
utterance, and in which we acquire the intellectual and moral
habits appropriate to conversation. And it is this
conversation which, in the end, gives place and character to
every human activity and utterance. Michael Oakeshott3
In this installation, Anitra Blayton presents the conditions of
presence, which are the conditions of the situation of the co-
presence presupposed in conversation. While it is always already the
function of artworks to open a discursive field, these works engage
the conditions of the field of discourse they open. In this, the
works in this installation are reflexive. As such, these works are
interventions both within the fields of signifying practices they
engage, and the lifeworld mediated by those fields of signification.
Colossus of Forum is a site-specific work consisting of seven texts
in vinyl stencil lettering applied in circles to the structural
columns running as a curved intermittent spine down the center of
the Forum Gallery. The texts consist of rhetorical commonplaces,
with words missing.
The problem with you _ _ _ _ _ people is you want everything
for nothing.
One out of five women can't _ _ _ _.
Kids who _ _ _ _ their moms make fewer mistakes.
There are those who would _ _ _ _ for the love of freedom.
Class guarantees _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and credentials
change _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.
To some children, an empty cardboard box is as good as _ _ _ _.
A _ _ _ _ _ man once saved my life.
Engaging the viewer to enter the conversation, to complete the
sentences, to fill in the blanks, the spacing dashes elicit a
delimited set of possible responses. To thus delimit response, by
language, by word length, by syntactical considerations, is to
display the interaction of parole and langue4 as a system of
differences. In responding within this system of differences, the
viewing subject completes the work by completing the sentence, a
completion which is an indexical mirror of the subject's mediation
of the lifeworld.
The seventeen circular mirrors of Still Living to Tell About It are
arrayed along the west wall of the gallery in ascending and
descending sequence of diameter, with the largest mirror at the
center. The diminution in scale of the mirrors at the ends of the
array implies a distancing at the periphery of the visual field,
while their sequential repetition opens a spatial metaphorization of
the temporality within which the viewer's reflection in the several
mirrors occurs: the Augenblick, the perduring Now of presence and
self-presence centered between the symmetrical recessions of
retention and protention. The mirror reflects the viewing subject,
doubling the subject's presence in a bending back of presence as
self-presence. As an instrument of duplication, the mirror is a site
of presentation and re-presentation: the re-presentation of viewing
self as the mirror image presupposes the presence of the viewing
subject, whose gaze is re-flected as the mirror image, and in
consequence the relation of viewing self to mirror is indexical. The
turning back of the gaze onto itself at the mirror's tain5--that
crease, as it were, at the surface of being--is the visual analogue
of the situation of the subject's entry into the symbolic order of
language, an entry to which reduplication is central. Thus Roman
Jakobson:
At the transition from babbling to verbal behavior, the
reduplication may even serve as a compulsory process, signalling
that the uttered sounds do not represent a babble, but a
senseful semantic entity. The patently linguistic essence of
such a duplication is quite explicable. In contradistinction to
the "wild sounds" of babbling exercises, the phonemes are to be
recognized, distinguishable, identifiable; and in accordance
with these requirements, they must be deliberately repeatable.6
This entry into the symbolic order Jacques Lacan terms the mirror
stage:
. . . the sight in the mirror of the ego ideal, of that being he
first saw appearing in the form of the parent holding him up
before the mirror. By clinging to the reference-point of him who
looks at him in a mirror, the subject sees appearing, not his
ego ideal, but his ideal ego, that point at which he desires to
gratify himself in himself.7
This look at looking is the look blinded by seeing itself looking:
la mirada ciega de mirarse mirar.8 This regard of the gaze as
involving its own blinding evokes the myth of Perseus and Medusa.
The gaze of Medusa held the power of transforming the living body to
stone, the power, as Craig Owens has noted, to create figures,
statues.9 Perseus' theft of this power entailed turning it back on
itself, using his shield as a mirror to reflect Medusa's deadly
gaze. Owens suggests that:
The myth's central episode is almost proto-photographic; it
seems to describe that split-second in which vision bends back
upon itself to produce its own imprint. Perseus inserts Medusa
into a closed system, a relation of identity between seer and
seen; the immediacy of this link makes the relationship of
Medusa with the image indexical (and not simply iconic). Thus
Medusa is transformed into an image, inserted into the order of
designation; henceforth she will serve primarily as the support
of a long chain of discursive and figural events,...10
The individual's entry into the symbolic order--the constitution of
the individual as a symbol-using being--is at once the constitution
of the reflexive self qua ego and the distinguishing of the self
from all alterities: the bifurcation of subject and Other. This
precondition of conversation is accomplished with some attendant
peril, as the myth of Perseus and Medusa suggests. Yet, the viewing
subject is stilling living to tell about it, indeed is a subject
able to tell about it only insofar as having accomplished this
precondition of conversation.
Colossus of Talk, with twelve polychromed steel barrels held at
various inclinations within a framework of steel tubing, has a sense
of movement belying its static mass. Its sense of animation, defying
gravity, is a product both of the implied swinging of the
barrels--"larrons o'toolers clittering up and tombles a'buckets
clottering down"11--and in the circular configuration of the whole
piece as having an implied rotation about the horizontal axis. The
title and the text associated with the piece by the artist reference
the childhood practice of joining cans with string to make a
'telephone', which the associated text presents as a myth of origin:
Once upon a time, various people in distant places wanted to
talk to one another. In the beginning, they were desperate, and
they shouted at one another across the cliff tops, the mountain
peaks, the fields and out of windows. Then, one day someone
connected the closed ends of the two cans together by a long
string. One person would talk into the open end of one can,
while the other listened through the other.
This reference is directly expressed in the piece by the ear and
mouth motifs represented as icons painted on the inside bottoms of
the barrels. Speaking into the circular opening of the barrels
produces a reverberation, the audile equivalent of the reflection of
the viewing self in Still Living to Tell About It; the barrel form
as locus of speech otherwise presented in Soap Box, Butt Warmer and
Peacock.
The structure of Colossus of Talk richly elicits other resonances.
The twelve barrels of Colossus of Talk and the circular structure of
the work evoke the progression of the zodiacal signs, and the
rotation of the heavens through the year, trope for the course of a
life and thus engaging the motif's association with the wheel of
fortune.12 The wheel of fortune has its quotidian manifestations in
the ferris wheel and the grue, mechanisms respectively of diversion
and gruesome toil.
The two-sided configuration of Weeping Marys, with its two
associated chairs, pile of file folders on the floor, and an oval
mirror and iron towel rack on an adjacent wall, embodies the duality
of conversation. One side of the structure is covered with gray
plastic laminate, a cool, efficient, office-like environment with a
contemporary plastic chair and stack of file folders; the other
side, older and of wood, more domestic in feeling with a chair
almost kneeling forward, with an oval mirror and iron towel rack on
the wall adjacent to the freestanding portion of the work. The text
provided by the artist13 for the piece, audible on the two
telephones in the freestanding portion of the work, is a narrative
relating a conversation in which the narrator was one of the
participants:
It was just another routine day at the office. People:
permanently disabled or dying. I picked up the phone and called
the claimant. After the third ring, I thought I might just call
again the next morning. (What was I doing there so late today
anyway?) Oh yeah. I had been taking longer lunches and my cases
were piling up. She answered but she seemed reticent to talk to
me and asked that I call another time. But what about her case?
I had to make her talk to me. Her condition really did not
appear severe but buried in the medical report, there it was, ".
. . patient weighs 90 pounds. She says she has lost 35 pounds in
only a few weeks." I had to keep her on the phone and convince
her to go back to the hospital to begin AZT. As I continued to
ask her questions, she began to talk to me more. The phone call
seemed to last forever. It will never be forgotten.
This embedded quotation14 is a representation of the represenation-
ality of language, involving the viewing subject in a conversation
about a conversation, a discourse on a discourse. In doing this,
what is transparent in quotidian experience acquires a density, an
opacity, that renders the signifiers of one's mediation with self
and other visible, and visible as such. To so be placed into
copresence with the absented repressed of signification is to enter
a metadiscourse which gives place and character to every human
activity and utterance, and to grasp it from within.
Endnotes
1 "There is nothing outside the text." Jacques Derrida, Of
Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1974), pp. 158-159. Return
2 Emmanuel L‚vinas, Totality and Infinity, quoted in Craig Owens,
"The Medusa effect, or, The Specular Rise," Beyond Recognition:
Representation, Power, and Culture, eds. Scott Bryson, Barbara
Krueger, Lynne Tillman, Jane Weinstock (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1992), p. 191. 'Commonplace', in the rhetorical
tradition, derives from the sense of the 'places' of rhetoric, Gk.
topoi, L. loci. Return
3 Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays
(London: Metheun, 1962), p. 198-199.
4 The distinction of parole and langue, speech, particular utterance
as distinct from language, is from Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in
General Linguistics, trans. Roy Harris (La Salle: Open Court, 1983).
Return
5 The tain, having its etymology from the French étain, is the
reflective coating constituting the specularity of the mirror. See
Rodolphe Gasché, The Tain of the Mirror: Derrida and the Philosophy
of Reflection (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), p. 6.
Return
6 Roman Jakobson, Why Mama and Papa?" Selected Writings, I (The
Hague: Mouton, 1952), p. 542. Cf. Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and
the Cooked, trans. J. and D. Weightman (New York: Harper & Row,
1969), pp. 339-340. Return
7 Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis,
trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: W. W. Norton, 1977), p. 257. Return
8 Octavio Paz, "Más allá del amor," Octavio Paz: Early Poems 1935 -
1955 (San Francisco: New Directions, 1963), p. 20. Return
9 Craig Owens, ibid. p. 196. Return
10 Owens, ibid., p. 196. Return
11 James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (New York: Viking, 1939), p. 5.
Return
12 The motif of the wheel of fortune is evident even when reduced to
a schematic minimum, as in Villard de Honnecourt's drawing, c. 1240,
in the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris. Return
13 The title references the song "O Mary don't you weep," and the
urtext, John 20.11-18. Return
14 See Meike Bal and Norman Bryson, "Semiotics and Art History," Art
Bulletin 73:2 (June 1991), p. 20. Return
URL rampages.onramp.net/~dnewman/ablayton.htm
jum...@my-deja.com
http://www.cc.colorado.edu/Publications/thebulletin/fall97/learning.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Love of Learning
Michael Oakeshott and Colorado College
By TIMOTHY FULLER
Dean of the College
Michael Oakeshott will, I think, prove to be the most important
British political philosopher of the 20th century. His work will
be seen in the future to be the continuation of the tradition of
British essay writing on philosophy and politics we associate
with Francis Bacon, David Hume, Lord Macaulay and John Stuart
Mill. He is unquestionably the most remarkable person I have had
the privilege to know.
His connection to Colorado College began in 1974 when he
accepted my invitation (I was in charge of the academic part of
the college's centennial celebration) to give the Abbott
Memorial Lecture in the Social Sciences. He presented his
lecture, "A Place of Learning," in September, inaugurating a
year-long series of lectures on the present and future state of
liberal learning. He delivered his lecture to 400 people crowded
into the Tutt Library Atrium. This lecture has become widely
known. It was first published as a special issue of The Colorado
College Studies in 1975, reprinted several times in journals,
finally to become the lead essay in a collection of his essays
on education, "The Voice of Liberal Learning," which I edited
for the Yale University Press and which was published in 1989.
This book has been widely used in philosophy of education
courses and in seminars on Oakeshott's thought ever since.
"The Voice of Liberal Learning" was a considerable success.
First, because of its eloquent evocation and defense of liberal
learning. Second, because Oakeshott's was a new voice in a
debate that had been raging in America since 1987 when Allan
Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education
Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's
Students," and E.D. Hirsch's "Cultural Literacy: What Every
American Needs to Know" became best sellers, indicting American
education for failures they insisted were tantamount to the
degradation of Western Civilization. This debate over education
continues to this very day and there are now many new and
contradictory voices to be heard. But at that moment in 1989,
and still, Oakeshott offers a more detached and considered
perspective without necessarily denying validity to many of the
complaints expressed by Bloom, Hirsch and others.
Oakeshott's subtler analysis was deeply informed by the history
of education in the west. Oakeshott knew that our great debates
were new versions of issues that had flared up in past eras. He
was quite convinced that there was a permanent meaning to
liberal learning, but he also recognized that there is no time
when it is not under threat, especially from those who make no
effort to understand it, and that there have indeed been times
in the past when the threat was greater. Without minimizing the
dangers, Oakeshott argued that the greatest safeguard for
liberal learning is to have a clear idea of what it is about so
as not to be distracted by immediate fashion and self-appointed
prophets.
Oakeshott urged his listeners at Colorado College, and his
subsequent readers, to recover a clear vision of the character
of learning and teaching. Education for Oakeshott reached its
height in the unrehearsed intellectual adventure he called the
"conversation of mankind." Oakeshott was himself a genuine
conversationalist: not argumentative, not hortatory, not put off
by the meandering, sometimes startling, ways conversation takes.
Those who knew him will say that he was first and foremost a
great teacher. He, on the other hand, always thought of
himself, first, as a learner. Many graduates of CC discovered
this when they studied in the History of Political Thought
program he founded at LSE, and many of them have gone on to
become teachers in leading American colleges and universities.
Oakeshott recognized that people have many motives for seeking
an education, but he insisted that if they never experienced the
joy of learning for its own sake, they would remain
educationally incomplete. Conversation among those of differing
disciplines and academic pursuits, he believed, is one of the
greatest opportunities to have this experience, which begins for
the entering students when they find themselves immersed in
conversations that have long preceded them and to which they
must learn to add their individual voices, thereby absorbing an
inheritance, while, at the same time, making it their own, and
altering it by their own contribution.
After his Abbott lecture, Oakeshott spent a week at the college
meeting with faculty and students, and thus began both our
friendship, which was to last until his death at 89, in 1990,
and his fondness for Colorado College, which was deeply felt. He
thought that Colorado College exemplified what he meant by a
place of learning. Oakeshott's second visit was in 1982 when he
received an honorary degree. Oakeshott was known to reject
offers of honorary degrees so his acceptance of ours was a
special statement of his attachment to Colorado College.
I had known Oakeshott's work since I was an undergraduate but I
had not met him before he arrived in Colorado Springs in
September 1974. In the course of our time together, I asked him
why he had accepted my invitation. He said two things had
prompted him, apart from the nature of the occasion itself:
First, his uncle had come to California early in the century to
grow tomatoes and that had inspired him to begin reading stories
of the American West, of which Oakeshott had a very romantic
idea; second, he was charmed by the thought of pioneers crossing
the plains in covered wagons, carrying copies of Shakespeare and
the Bible, to found a college of liberal learning at the foot of
Pike's Peak. When he said in his Abbott Lecture that he had
traveled half way around the world only to find himself in
familiar surroundings - a place of liberal learning - he was
speaking in earnest.
During that visit, I also took him to Cripple Creek where we
clambered about the gold mines and had a beer together at the
bar of the Imperial Hotel. He was thrilled to see cowboys on
horses punching cows. As far as he was concerned, all he had
imagined was made manifest before his eyes.
Oakeshott was the author of many books which have established
places in contemporary political thought. Among them are
"Experience and its Modes" (1933), "Rationalism in Politics"
(1962), and "On Human Conduct" (1975). After his death, Shirley
Letwin (one of his major interpreters and herself a frequent
visitor to CC) and I retrieved his papers from his country
cottage on the southern coast of England and brought them back
to London. In his will he left his papers to her to do with as
she thought best. What we found was a vast array of unpublished
essays, some of book length. The quantity of unpublished writing
equalled the published. For now, the papers are housed in the
Letwin's house in London, but eventually they will go to the
archives of The London Schoolof Economics.
Following the success of "The Voice of Liberal Learning," Yale
agreed to publish The Selected Works of Michael Oakeshott, and
Shirley Letwin and I became co-editors of the series. Three
volumes have appeared since "The Voice of Liberal Learning":
"Religion, Politics and the Moral Life" (1993), "Morality and
Politics in Modern Europe, The Harvard Lectures" (1993), and
"The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism" (1996).
In addition, a new and expanded edition of "Rationalism in
Politics" (1991) was published by the Liberty Fund Press.
Shirley Letwin died in 1993 and since then I have carried on the
project with advice from William Letwin, Shirley's husband, and
emeritus professor at the LSE, and Professor Kenneth Minogue of
the LSE. Both have also been frequent visitors to CC.
Michael Oakeshott was a part of Colorado College in a special
way. He praised CC and other places of liberal learning that,
for centuries, "have with becoming humility, summoned succeeding
generations to the enjoyment of their human inheritance."
Education, he said, "is a transaction between teachers and
learners. And a man is what he learns to become: this is the
human condition."
===============================================================
http://www.112358.com/bkrev.html
--------------------------------
Political Dichotomy
by Robert R. Chambers July 14,1994
For a people attuned to being constantly in wars around the globe,
to battling with nature for a higher standard of living, to
surviving decades of superpower nuclear standoff, it is
disconcerting to find that on an everyday basis we seem now to be in
a climactic struggle with ourselves right here at home.
Crime has crept up on us to the point where we are not safe in some
streets of our major cities in broad daylight. Our children are
coming out of schools knowing less and less. The family is
decomposing. Good jobs are in short supply. The environment is
either on the brink of disaster or we are acting on grossly
exaggerated reports.
Our government is in the middle of all these problems, analyzing,
persuading, legislating, regulating and reporting progress. But, we
are cynical. The solutions usually seem plausible, but they also
usually don't work the way the politicians say they will. Over a
period of years, the more the politicians do to solve the important
problems the bigger the problems seem to get. Maybe we are running
into some structural limitations in our political system --
limitations that we don't understand.
A new, and provocative view of the underlying framework of our
political system is the subject of three not very well known books,
each obviously written by an author who did not have knowledge of
the others' writings:
On Human Conduct, by Michael Oakeshott (1975) Oxford University
Political Theory and Societal Ethics, by Robert Chambers (1992)
Prometheus Systems of Security, by Jane Jacobs (1992) Random House
From my perspective as the writer of one of these books, each one
presents a different aspect of the same theory of government.
Broadly, the theory holds that the rules of a modern western state
provide us with a mixture of two fundamentally different and
essentially incompatible types of government. This will be
described, but it is not the mixture of right and left, or
conservative and liberal, or capitalist and socialist or some of the
other popular catchwords. These concepts are not really fundamental
and their meanings change from time to time in any case.
Oakeshott: On Human Conduct
Professor Oakeshott had a long and distinguished career as a
political philosopher in England. His work is described by Paul
Franco in The Political Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott, (1990) Yale
University Press.
Quite methodically, Oakeshott moved from a study of the nature of
philosophy (his first book, Experience and its Mode (1933)) to
consideration of things such as values, the meaning of a theory of
jurisprudence, the contributions of Hobbes and Hegel, the problems
of using rationalism as a basis for political philosophy and the
like. His line of inquiry culminated in On Human Conduct with a
discussion of the civil association (societas) which is based on a
set of rules that prohibits unacceptable behavior on the part of a
person going about his private business.
Oakeshott looks at the civil association from several points of view
including the requirements of establishing the rules and
adjudicating disputes by reference to them. He looks, in some
detail, at the nature of authority and how it is established. He
contrasts the civil association with its alternative, the enterprise
association (universitas).
In the last section of book Oakeshott carries these arguments on
into a series of comments on the history of European states and the
development of their political systems from medieval times to the
present. The terms societas and universitas are taken from Roman
private law where the distinction between the two types of
associations was well recognized. Oakeshott holds that societas was
the accepted everyday relationship between free citizens of a city
dating back to ancient times. Universitas was the relationship in
associations such as the country estate of a wealthy citizen where
the participants are united in working toward a substantive goal.
Military organizations, the church, universities were other examples
of universitas.
In the beginning of the medieval period there were many
principalities. Typically the people in them were divided between
the ruling classes including the monarch, his court, his military,
plus his servants and serfs on the one hand, and the free citizens
on the other. The first group constituted a universitas, directed by
commands rather than rules. The second group, was a societas which
relied on a set of rules to organize people who were going about
their private activities. The two types of associations operated
separately, in castle and town respectively, on a day-to-day basis.
The universitas was concerned with relationships to other states,
conquest of territory, etc., but in its role as ruler it provided
some of the rules and adjudications for the societas. The military
were mercenaries, and conducted their wars on behalf of the
universitas without involving the people of the societas except, of
course, for the payment of taxes and other levies.
In the course of conquering a new province, the monarch acquired the
territory with the free citizens inhabiting it and added it to his
own. This new group of citizens might have different customs and
often a different language, but inasmuch as they were a societas,
they could be added to the principality's existing societas
populations and could function with them under essentially the same
set of societas rules. A common language was not important because
societas rules do not require the close coordination that is needed
by a universitas acting to seek a common goal.
Nevertheless, as the centuries passed, and despite the fading of the
monarchs and their original activities, the European states
substantially increased the proportion of universitas to societas in
their makeup. Oakeshott identifies several circumstances that caused
this trend: (1) The creation in the state of a central apparatus of
ruling which was tirelessly extended and elaborated. (2) The
existence of unpurged relics of lordship' hidden in the office of
modern monarchs growing out of their personal family landholdings
and the assets and activities of the church which they picked up
during the reformation. (3) The exercise of seigniorial management
in the various colonial adventures. Colonies were not usually seen
by the government as extensions of the mother country societas, but
rather were considered extensions of the royal domain, enterprises
committed to supply goods and services. (4) Participation by the
state in the frequent wars which were necessarily fought by
universitas military organizations. As time went on ordinary people
were dragged into the wars until they reached the total involvement
stage where the whole population was considered to be functioning
under command. (5) The emergence of a class of citizen which
Oakeshott calls the 'manque' who were unwilling or unable to take
responsibility for their own choices. This was interpreted as a call
for the government to make the choices for them and for the civil
laws to be modified to award substantive benefits to assignable
persons.
By now, the societas and universitas elements of the state rather
than functioning separately in parallel groups of people have come
together and have one set of universally applicable rules. Oakeshott
points out that unfortunately the societas and universitas modes of
association are independent, indeed incompatible modes, which, "have
become contingently joined by the choices of human beings in the
character of the modern European state." Further, he says, "That the
modern European political consciousness is a polarized
consciousness, that these are its poles and that all other tensions
(such as those indicated in the words 'right, or 'left, or in the
alignments of political parties) are insignificant compared with
this."
Thus, Oakeshott has provided a Roman theoretical distinction, a
great deal of philosophical argument related to this distinction and
a historical account of how European states came to their present
condition in which the two modes of association are used in
admixture. He leaves no doubt that he would prefer to live in a
societas, and that mixing the two modes of association is causing
confusion and leading to bad results.
However, Oakeshott had previously established his view that a
philosophical analysis cannot be the basis for designing a better
practical arrangement, and he does not attempt such designs. He does
suggest that things might work better if people realized the nature
of the problems in using mixtures of incompatible modes.
Chambers: Societal Ethics and Political Theory
Chambers' political theory is built around the definition of a
'society.' In his view a society is composed of (1) a group of
people, plus (2) a set of rules that the members of that group and
not others are obligated to observe. Societies may be 'primary' or
'secondary.' A primary society, typically a state, is a society that
controls an area of the earth's surface and has the ultimate power
to control the use of force in that area. Secondary societies are
all other societies. Among them are families, businesses, churches,
clubs, and other non-profit or profit-making organizations. The
members of a primary society may be individuals or may be secondary
societies.
With this as a starting point Chambers looked for fundamental
political principles, and came out at essentially the same basic
position that Oakeshott had arrived at earlier, namely that all
societies were composed of two modes of association. Chambers called
these the 'free society' mode and the 'status society' mode and they
correspond to the 'societas' and 'universitas' respectively. The
roles of the society members in these associations were
characterized by Chambers as that of neighbors and of teammates
respectively. This distinction, and the two modes apply to secondary
as well as primary societies.
A free society is one in which each member has the whole
responsibility for his own welfare, makes his own choices and
suffers or enjoys the results thereof. This does not preclude the
member's having other people dependent on him, or the desire or
personal necessity of making choices that will benefit them rather
than him, but these are private matters and do not affect the
structure of the society.
There is a focus in this book on the rules themselves as expressing
the mode of association. Free-society rules are basically negative
("do not do this") and are aimed at blocking certain types of
encroachment by others on a member's sphere of choice, thus
enhancing its value. In terms of societal ethics, the assumption is
that augmenting the value of individual spheres of choice will
result in a greater total benefit to the society's whole membership.
A status society is one in which the society takes responsibility
for the choices and in a sense bears the consequences. The rules are
basically positive ("do this") and are aimed at coordinating the
activities to directly produce the greatest benefit for the society
as a whole. Such a society, like any team, asks different
contributions from different members (which defines one aspect of
their status) and rewards them differently also. Managers are needed
as they are with most teams, but this does not preclude an
egalitarian structure.
Having this conceptual framework for defining the two modes of
association among people, Chambers then addresses himself to his
fundamental purpose, i.e., to find an approach to the problem of how
to design the best set of laws for a state. The first step in
looking for a "best" is to arrive at a normative scheme for
differentiating the better rules from the worse. The recommended
scheme involves two consequentialist ethical systems.
The first, 'personal ethics,' is defined as the principles that
apply to a person's choice of actions on the basis of how well they
serve his own fundamental purposes. The second, 'societal ethics,'
is the body of principles that apply to a society's choice of rules
-- laws, customary obligations, etc. -- which will result in the
most benefits to the whole membership of the society. Societal
ethics applies only to primary societies, as defined above, and is
based on the fact that such societies have a monopoly on the legal
use of force. While the two criteria are related, they are not the
same. Thus the two systems of ethics are independent of each other
and may be interpreted as offering conflicting advice upon occasion.
Chambers has chosen to illustrate his free society-status society
dichotomy through two fictional societies. Use of fiction has its
drawbacks, but it supports precision in the definitions used in the
theoretical framework. Chambers' fictional primary societies -- one
pure free and the other pure status -- suggest that such extreme
societies are conceptually feasible at least under restricted
circumstances. By the same token his sketch suggests that they would
not satisfy most people and that in both cases there would be a
strong tendency to introduce rules of the opposite sort so as to get
some of the benefits of both modes of association.
To a considerable extent the rules of the two pure societies are
mutually exclusive. Also, the ethical principles applicable to the
rules in each pure society differ considerably from each other, and
in some cases are contrary. When rules of both types are combined
into one set for a state, the different kinds of rules may work
against each other, particularly if the legislators are unaware that
they are dealing with two different types of rules and their
respective ethical principles.
The last half of the book discusses what happens when the types of
rules are mixed under various circumstances and the problems that
can arise. Despite the absence of real-world examples, the
descriptions are reminiscent of problems we face today.
In general, the conclusion is that the closer one gets to an equal
mixture of these two types of rules the more difficult it will be to
keep them working smoothly together. It would appear that with a
well-designed set of rules, a predominantly free society works best
in a large and populous state and can tolerate many types of
heterogeneity, while a predominantly status society works best in a
small homogeneous state. In any case some mixtures of rules work
better than others, and there is a substantial benefit to analyzing
proposed rules in this framework and applying the ethical principles
that are appropriate to the type of rule involved.
Jacobs: Systems of Survival
Jane Jacobs is famous for her earlier book The Death and Life of
Great American Cities (1961) which has become a classic. Her present
book, easily the most readable of the three being discussed,
"..explores the morals and values that underpin viable working
life." This reflects her observation that people in the current
culture not infrequently encounter a situation to which two moral
principles apply and contradict one another.
Early in the book Jacobs lists thirteen Universal Virtues, as
follows:1. Cooperation 2. Courage 3. Moderation 4. Mercy 5. Common
Sense 6. Foresight 7.Judgment 8. Competence 9. Perseverance 10.
Faith 11. Energy 12. Patience 13. Wisdom
She comments, "I omitted these because they're esteemed across the
board, in all kinds of work. In conduct of personal life too, for
that matter, not just in working and public life." Interestingly,
they are part of 'personal ethical principles' that Chambers omitted
discussion of too, on the basis that they are not involved in
societal ethics. Only two of them, cooperation and mercy, even seem
to require the participation of a second person and none of them
appear to have primary relevance to a discussion of the structure of
society.
The main list of other moral principles that Jacobs extracted from
her analysis of the way things work included several that
contradicted each other. By separating these, and gathering other
compatible principles with them Jacobs produced two lists that were
internally self consistent. She identified these as the Commercial
Syndrome and Guardian Syndrome. The lists are below. Please note
that for purposes of this discussion I have taken the liberty of
paraphrasing a few of her rules, and of changing the listing order,
but I trust I have not changed any of her meanings.
Commercial Syndrome 1. Shun Force (don't initiate violence) 2. Be
Honest (don't be dishonest) 3. Respect Contracts (don't break
contracts) 4a. (don't monopolize) 4b. Compete 5. Be Efficient 6. Be
Industrious 7. Be Thrifty 8. Be Optimistic 9. Come to Voluntary
Agreements 10. Collaborate Easily with Strangers and Aliens 11. Use
Initiative and Enterprise 12. Be Open to Inventiveness and Novelty
13. Promote Comfort and Convenience 14. Dissent for the Sake of the
Task 15. Invest for Productive Purposes
Guardian Syndrome 1. Shun Trading (conflicts of interest) 2. Exert
Prowess (do your best) 3. Be Obedient and Disciplined 4. Respect the
Hierarchy 5. Be Loyal 6. Show Fortitude 7. Be Fatalistic 8. Treasure
Honor 9. Adhere to Tradition 10. Take Vengeance 11 Deceive for the
Sake of the Task 12. Be Ostentatious 13. Dispense Largesse 14. Make
Rich Use of Leisure 15. Be Exclusive
Jacobs discusses these rules one by one and gives examples and
justifications. She points out that the Commercial Syndrome is
appropriate for those who make their living in commerce and trading
and the Guardian Syndrome is appropriate for the government and
related occupations. In the last half of the book Jacobs discusses
various ways in which these rules are mixed and misused, and
concludes that the results are often undesirable. She also traces
the dichotomy to Plato's Republic.
The Commercial Syndrome is clearly a set of free society rules, the
Guardian Syndrome correspondingly status society rules. A state in
which the two modes of association are kept separate would be
equivalent to two states and each could have its own culture and its
own morality. In the medieval period a typical principality,
according to Oakeshott, had this sort of arrangement with the
royalty and their supporters living apart from the bourgeois and
enjoying a different culture. The situation had elements of
similarity to the structure of the state in the Republic. The
Guardian and Commercial Syndromes seem to reflect the thinking of
those cultures.
But as the centuries passed, the old-time guardians and the
conquering of territory began to pass from the scene, apart from
certain modern dictators. Instead, the military and governing
factions merged with the bourgeois, adopted a single set of rules
and formed a single broad culture. The laws and morality of this
culture included a combination of the laws and moralities that
earlier applied to the two cultures, and added more features.
However the mixture has over the years proved to be somewhat
unstable, perhaps because of the contradictory elements in the two
original cultures. In addition to this, however, the source of the
status society elements in the rules has changed in modern times. In
her book, Jacobs acknowledges the argument which can be made that
socialism is a third culture. She refutes this by showing that two
of the more extreme socialist countries, the Soviet Union and Cuba,
behave in a pretty standard Guardian Syndrome way.
It is not that simple. True, the socialist culture, like the
guardian culture is a primary status society, but it differs in
being an ethical primary status society. The original guardian
culture, led by royalty, accepted the idea that the purpose of the
state was to benefit the royalty, and to a lesser extent other
people of high status. By today's standards that would not be an
acceptable criterion for a system of societal ethics. On the other
hand, socialist theory embraces the idea that the purpose of the
culture is to benefit the whole membership of society, and that is
generally accepted as a proper criterion. The objection that
socialism is mostly theoretical and may not work in practice does
not and should not interfere with the adoption of some of its rules
in a mixed culture. Also, from a socialist's point of view, the
performance of an ostensibly socialist country ruled by leaders who
had just conquered it in a military campaign, as was the case in the
Soviet Union, China, Viet Nam, Cuba, etc., is hardly a fair test of
whether guardian elements are a necessary part of the socialist
culture in practice.
At any rate our present set of rules is derived from both free and
status society rules. The free society rules come from the
commercial sector and some philosophical and religious sources. The
status society rules come from both the guardian culture and the
socialist theory and culture.
Do the Jacobs' examples support the free society-status society
framework? Let's look at the two syndromes again. Rules 1-4a in the
Commercial Syndrome are typical negative free society rules that are
intended to enhance the value of every member's sphere of choice.
Notice that items 4a and 4b are based on Jacobs' rule 'compete.' Her
explanation referred to the problem of monopolies.
Thus I read this as two rules, do compete, and don't monopolize.
Items 4b-15 in the Commercial Syndrome are positive adjurations but
are not the sort of behavior that people can be required to do.
Rather they are rules of thumb for individual or company success in
the commercial world and other parts of the free society. So the
Commercial Syndrome rules in general are free society rules or rules
of thumb suitable for use in a free society.
Items 1-8 of the Guardian Syndrome are positive rules for the
behavior of a member of a status society. They are applicable to the
member of a primary status society such as a guardian or a socialist
society, but also applicable more broadly. For example, these rules
are basically the behavior that an employee of a business owes to
his employer, or the member of some other kind of secondary status
society should be rendering. In other words they are generally
applicable to both primary and secondary status societies.
Items 9-15 of the Guardian Syndrome are applicable specifically to
the guardian type of status society and are not the kind of behavior
that one would want in a socialist or many other kinds of status
societies. These items pertain to the way the status society deals
with outsiders rather that the way its members deal with it. They
are decisions that the organization as an entity makes and acts on,
not ways in which an individual member is obligated to behave.
Mostly, they seem to reflect practices which might have been
recommended in a guardian society for the benefit and survival of
that guardian society.
Jacobs points out that the rules of the Guardian Syndrome are
sometimes followed by entities other than the government. She cites
the Mafia. Unfortunately some of items 9-15 are not legal when done
by a secondary status society, and only a criminal organization
would try. But the Mafia is both and could well be attracted to
these possibilities. In addition, one might add that very large
corporations sometimes adopt some of these items such as dispensing
largesse, being ostentatious, being exclusive etc. which can be
legal. But, are they ethical in view of the above indictment of the
guardians? There is a major difference, guardians are a primary
society, corporations are secondary societies. We judge primary
societies by a societal ethics criterion, but secondary societies by
a personal ethics criterion because secondary societies do not have
the power to compel by force. Judging by a personal ethical
criterion, such corporate actions may be ethical.
Conclusion
One may then conclude that all three books are about essentially the
same theory, and that taken together they provide (1) a
philosophical and historical background for this theory, (2) a
conceptual framework that should allow the theory to be useful in
analyzing political situations, and (3) a good many examples of
current interest relating to this theory. There is still a need for
these aspects to be integrated, applied to examples of current
interest and put in a form that a student can use.
The original question was about the existence of a structural
problem in the current system of laws and government institutions.
It is evident that the people who make the laws are not familiar
with this theory let alone have the ability to apply it to problems
at hand. It is also clear that indiscriminate mixing of rules for
the incompatible free and status society systems can and probably
does produce such structural problems.
One might add that states that are predominantly either free
societies or status societies, whatever else might be wrong with
them, do not have such structural problems. Using both kinds of
modes, but keeping them separate also seems to produce a more
smoothly running state.
The inclusion of a separate commercial free society element in a
predominantly status society has sometimes been shown to promote
rapid progress, as in Taiwan and South Korea. The inclusion of a
separate status society element such as a separate unit for the
'manque' population might be expected to benefit a state that is
predominantly a free society, but I am not able to cite an example.
==========================================================
http://www.swan.ac.uk/poli/pg/theo/options.html
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Department of Politics, University of Wales Swansea
MA/MSc in Political Theory -
The Options
The Political Thought of R. G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott.
The aim of this course is to explore the political
philosophies of Collingwood and Oakeshott in the light of
their general philosophical viewpoints. In this respect the
relations between the forms or modes of experience, and
between each and the whole; between theory and practice; and
between history and the social sciences, will form the basis
for understanding and comparing their political conclusions.
Assessment will be by means of two essays.
Introductory reading:
D. Boucher, The Social and Political Thought of R. G.
Collingwood (Cambridge, 1989) and Paul Franco, The Political
Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott (New Haven and London, 1990).
Foundationalism and Anti-Foundationalism in Modern Political
Theory In this course the focus will be upon problems of
method and justification which have been raised in the recent
debate between liberals and communitarians, and which have led
to the search for a post-philosophical political theory. The
issues and debates covered in this course include universalism
versus communitarianism; the unencumbered versus the narrative
self, and the character of political theory. The course will
involve discussions of theorists such as Charles Taylor,
Michael Walzer, Michael Sandel and Richard Rorty.
Introductory reading:
R. Plant, Modern Political Thought (Blackwell, 1991); M.
Walzer, Interpretations and Social Criticism (Harvard, 1987);
and, R. Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge,
1989).
Between Revolution and Reaction: European Political Thought
1762-1821 The course will examine contrasting views of society
and state in a turbulent and decisive period for the emergence
of the modern state. We will explore contested conceptions of
authority and legitimacy in the years leading up to the French
Revolution, focusing in particular on the works of Rousseau,
Paine, and Sieyes. The reassertion of the priority of the
state over any claims made on behalf of the individual will be
examined through Burke, de Maistre and Cuoco. We will conclude
by analyzing contrasting attempts to strike a balance between
state and individual in the works of Constant and Hegel. A
leading theme will be the contrast between universalist and
context-dependent conceptions of moral and political theory.
Assessment will be by means of two essays.
Introductory reading:
Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (New York, 1958); and,
Bernard Yak, The Longing for Total Revolution (Princeton,
1986).
The Social Contract and Its Critics
The course will examine arguments for and against contractual
theories of political obligation, focusing initially on the
classic formulations of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, extending
through the objections of Vico, Hume and Hegel to the
resurgence of contractual arguments in contemporary political
theory. We will be concerned to explore the philosophical and
historical presuppositions of the language of contract,
examining the applicability of contractual theory to different
forms of association. The specific case of "social contract"
will be used to highlight general problems in the
characterization of the limits and scope of political
philosophy. Assessment will be by means of two essays.
Introductory reading:
Michael Lessnoff, Social Contract (London, 1986); and P.
Riley, Will and Political Legitimacy (Cambridge, Mass., 1982).
Realism in the Theory of International Relations
The aim of this course will be to examine the presuppositions
of the realist case in classic and contemporary theories of
international relations. We will explore the view of human
nature assumed and the conception of justice it entails in
connection with their implications for understanding the
relations among states. During the course of studying the so
called realist thinkers questions will be raised about the
efficacy of the category and whether the theorists who are
often labelled realists conform with, or deviate from the
classic principles associated with the doctrine of reason of
state. The principal thinkers discussed will be Thucydides,
Ceasar, Machiavelli, Hegel, Clausewitz, Treitschke, Bernhardi,
Bosanquet, E. H. Carr, Hans Morganthau, Hedley Bull and Martin
Wight.
Introductory reading:
John A. Vasquez, Classics of International Relations
(Englewood Cliffs, 1990); Howard Williams, International
Relations in Political Theory (Milton Keynes, 1992).
Civil Society and Its Critics
The collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the
predicament of the liberal democracies in the West, and the
chronic crisis of legitimacy in the authoritarian -populist
states of the developing world, are at the core of the recent
revival of interest in the concept of civil society. The
concept is central to those theoretical-philosophical systems
concerned with the conditions and possibilities of transition
to a genuinely democratic society in the current
post-communist and post-liberal political culture. This course
examines the genesis, structure and metamorphoses of the
concept of civil society in modern social and political
discourse. The course is in three parts. Part 1 investigates
the genesis of the concept of civil society as a generic
theoretical category in the works of Hegel. Part 2 examines
the radical left an conservative right-wing appropriations and
critiques of the concept, from Marx and Gramsci to Schmitt,
Arendt, Koselleck, Harbermas and Foucault. Part 3 investigates
the status and relevance of the concept in some major debates
on the nature of democratic society in the contemporary social
and political order, namely elitist vs. participatory
democracy and rights vs. communitarian discourse.
Introductory reading:
J.L. Cohen & A. Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory,
(MIT. 1992), J. Keane, Civil Society, (Verso, 1988), J.
Harbermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere,
(Polity, 1991).
Russian Political Thought
The aim of the course is to examine the development of Russian
political thought since its emergence early in the 19th
century. We shall study all the major schools of thought, from
the Slavophiles and Westerners, through Russian agrarian
socialism, anarchism, liberalism and marxism to the
development of nationalist, religious, conservative, liberal
and socialist alternatives during the dying years of the
Soviet system. We shall conclude with a study of the legacy
left by Russian political thought in the wake of the collapse
of communist ideology.
Introductory reading:
A Walicki, A History of Russian Thought from the Enlightenment
to Marxism (1979); and B. Kagarlitsky, The Dialectic of Change
(Verso, 1990).
Marxism in Russia and Eastern Europe
In the peasant societies of Russia and Eastern Europe Marxism
mainly had to compete with agrarian socialism, peasantism,
nationalism and anarchism, rather than Western-style
liberalism, reformism and Christian democracy during the rise
of mass parties. We shall first examine how the Marxist
movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries met these
challenges and were re-shaped by them. Then we shall examine
the debates of the 1920s, the fate of Russian and East
European Marxism in the Stalinist era and the development of
Stalinism.
Introductory reading:
G. N. Harding, Lenin's Political Thought (1983, one volume
edition); and, R. Bideleux, Communism and Development (1987,
revised edition).
European Federalism: Supranational and Subnational
This course examines the evolution and appeal of ideas of
federal Europe, from the late medieval concepts of a federal
Christian polity (Dubois, Dante), through the rise of secular
conceptions of a federal Europe (Penn, Bellers, Kant,
Rousseau, Saint-Simon, Mazzini) and the emergence of the
Pan-American Union led by Count Coudenhove-Kalergi and the
European Federalist Movement launched by Altiero Spinelli. It
also explores the growing emphasis on federal devolution of
power in the Federal Republic of Germany and in Italy, Spain,
France and Belgium, in a `Europe of Regions', and in the
principle of `subsidiarity'.
Introductory reading:
M. Burgess (ed.), Federalism and Federation in Western Europe
(1986); M. Burgess, Federalism and Federation in Western
Europe (1989); and, F. H. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of
Peace (1963).
Nationalism
This course will study one of the most enduring political
ideologies in its theoretical and historical contexts. It
traces the idea of a nation as a political and cultural
concept, examining Rousseau, Burke, Herder, Mazzini and Renan.
It then focuses on the British Isles, which illustrates
nationalism in all its modes, minority problems, and the
relationship between the state and nation. Comparative
dimensions will also be included.
Introductory reading:
E. Kamenka (ed.), Nationalism: the Nature and Evolution of an
Idea (1973); D. George Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland (1991).
jum...@my-deja.com
http://www.ianunwin.demon.co.uk/lifelong_learning/authsrch.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------
List of Titles by Author
Gloucestershire TEC Lifelong Guidance Research Project
List of Titles by Author
ADSET (The Association for Database Services) (1994): Careers
Service Information Systems.
ADSET (The Association for Database Services) (July 1995): Local
Labour Market Information Quality Assurance Framework.
ADSET (The Association for Database Services) (1997): Opportunity: a
directory of careers and lifetime learning information. 4th Edition.
ADSET (The Association for Database Services) (1995): Using Learning
Information: The ADSET Standards.
ADSET/NIACE (1996): 1996 Directory of Guidance Provision for Adults
in the UK. Advice, Guidance, Counselling and Psychotherapy Lead Body
(1996): Advice, Guidance, Counselling and Psychotherapy Lead Body
Occupational Standards.
AEGIS (Adult Educational Guidance Initiative Scotland) (1994):
Guidance and the FE/HE Charter: a Speaker's Pack. Scottish Office
Education Department.
AEGIS (Adult Educational Guidance Initiative Scotland) (1995): The
Networking Handbook. The Scottish Office.
AEGIS (Adult Educational Guidance Initiative Scotland) (1994):
Paving the Way. The Scottish Office.
AEGIS (Adult Educational Guidance Initiative Scotland) (1994):
Quality Counts: Audit Guidelines for Adult Educational Guidance
Services. Scottish Office Education Department.
AEGIS/SOED (1995): Adult Educational Guidance Matters: a Resource
for Cross-Sectoral Staff Development and Training.
AGCAS (1995): Guidance, Counselling and Advisory Work. Distributed
by CSU Publications Ltd.
AGCAS (Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services) (1991):
Performance Management and Measures: a Guide for AGCAS Services.
Ali, L., Graham, B. (1996): The Counselling Approach to Adult
Guidance. Routledge.
Allies, S. (December 1997): Learning for Life. Adults Learning.
NIACE. ATC, Bristol Polytechnic. (1991): Standards for Guidance
Workers.
Bailey, D. (1987): Guidance in Open Learning: a Manual of Practice.
NICEC/MSC.
Ball, C. (ed.) (1993): Guidance Matters: Developing a National
Strategy for Guidance in Learning and Work. RSA.
Bamford, C., McCarthy, C. (eds.) (1991): Women Mean Business. BBC
Books.
Barham, L. (July 1997): A Unique Occasion..... Newscheck, vol. 7,
no. 8. COIC. BBC AudioCall.
Beattie, A. (1997): Working People and Lifelong Learning. A study of
the impact of an employee development scheme. NIACE, Leicester.
Bimrose, J. (1995): Future patterns for Learning and Work:
Implications for the Training of Guidance Professionals. Guidance
for Learning and Work. University of Strathclyde.
Birkbeck College/NICEC (1994): Working Models of Careers Guidance.
DfEE. BPI Group, Employment Department (1993): Developing Your
Quality Assurance Approach for Guidance.
Bradley, P. (1994): The Practical Aspects of Establishing A National
Telephone Helpline. Employment Department.
Broadcasting Support Services (BSS).
Brown, J.F. (January 1998): A SWOT Analysis of Adult Guidance. ADSET
Occasional Paper.
Callender, C. and Metcalf, H. (1998): Women and Training. DfEE.
CBI (1989): Towards a Skills Revolution.
Chisholm, L., and Clayton, P. (eds). (1997): Getting in, climbing up
and breaking through. Women returners and vocational guidance and
counselling. The Policy Press.
Christophers, U., Stoney, S.M., Whetton, C., Lines, A., and Kendall,
L. (1993): Measure of Guidance Impact User Manual. NFER-Nelson.
City and Guilds
Clark, F., Hardy, P. Return to Work. NEC.
Clough, A. (Senior Policy Officer, TUC) (Winter 1997): Adult
Guidance: A Role for Trade Unions. News and Views. NAEGA.
Clough, A., Ford, G. and Watts, A.G. (March 1998): Trade Unions and
Lifelong Learning. Newscheck, vol. 8. no. 5. COIC.
Clwyd County Council Library and Information Service, PLAIL Project
(1996): Public Libraries and Adult Independent Learners.
Coats, M. (1996): Recognising Good Practice in Women’s Education and
Training. NIACE.
Coats, M. (1991): Women Learning: Ideas, Approaches and Practical
Support. NIACE.
COIC (1993): Jobsearch for the 90's.
COIC (January 1997): Second Chances. 11th Edition.
Collins, S. (Nov.1997): LMI Matters in Sheffield. Sheffield Careers
Guidance Services. Newscheck vol. 8 no. 2. COIC.
Connelly, G., Milburn, T., Thomson, S., Edwards, R. (1996):
Impartiality in Guidance Provision for Adults: a Scottish Study. The
Open University/University of Strathclyde.
Corney, M. (Jan. 1995): Employee Development Programmes: current
practice and new directions. NCE (National Commission on Education)
Briefing no. 2.
Coyle, A., Colley, H. (June 1996): The Choice is Here. Newscheck,
vol. 6, no. 8. COIC.
Daisley, J., Willis, L. (1995): Springboard Women's Development
Workbook. 3rd Edition. Hawthorn Press.
DeBell, D. (August 1994): Integrated Guidance and Assessment for
Working Women: A Skill Choice Initiative. Employment Department,
City College, Norwich.
DeBell, D. (Nov. 1995): Quality and Womens' Guidance Services.
Adults Learning, vol. 7, no. 3, p. 68. NIACE.
DFE (Department of Education)/ED (1994): Better Choices: Working
Together to Improve Careers Education and Guidance - The Principles.
DFE (Department of Education) (1993): The Charter for Further
Education.
DFE (Department of Education) (1993): The Charter for Higher
Education.
DfEE (1996): Adult Guidance Mapping and Coherence Study.
DfEE (1995-96): Benefits of Employee Development Schemes for
Employees in Small Firms. DfEE Project.
DfEE (1995): Better Choices: Putting Principles into Practice.
DfEE (1996); Better Choices: Quality in Careers Education and
Guidance.
DfEE (June 1997): Careers Education and Guidance in Further
Education Colleges: Circular no. 6/97.
DfEE (1995): Creating the Learning Business: a toolkit.
DfEE (October 1996): Developing the Front Line.
DfEE (1995): Employee Development Schemes: Developing a Learning
Workforce.
DfEE (1996): Employee Development Schemes: what impact do they have?
Factsheet. Ref. IC/EDS/F.
DfEE (1998): Further Education for the New Millenium.
DfEE (1998): Higher Education for the 21st Century.
DfEE (1998): The Learning Age.
DfEE (1995): The Learning Business: The Role of Employee Development
Schemes in Promoting Business Success. Video.
DfEE (1997): Lifelong Learning Conference: report of event at
Cheltenham Park Hotel, 4 - 5 June 1997.
DfEE (1996): Lifetime Learning: a Consultation Document.
DfEE (1996): Lifetime Learning: A Policy Framework.
DfEE (1996): Lifetime Learning: a Summary of Responses to the
Government's Consultation Document.
DfEE (1996): LMI Matters! : a toolkit for people who give advice and
guidance on education and employment.
DfEE (1998): The Requirements and Guidance for Careers Services
1998.
DfEE, Choice and Careers Division (1996): LMI Staff Development
Pack.
DfEE, Quality Assurance Division (1995): Towards a Coherent Approach
to Advice and Guidance in Employment and Training Provision. Report
No.36.
DfEE Skills and Enterprise Network. Domino Consultancy Ltd. (1995):
Returning Without Fears: a Support Package for Women Returning to
Work.
Donoghue, J. (May 1996): Local Quality Standards for Careers
Education and Guidance: a Report on Current Developments. DfEE
Choice and Careers Division.
Edexcel (formerly BTEC and ULEAC).
Edmunds, H. (1994): Chances of Employment. ADSET News. Issue 12,
Spring 1994. The Employers' Forum for Education and Development
Programmes.
Employment Department. (March 1995): Careers Education and Guidance:
an Evaluative Framework.
Employment Department (1995): Employee Development Schemes: A
Contribution to National Prosperity. Conference Report. Sheffield.
Employment Department (Individual Commitment Branch) (1994):
Contracting for Assessment and Guidance.
Employment Department (Quality Assurance Division). (1994): TEC
Quality Assurance Supplier Management: Requirements of the
Employment Department.
Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) (1994): Signposts.
European Commission (1995): The European Dimension in Vocational
Guidance. Brussels.
European Year of Lifelong Learning.
FEDA (1995): Supporting Adult Part-time Learners in Further
Education Colleges.
FEDA (1996): Tutoring for Achievement: frameworks, and Tutoring for
Achievement: skills.
FEFC (The Further Education Funding Council) (1993 and 1996):
Assessing Achievement: Circulars 93/28 and 96/12.
FEFC (The Further Education Funding Council) (1997): Careers
Education and Guidance: Good Practice Report. Coventry.
FEFC (The Further Education Funding Council) (1996): How to Apply
for Recurrent Funding (Annual publication).
FEFC (The Further Education Funding Council) (1997): How to Widen
Participation: a Guide to Good Practice. HMSO London.
FEU (1992): Educational Guidance in a Group Context. Unpublished
report of project RP540.
FEU (1994): Initiating Change: Educational Guidance for Adults
1988-93.
FEU (1994): Quality in Guidance for Adults.
FEU/ED. (1994): Managing the Delivery of Guidance in Colleges.
Available from FEDA.
Ford, G. (1997): Career Guidance for the Third Age: a Mapping
Exercise. NICEC, CRAC.
Ford, G. and Watts, A.G. (1998): Trade Unions and Adult Guidance:
Case Studies of Best Practice. NICEC/TUC.
Fryer, R.H. (November 1997): Learning for the Twenty-First Century:
First Report of the National Advisory Group for Continuing Education
and Lifelong Learning.
Garnett, E. (April 1990): Careers Guidance for Women. Newscheck,
vol. 7, no. 6. COIC.
Gittins, C. (Feb. 1996): The Need for Choice. Newscheck, vol. 6, no.
4. COIC.
Gittins, C. (July 1997): Why Employ a Modern Apprentice in
Guidance?: a Modern Apprentice in What? Newscheck, vol. 7, no. 8.
COIC.
Glendenning, R., Mannion Brunt, J. (May 1996): Workplace-Led
Learning: Beyond Day Release. Adults Learning, vol. 7, no. 9. NIACE.
Grillet, K., Haughton, L. (1990): Educational Guidance at Work: a
training course for educational guidance workers. NAEGA Occasional
Publication no. 14.
Hardy, P. Return to the Office. NEC.
Hart, N. (Feb. 1996): The Role of the Tutor in a College of Further
Education: a comparison of the skills used by personal tutors and by
student counsellors when working with students in distress. British
Journal of Guidance and Counselling, vol. 24, no. 1.
Hawthorn, R. (1995): Courses on Careers Education and Guidance.
NICEC.
Hawthorn, R. (1995): First Steps: a Quality Standards Framework for
Guidance Across all Sectors. RSA/NACCEG.
Hawthorn, R. Who Offers Guidance? Employment Department.
Hawthorn, R., Alloway, J., Naftalin, I. (1988): Evaluating
Educational Guidance. NIACE.
Hawthorn, R., Butcher, V. (1992): Guidance Workers in the UK: Their
Work and Training. NICEC.
Hawthorn, R., Wood, R. (1988): Training Issues in Educational
Guidance for Adults. NIACE.
Hayes, A. (April 1996): Assisting Adult Students on Award-Bearing
Courses; Some Key Issues and Strategies. Adults Learning, vol. 7,
no. 8. NIACE. Hayes, A. (June 1994): Investing in People: Learning
from Employee Development in a College. Adults Learning, vol. 5, no.
10. NIACE.
The Heart of England TEC, Oxfordshire County Council and the DfEE
Women Returners in Oxfordshire.
Heath, G. and Michaels, R. (March 1997): To support individuals'
lifelong learning: Information, Guidance and Training for Women
Returners. Women Returners Network (WRN).
Henderson, L., (Secretary-General, The Guidance Council) (November
1997): The Guidance Council's Quality Standards for Learning and
Work. Newscheck vol. 8 no. 2. COIC.
HEQC (Higher Education Quality Council) (March 1995): The
Guidelines: A Quality Assurance Framework for Guidance and Learner
Support in Higher Education.
HEQC (Higher Education Quality Council) (1997): Managing Quality in
Higher Education using Quality Assurance Guidelines: Selected Case
Studies.
Hobsons (1998/99): CIOLA Directory (14th Edition). Updated annually.
Hoffbrand, J. (Spring 1995): Certificate and Diploma in Educational
and Vocational Guidance for Adults. NICEC Careers Education and
Guidance Bulletin. No. 44.
Holly, L., Munro, A., and Rainbird, H. (1997): Partners in Workplace
Learning: a report on the UNISON/Employer Learning and Development
Programme. UNISON.
Houghton, A. and Bokhari, R. (March 1998): Guiding Differently.
Adults Learning, vol. 9, no. 7. NIACE.
Houghton, A. and Oglesby, K.L. (February 1996): Guidance and Learner
Support: Developing Threshold Standards. Adults Learning, vol. 7,
no. 6. NIACE.
Humberside Careers Service. (1992/93): Standards of Performance for
Adult Guidance.
ICG (Institute of Careers Guidance) Lifelong Careers Guidance for
Lifetime Career Development.
ICG (Institute of Careers Guidance) A Recommended Code of Practice
for Providers of Careers Guidance Services.
ICG (Institute of Careers Guidance)/NACRO (The National Association
for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders) Careers Guidance: a
Statement of Entitlement for Offenders and Ex-offenders.
IDS (Incomes Data Service) (Jan. 1994): Employee Development
Initiatives. IDS Study 546.
IES (Institute for Employment Studies) (March 1997): Identifying and
Addressing Needs: a Practical Guide. FEFC.
Ingham, R. (January 1997): Broadening the Employee Development
Scheme. Individual Commitment News, Issue Eight.
Ingham, R. (April 1996): Little and Large in Employee Development
Schemes. Individual Commitment News, Issue Five. DfEE.
IRB International Ltd (1996): "Action Special" Research:
Presentation of Results. DfEE.
IRB International Ltd (1996): Adult Learners Research. DfEE.
IRB International Ltd (1992): Second Chance Evaluation: Presentation
of Results, stages 1 and 2. Employment Department.
IRB International Ltd (1994): Second Chance Evaluation: Presentation
of Results, waves 1 and 2. Employment Department.
Jackson, K. (Leeds Careers Guidance). (November 1997): Leeds Careers
Guidance and the Information and Library Services NVQ. Newscheck
vol. 8 No. 2. COIC.
Johnson, C. (July 1996): A New Approach to Work-based Training for
Careers Advisers. Newscheck vol. 6 no. 9. COIC.
Jolley, R. (1996): Training for Guidance: NVQ/SVQ Standards. NEC.
Jowitt, T. (Feb. 1994): Employees, Education and Training. Adults
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© Gloucestershire TEC Lifelong Guidance Research Project.
April 1998
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http://www.conservativeforum.org/essayslist.asp
-----------------------------------------------
The Canadian Conservative Forum - Essays
There are 209 essays in the database today, sorted by author name
Use the search facility below to view them
Keyword:
Author Title
Adams, John Quincy
Orations
Ajzenstat, Janet
We Don't Need Another Charter: Against Entrenching Welfare
Rights
Aristotle
Politics
Avram, Kevin
Preference or Conviction?
Wielding Power: Rewards, Punishment, and Change of Beliefs
How Much Should a Civil Society Cost?
Whose Bread I Eat His Song I Sing
Vigilance and Freedom
Baldacchino, Joseph
Whither America - and Why
Bastiat, Frederic
That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
The Law
Bloedow, Tim
Libertarianism is a Christian Perspective
Boessenkool, Kenneth J.
Making Welfare Work: What Ontario Could
Learn from Alberta's Welfare experiment
Budziszewski, J.
What We Can't Not Know
Burke, Edmund
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Carey, George W.
Majority Rule Revisited
Carlson, Allan
Toward a Family-Centered Theory of Taxation
Chipeur, Gerald D.
Supreme Court of Canada Begins Historic
Dialogue With the Alberta Legislature
Confucius
The Analects
Crowley, Brian Lee
The “L” Word
de Tocqueville, Alexis
Democracy In America
Flanagan, Tom Preston Agonistes
In Praise of Single-Issue Politics
Lubicon Tactics
The Inherent Problems of Aboriginal Self-Government
Modernity and the Millennium:
From Robespierre to Radical Feminism
Eugenics Goes to the Movies
Reinventing the Asylum
The Reform Party at Ten
The Rehabilitation of Louis Riel
Homes on Native Land
Forgay, Warren
An Interview with Alexis de Tocqueville
Frum, David
Let the Grovelling Begin!
Furedy, John J.
On the Recent Establishment of a Velvet Totalitarian
Culture of Comfort on Canadian Campuses:
Ringing the Bell Backwards
The Uses and Abuses of Academic Power and Freedom
Ignorant versus Enlightened Ways of Fighting Discrimination:
The Martin Luther King Perspective
Ice Station Academe
Gairdner, William
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Romantic Roots of Modern
Democracy
Conservatism in a Nutshell
Educational Junkscience
The Quebec Conundrum
Society: The Third Marriage Partner
Condomania
Gentles, Ian
Is Democracy a Child of the Reformation?
The Final Taboo: Rethinking Death with Dignity
Granatstein, J.L.
Who Killed Canadian History?
Gratzer, David
Hey, What About Health Care?
Waiting Lists Can't Be Ignored
Canadian and U.S. Health Care Systems Have the Same Ailment
Public Policy Hasn't Solved Homelessness
Manitoba Test of Campus Rules
Grubel, Herbert
The Brain Drain and Fiscal Policy -
An Open Letter to Paul Martin
The Case for a North American Currency
Freedom, Income, Unemployment and Social Development
Gunter, Lorne
UN Games Part 1 - Whose World Is It, Anyway?
UN Games Part 2 - Playing With the World's Agenda
Beyond the Box: Getting Reporters to Think
More Money Is No Cure for Health Care
How Jean Conned Ralph
Canada's Lop-Sided Abortion Debate
Thirty-Five Years of Social Spending
Hayek, Friedrich
The Intellectuals and Socialism
The Use of Knowledge in Society
Economics and Knowledge
The Road to Serfdom (excerpts)
Heston, Charlton
Winning the Cultural War
Hilliard, Lawrence
Pragmatism and the Presidency
Holland, Ken
Judicial Tyranny in the United States
Hooven, Ed
We Don't Need Psychobabble to Understand the Shootings
in Colorado
Hrab, J.N.
Swapping Scholarships for Votes
Great Books, Bad Politics
Hunter, Graeme
Compulsory Miseducation: Education's Sine Qua Non
Irvine, Andrew D.
Just How Far Should Police Go In Protecting Dictators?
Towards Equality of Opportunity
For Tips on Senate Reform,
Australia has a Lot to Teach Canada
University Funding:
Why There's Room For Corporate Cash in Academic Coffers
Education and Freedom: From Epictetus to Russell
Broad Subjects Free Us From Narrow Minds
Kalb, Jim
PC and the Crisis of Liberalism
Liberal Tolerance
Confucius Today
Knopf, Rainer
Neutrality On Contentious Issues Helps No One
Knopf, Morton
Only Ontario Needs a United Alternative
Landolt, C.
Gwendolyn Extra Territorial Control of Family Policy
Canadian Freedoms In Jeopardy
Leishman, Rory
Chief Justice Should Explain the Egregious Feeney Ruling
Freedom of Association is No Less Vital
Than Freedom of Speech
An Erstwhile Socialist Calls for an
Overhaul of the Welfare State
Socialism: Buried and Abandoned by a Compassionate Reformer
Corruption in the Academy
It's Not Just Conservatives Who Deplore Employment Inequity
Supreme Court of Canada Delivers Another Political Judgment
Robed Dictators: Legislators for Life
Australia Takes the Right Approach to Bogus Refugees
Human Rights Trumps Truth in the Media
Should Corporal Punishment Be Outlawed in Families?
Lieberman, Sen. Joseph
Address to the U.S. Senate Regarding President Clinton
Lusztig, Michael
Would a Triple 'E' Senate Afford Better Government?
McCarthy, Sarah J.
A Sense Of Proportionality
McElroy, Wendy
A Reconsideration of Trial By Jury
Abortion
Mises' Legacy to Feminism
Feminists Against Women: The New Reproductive Technologies
McGillivray, Peter
George Grant's Lament for a Nation: The Impossibility
of Red Conservatism in the Modern Technological Age
Menger, Carl
On the Origins of Money
Mercer, Ilana
Human Rights Commission Has New Targets
Meyer, Frank S.
Freedom, Tradition, Conservatism
Mill, John Stuart
On Liberty - Chapter 5, Applications, Part II
On Liberty - Chapter 4, Of the Limits to the
Authority of Society Over the Individual
On Liberty - Chapter 5, Applications, Part I
On Liberty - Chapter 3, On Individuality, as One of the
Elements of Wellbeing
On Liberty - Chapter 2, Of the Liberty of Thought and
Discussion, Part II
On Liberty - Chapter 2, Of the Liberty of Thought and
Discussion, Part I
On Liberty - Chapter 1, Introductory
On Liberty - Chapter 2, Of the Liberty of Thought and
Discussion, Part III
Moore, Charles W.
Socio-Economic Consequences of the Protestant Reformation
The Challenge:
Re-Defining Canadian Conservatism for a New Century
A Collision of Moral Visions
More, Paul Elmer
The New Morality
Academic Leadership
Property and Law
Aristocracy
Justice
Morton, Ted
Standing Up for Notwithstanding
Government Right on Prisoner-Voting
Vriend: The Negative Policy Consequences
New-Egalitarians: The Real threat to Human Rights
Vriend: A Misinterpretation of the Charter
Nicholls, Gerry
Romancing the Left
Nisbet, Robert
Conservatives and Libertarians: Uneasy Cousins
Oakeshott, Michael
Rationalism in Politics - Parts 4 & 5 of 5
Rationalism in Politics - Parts 1 to 3 of 5
O'Brien, George L.
For the Good of Society
O'Rourke, P.J.
How to Explain Conservatism to Your Squishy Liberal Friends:
Individualism 'R' Us
Paine, Thomas
Common Sense
Peikoff, Dr. Leonard
Health Care Is Not A Right
Regnery, Henry
The Age of Liberalism
Richards, John
The Welfare State as Political Orphan
Robson, John
The Gods of the Copybook Headings: A Meditation on
Conservatism and Neo-Conservatism
Robson, William
The Achievements and Limits of Evolutionary Centralism:
The Ontario Conservatives' Record in Education
Curing the Schools to Death:
Saving Public Education from its Defenders
Rothbard, Murray
Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism and the Division of Labor
Ryan, William L.
The Modern and Post-Modern Attack on Christianity
What Makes Us Lean to the Political Left or Right?
Ryn, Claes G.
Imaginative Origins of Modernity:
Life as Daydream and Nightmare
Schuster, Eli
Book Review: "Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became
an Extraordinary Leader"
Seeman, Neil
Who's Afraid of Two-Tiered Health Care?
Selick, Karen
Instead of the Nanny State
The Supreme Cop-Out
Don't Trust Government to Protect the Environment
Polarized, Yes - But Not By Our Plumbing
Property Rights Are Human Rights Too
The Ramp to Hell
Don't Misuse the Word "Libertarian"
Restricting Reproductive Freedom Is the Real Indignity
Solberg, Monte
The Psychology of Big Government
Spooner, Lysander
An Essay On Trial By Jury
Sturgis, Dr. Amy
The Rise, Decline, And Reemergence Of Classical Liberalism
Taube, Michael
Canada's Right Wing Has Many Feathers
Is globalization good for Canada? YES
Smoke, Mirrors Can't Hide True Meaning of Social Union
von Mises, Ludwig
On Equality and Inequality
Wells, Jon
In Search of True Conservatives
=================================================================
http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9802/mahoney.html
---------------------------------------------------
First Things
Books in Review
Conservatism
Copyright (c) 1998 First Things 80 (February 1998): 55-58.
Right Thinking
Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought. Edited by
Jerry Z. Muller. Princeton University Press. 450 pp. $44.95 cloth,
$19.95 paper.
Daniel J. Mahoney
Conservatism has undoubtedly established its presence on the American
political and intellectual landscape, but most of us would be at a
loss to define it with any kind of precision. To begin with, one must
separate American conservatism as a political movement, a broad
coalition of forces that defends the integrity of civil society
against the collectivist encroachments of the state, from the larger
currents of intellectual conservatism that have European origins and
are often less libertarian or anti-statist in orientation. Despite an
occasional nod to Edmund Burke or Friedrich Hayek, most American
conservatives actively engaged in political life are singularly
uninterested in attaining clarity about the character of conservatism
as an intellectual movement.
This should not surprise us, since conservatism entails the rejection
of abstract and doctrinaire theoretical approaches to political life.
But it was Burke himself who tried to persuade the gentlemen of his
day and party that they must defend themselves and political decency
in general against theoretical currents that undermined the integrity
of "sound practice." So conservatives, who have a distaste for
political theories, must nonetheless theorize about politics. Here we
arrive at a paradox that Jerry Z. Muller's anthology of conservative
thought richly highlights: conservatism is that theory which aims to
protect sound practice against corrosive and corrupting theory. It is
a political philosophy deeply suspicious of "metaphysical" or
"literary" politics.
From David Hume and Edmund Burke to Michael Oakeshott and Friedrich
Hayek (each of whom is amply represented and thoughtfully commented
upon in this book) conservative theorists have criticized
"contractualist" and "constructivist" approaches to political life
that ignore the dependence of the social fabric upon institutions,
customs, and habits that are not the product of human design. In his
excellent introduction, Muller emphasizes the conservative critique of
"theory," of what Burke called "the abuse of reason." Muller locates
conservatism in an approach that he calls "historical utilitarianism."
It emphasizes the wisdom of long-established historical practices, the
latent functions served by seemingly obsolete institutions and
traditions, the indispensable role of custom and habit as a "second
nature," and the unintended consequences that stem from efforts to
radically transform the social order.
Conservatives, despite their substantive disagreements about the
ultimate nature of things, have resisted liberal and radical calls for
"transparency" in social life precisely because they understand that
society cannot withstand a too systematic or energetic analysis of its
sometimes fragile foundations.
But Muller is careful to differentiate conservatism from orthodoxy. He
locates conservatism in a profound skepticism regarding knowledge of
the nature of man or a natural order of things--hence his choice of
David Hume as the founder of a modern, enlightened, skeptical, and
"utilitarian" conservatism. What are we to make of this seemingly
idiosyncratic choice of origins?
Muller is undoubtedly correct to distinguish conservatism both from
orthodoxy and from a radical conservatism that aims to uproot liberal
civilization in the name of vitalistic and nationalist values. But, in
my view, he understates the important connections that persist between
conservatism and orthodoxy. By "orthodoxy" I mean any
political-philosophical approach that admits the possibility and
necessity of theoretical metaphysics and philosophical ethics rooted
in a reflection on the "nature" of things. Muller is right to
emphasize the conservative critique of rationalism and the strongly
historicist or anti-universalist character of many conservative
thinkers. He is also right to raise the question of whether the
conservative emphasis on the utility of institutions and social
practices does not ultimately undermine belief in "the truth of
existing institutions, or indeed in the idea of truth as such." But
that objection to historicist conservatism was raised, as Muller
notes, by Leo Strauss, certainly a conservative thinker, at least in
the sense that classical political philosophy is a major source of
modern conservatism. By overemphasizing the historicist and
utilitarian character of conservative thought, Muller inevitably is
forced to downplay an equally fundamental conservative theme: the
critique of moral and philosophical relativism in the name of a
permanent order of things.
I believe that Muller's mistake is rooted in a too facile assimilation
of Hume and Burke (Burke attacked metaphysical politics and not
metaphysics per se, and assuredly believed that custom as "second
nature" was deeply rooted in an unchangeable human and social nature)
and in a general failure to confront fully the important conservative
critique of relativism and historicism. He provides rich selections
from Irving Kristol, Peter Berger and Richard John Neuhaus, and the
German writer Hermann Lubbe that stress the limits of social and
cultural "emancipation." But he understates the anti-relativistic
character of that critique because he is rather dogmatically attached
to a skeptical (e.g., Humean) conception of conservatism.
It seems to me that a whole range of more or less conservative
thinkers aim to steer a middle way between a deductive, natural law
approach to political things and the anti-rationalism highlighted by
Muller. For example, the Hungarian-born moral and political
philosopher Aurel Kolnai speaks for a conservatism that attempts to do
justice to the reality of a natural order as well as to the prudential
requirements of political life. In a remarkable review of Michael
Oakeshott's Rationalism in Politics in the English journal Philosophy
(January 1965) that ought to be read by all self-described
conservatives, Kolnai wrote:
The concept of "nature" has been artificially overworked by
metaphysicians of various kinds, but there is something unreal
and artificial also in the studied negation of the natural order
of things. And this very observation, for what it may be worth,
has, I think, a conservative rather than a subversive point.
This fundamental caveat aside, Jerry Muller (and Princeton University
Press) are to be applauded for providing a first-rate anthology of
conservative thought. Muller's general introduction, afterword, and
particular introductions to the individual selections provide an
eloquent and learned overview of some of the greatest conservative
themes.
His selections are drawn broadly from British, French, and German as
well as American writers and hence avoid the parochialism typical in
American discussions of conservatism. Some of the readings are little
gems: Justin Moser's 1772 warning about the dangers associated with
"Diminished Disgrace of Whores and Their Children in Our day"; T. E.
Hulme's "Essays on War" (1916), which respond to Bertrand Russell's
arguments for pacifism; and Winston Churchill's "Speech on Rebuilding
the House of Commons" (1943), a remarkable critique of "rationalism in
politics" by a Burkean-minded statesman.
But the book is nonetheless marred by the absence of any selection
from Alexis de Tocqueville (whose influence on contemporary
conservative theorists is duly noted by Muller) or of any contemporary
French conservative liberals, such as Raymond Aron or Bertrand de
Jouvenel, who operate within a broadly Tocquevillian framework. In my
view, no thinker better highlights the necessity or dignity of
intermediary associations (a conservative theme par excellence) nor
provides a deeper account of the dependence of modern liberal
democracy upon the "moral capital" of premodern times. Better than any
other conservative theorist, Tocqueville appreciated both the
comparative justice of modern democracy as well as the threat it poses
to the higher excellences of human nature. And I know of no figure who
better inoculates thoughtful people against the utopian temptations of
both left and right.
But omissions and biases notwithstanding, general readers and scholars
alike will find Muller's anthology an excellent place to begin the
necessary conversation on the meaning of conservatism in the modern
world.
Daniel J. Mahoney is Associate Professor of Politics at Assumption
College in Worcester, Massachussetts, and the author, most recently,
of DeGaulle: Statesmanship, Grandeur, and Modern Democracy (Praeger
1996).
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Updated: 22 April 1999
Jerry Vaughan
Racism Resurgent:
How Media Let The Bell Curve's Pseudo-Science Define the Agenda on Race
By Jim Naureckas
When The New Republic devoted almost an entire issue (10/31/94) to a debate with
the authors of The Bell Curve, editor Andrew
Sullivan justified the decision by writing, "The notion that there might be
resilient ethnic differences in intelligence is not, we believe,
an inherently racist belief."
In fact, the idea that some races are inherently inferior to others is the
definition of racism. What The New Republic was
saying--along with other media outlets that prominently and respectfully
considered the thesis of Charles Murray and the late
Richard Herrnstein's book--is that racism is a respectable intellectual
position, and has a legitimate place in the national debate on
race.
The Bell Curve was accorded attention totally disproportionate to the merits of
the book or the novelty of its thesis. The book and its
dubious claims set the agenda for discussions on such public affairs programs as
Nightline (10/21/94), the MacNeil/Lehrer
NewsHour (10/28/94), the McLaughlin Group (10/21/94), Charlie Rose (11/3/94,
11/4/94), Think Tank (10/14/94), PrimeTime
Live (10/27/94) and All Things Considered (10/28/94).
In addition to the above-mentioned New Republic issue, the "controversy" made
the covers of Newsweek (10/24/94) and the New
York Times Magazine (10/9/94), took up nearly a full op-ed page in the Wall
Street Journal (10/10/94), and garnered a near-rave
review from the New York Times Book Review (10/16/94; Extra! Update, 12/94).
While many of these discussions included sharp criticisms of the book, media
accounts showed a disturbing tendency to accept
Murray and Herrnstein's premises and evidence even while debating their
conclusions. "While Murray and Herrnstein base their
findings on various surveys and extensive research, many of the conclusions they
draw are fiercely disputed," declared Robert
MacNeil (10/28/94). "You've written a long book," Ted Koppel told Murray
(10/21/94). "I assume a great deal of work and research
went into it. But the problem is your book has become a political football."
While Murray and Herrnstein were generally characterized as sober social
scientists, their critics were sometimes identified with
censorious political correctness: "Both Murray and Herrnstein have been called
racists," wrote Washington Post columnist Richard
Cohen (10/18/94). "Their findings, though, have been accepted by most others in
their field, and it would be wrong -- both
intellectually and politically--to suppress them." Proclaimed Newsweek's
Geoffrey Cowley (10/24/94): "As the shouting begins, it's
worth noting that the science behind The Bell Curve is overwhelmingly
mainstream."
Murray himself doesn't think that the research they relied on was so mainstream.
"Some of the things we read to do this work, we
literally hide when we're on planes and trains," Murray told the New York Times
Magazine (10/9/94).
Pioneers of Eugenics
As well they might. Nearly all the research that Murray and Herrnstein relied on
for their central claims about race and IQ was funded
by the Pioneer Fund, described by the London Sunday Telegraph (3/12/89) as a
"neo-Nazi organization closely integrated with the
far right in American politics." The fund's mission is to promote eugenics, a
philosophy that maintains that "genetically unfit"
individuals or races are a threat to society.
The Pioneer Fund was set up in 1937 by Wickliffe Draper, a millionaire who
advocated sending blacks back to Africa. The
foundation's charter set forth the group's missions as "racial betterment" and
aid for people "deemed to be descended primarily from
white persons who settled in the original 13 states prior to the adoption of the
Constitution of the United States." (In 1985, after
Pioneer Fund grant recipients began receiving political heat, the charter was
slightly amended to play down the race angle--GQ,
11/94.)
The fund's first president, Harry Laughlin, was an influential advocate of
sterilization for those he considered genetically unfit. In
successfully advocating laws that would restrict immigrants from Southern and
Eastern Europe, Laughlin testified before Congress
that 83 percent of Jewish immigrants were innately feeble-minded (Rolling Stone,
10/20/94). Another founder, Frederick Osborn,
described Nazi Germany's sterilization law as "a most exciting experiment."
(Discovery Journal, 7/9/94)
The fund's current president, Harry Weyher, denounces the Supreme Court decision
that desegregated schools, saying, "All Brown
did was wreck the school system." (GQ, 11/94) The fund's treasurer, John Trevor,
formerly served as treasurer for the crypto-fascist
Coalition of Patriotic Societies, when it called in 1962 for the release of Nazi
war criminals and praised South Africa's "well-reasoned
racial policies." (Rolling Stone, 10/20/94)
One of the Pioneer Fund's largest current grantees is Roger Pearson, an activist
and publisher who has been associated with
international fascist currents. Pearson has written: "If a nation with a more
advanced, more specialized, or in any way superior set of
genes mingles with, instead of exterminating, an inferior tribe, then it commits
racial suicide." (Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New
Right and the Republican Party)
"Leading Scholar"
These are the people that financed nearly all The Bell Curve's "data" on the
connection between race and intelligence. (Murray and
Herrnstein themselves have not been funded, although Weyher says of Herrnstein,
"We'd have funded him at the drop of a hat, but
he never asked"--GQ, 11/94.)
Take the infamous Chapter 13, which Murray has often claimed is the only chapter
that deals with race (far from it--there are at least
four chapters focused entirely on race, and the whole book is organized around
the concept).
Murray and Herrnstein's claims about the higher IQs of Asians--widely cited in
the media as fact--are almost entirely cited to Richard
Lynn, a professor of psychology at the University of Ulster.
In the book's acknowledgements, Murray and Herrnstein declare they "benefitted
especially from the advice" of Lynn and five other
people.
Lynn has received at least $325,000 from the Pioneer Fund (Rolling Stone,
10/20/94). He frequently publishes in eugenicist
journals like Mankind Quarterly--published by Roger Pearson and co-edited by
Lynn himself--and Personality and Individual
Differences, edited by Pioneer grantee Hans Eysenck. Among Lynn's writings cited
in The Bell Curve are "The Intelligence of the
Mongoloids" and "Positive Correlations Between Head Size and IQ."
Murray and Herrnstein describe Lynn as "a leading scholar of racial and ethnic
differences." Here's a sample of Lynn's thinking on
such differences: "What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of
the population of incompetent cultures. But we do need to
think realistically in terms of the 'phasing out' of such peoples....
Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less competent.
To think otherwise is mere sentimentality." (cited in Newsday, 11/9/94)
Elsewhere Lynn makes clear which "incompetent cultures" need "phasing out": "Who
can doubt that the Caucasoids and the
Mongoloids are the only two races that have made any significant contributions
to civilization?" (cited in New Republic, 10/31/94)
Lynn's fingerprints are all over the footnotes to Chapter 13. In discussing the
question of Asian intellectual superiority, Murray and
Herrnstein say that the affirmative position has been well defended by Lynn, but
that the question can only be decided by "data
obtained from identical tests administered to populations that are comparable
except for race."
"We have been able to identify three such efforts," the authors announce--two
that support the concept of Asian superiority and one
that does not. A review of the footnotes reveals a sleight of hand: The two
tests that support Lynn's thesis were conducted by Lynn
himself. (See New York Review of Books, 12/1/94.)
Credibility Gap
Media reports also treated as fact Murray and Herrnstein's claim that black IQs
are 15 points lower than whites. "For as long as
Americans have been IQ-tested, blacks have trailed whites by that 15-point
margin," ABC's Dave Marash reported for Nightline
(10/21/94). "Murray sees in the consistency of these gaps proof that intervening
to raise low IQs just doesn't work."
But The Bell Curve cites as its primary sources for this assertion R. Travis
Osborne, Frank C.J. McGurk, and Audrey Shuey--all
recipients of Pioneer grants. Osborne, who has received almost $400,000 from
Pioneer, used his "research" into black genetic
inferiority to argue for the restoration of school segregation (Newsday,
11/9/94).
And, in fact, even the data collected by these racists does not show a
consistent 15-point gap. The studies they present show a
wide range of results, ranging from no black/white IQ disparity at all to the
absurd finding that most African-Americans are severely
retarded.
As for the "consistency of the gaps," even The Bell Curve acknowledges that more
recent tests have shown a narrower black/white
difference, ranging from seven to 10 points. SAT tests have shown a similar
convergence. But Murray and Herrnstein warn that "at
some point convergence may be expected to stop, and the gap could even begin to
widen again"--because "black fertility is loaded
more heavily than white fertility toward low-IQ segments of the population." In
other words, the bad genes will triumph, no matter
what the evidence says.
That sort of circular argument abounds in The Bell Curve. Although sociologist
Jane Mercer has shown that supposed racial
differences in IQ vanish if one controls for a variety of socio-economic
variables, the authors reject her method because their theories
assume that low IQ causes people to be poor, rather than poverty causing low
IQs. Similarly, even though IQ tests show that
average scores are rising--by as much as 15 points since World War II--"real"
IQs must be falling, since low IQ women are having
more babies.
Giants in the Profession
Another person whose advice Murray and Herrnstein "benefitted especially
from"--and who shows up constantly in their footnotes--is
Arthur Jensen, whose very similar claims about blacks having innately lower IQs
were widely discredited in the 1970s. The Pioneer
Fund has given more than $1 million to this "giant in the profession," as
Pioneer chief Weyher describes him (GQ, 11/94). And it's
easy to see why: "Eugenics isn't a crime," Jensen has said (Newsday, 11/9/94).
"Which is worse, to deprive someone of having a
child, or to deprive the child of having a decent set of parents?"
Elsewhere, Jensen has worried "that current welfare policies, unaided by genetic
foresight, could lead to the genetic enslavement of
a substantial portion of our population." (cited in Counterpunch, 11/1/94)
Murray and Herrnstein also rely heavily on Thomas Bouchard, whose study of
separated-at-birth twins has "proved" that not only is
intelligence largely genetically determined, but so are religiosity, political
orientation and leisure-time interests. The Bell Curve uses
Bouchard to rehabilitate Sir Cyril Burt, whose twin-based evidence for inherited
intelligence is now believed to be fraudulent. Their
logic is that Burt's research must have been sound, because Burt's findings
closely resemble Bouchard's, and Bouchard's research
is "accepted by most scholars as a model of its kind."
That illustrates the sort of scholars Murray and Herrnstein associate with. More
reputable researchers have raised many questions
about Bouchard's work: While other twin researchers estimate that 50 percent of
the average variation in intelligence can be
attributed to heredity, Bouchard comes up with 70 percent. Even the twin studies
that came up with more conservative estimates of
intelligence's "heritability" (itself a highly dubious concept) are flawed
because the supposedly "separated-at-birth" twins usually turn
out to have been raised in close proximity; Bouchard refuses to let skeptics
examine the case histories of the twins he studied,
essentially rendering his research into so many "Believe It or Not!" anecdotes
(Scientific American, 6/93; The Nation, 11/28/94).
Bouchard, of course, is also a major recipient of Pioneer money-- "We couldn't
have done this project without the Pioneer Fund," he
told GQ (11/94). And he's a colleague and mentor of (and has some peculiar views
in common with) perhaps the crankiest of all of
Pioneer's beneficiaries, J. Philippe Rushton.
"More Brain Or More Penis"
Rushton (who's gotten more than $770,000 from Pioneer) has transformed the
Victorian science of cranial measurement into a
sexual fetish--measuring not only head and brain size, but also the size of
breasts, buttocks and genitals. "It's a trade-off: More brain
or more penis. You can't have everything," he told Rolling Stone's Adam Miller
(10/20/94), explaining his philosophy of evolution.
Rushton was reprimanded by his school, the University of Western Ontario, for
accosting people in a local shopping mall and asking
them how big their penises were and how far they could ejaculate. "A zoologist
doesn't need permission to study squirrels in his
backyard," he groused (Rolling Stone, 10/20/94).
Rushton's creepy obsessions intersect with the ugliest sides of politics: A 1986
article by Rushton suggested that the Nazi war
machine owed its prowess to racial purity, and worried that demographic shifts
were endangering our "Northern European"
civilization. Rushton co-authored a paper that argued that blacks have a genetic
propensity to contract AIDS because of their
"reproductive strategy" of promiscuous sex (cited in Newsday, 11/9/94). The
other author was Bouchard, the author of those
amazing twin studies celebrated in mainstream news outlets.
It's not surprising that Murray and Herrnstein would defend Rushton, writing
that his "work is not that of a crackpot or a bigot, as
many of his critics are given to charging." But it's startling that a science
writer for the New York Times, Malcolm Browne, would
actually endorse Rushton's book (10/16/94). Echoing The Bell Curve, Browne
respectfully concludes his summary of Rushton's
bizarre theories with: "Mr. Rushton is nevertheless regarded by many of his
colleagues as a scholar and not a bigot." ("Browne
doesn't identify these 'colleagues,' but I expect he means Professor Beavis and
Professor Butthead," the Toronto Star's Joey
Slinger wrote--10/20/94.)
Political Timing
Anyone who flipped through the footnotes and bibliography of Murray and
Herrnstein's book could see that there was something
screwy about their sources. And there is hardly a proposition in their book that
had not been thoroughly debunked more than a
decade ago by Steven Jay Gould's classic work on the pseudo-science behind
eugenics, The Mismeasure of Man.
So why is The Bell Curve suddenly an "important book" that needs to have cover
stories, news broadcasts, even whole magazines
devoted to it? In large part, because the book is well-timed to take advantage
of a resurgence of racism in U.S. media and society--a
racism that does not want to face up to its own identity.
In a proposal outlining the book, Murray wrote that there is "a huge number of
well-meaning whites who fear that they are closet
racists, and this book tells them they are not. It's going to make them feel
better about things they already think but do not know
how to say." (New York Times Magazine, 10/9/94) The Bell Curve does indeed tell
closet racists that they aren't racist, and
makes them feel better by saying that their prejudices are grounded in science.
The Bell Curve also fits in well with some current political agendas. The
immigration issue has been seized upon by the U.S. right
wing, as it has by the far right in other countries. Much of Murray and
Herrnstein's book is devoted to suggesting that "Latino and
black immigrants are...putting some downward pressure on the distribution of
intelligence."
The connection between the book and the anti-immigrant movement is, once again,
the Pioneer Fund; the fund has always feared
immigrants, although its concerns have shifted from Poles and Italians to blacks
and Latinos. The leading anti-immigration group in
the U.S. is the Federation for American Immigration Reform (unfortunately
sharing an acronym with the media watch group FAIR);
the federation has received more than $1 million in Pioneer money, which was
critical in getting the organization off the ground. (See
Extra!, 7-8/93.) Pioneer also funds the American Immigration Control Foundation,
a more overtly racist group whose work is cited by
Murray and Herrnstein.
Similarly, the book also meshes well with conservative efforts to drastically
restrict welfare spending. Murray has long been
associated with the idea of eliminating welfare, and now with The Bell Curve he
produces a eugenic justification: "The United States
already has policies that inadvertently social-engineer who has babies, and it
is encouraging the wrong women.... We urge that
these policies, represented by the extensive network of cash and services for
low-income women who have babies, be ended."
For Their Own Ends
Many pundits carefully distanced themselves from the book, then made use of its
claims to push their own ideological ends. In a
New Republic column (10/31/94), Mickey Kaus argues against a genetic basis for
IQ differences, saying, "There are obvious
policies that might change the black 'environment' and therefore black IQ
scores." But what's his example of such a program?
"Abolition of cash welfare," he suggests.
The McLaughlin Group (10/21/94) featured a whole parade of this sort of
pseudo-critic: While no one wanted to embrace
wholeheartedly Murray and Herrnstein's genetic determinism, almost all were
happy to make use of the conclusion The Bell Curve
draws from the eugenic argument: that the poor and non-white are getting what
they deserve.
Thus Pat Buchanan declared: "I think a lot of the data are indisputable.... It
does shoot a hole straight through the heart of egalitarian
socialism which tried to create equality of result by coercive government
programs."
And Michael Barone: "The implication of their argument is, if they're right,
that we really should not engage in a lot of government
social engineering to create equal outcomes and so forth. They'd have to throw
all the Chinese out of the Higher Math Department."
Morton Kondracke found this message: "It does undermine the case, John, for
racial quotas, which is the form of discrimination in
our society."
Clarence Page, the token liberal on the panel, described Murray as a personal
friend, and gave a lukewarm critique: "It's got some
good data, but it's Murray's conclusions that he doesn't prove."
It was left to John McLaughlin, of all people, to say the obvious about The Bell
Curve: "It is largely pseudo-scientific and it is
singularly unhelpful."
Pyro 1488
>It was left to John McLaughlin, of all people, to say the obvious about The
Bell
>Curve: "It is largely pseudo-scientific and it is
>singularly unhelpful."
Your post is self-refuting. The article you gave referred to the work of 2
scientists (or at the least prominent academics) -- Richard Herrnstein and
Charles Murray -- as "pseudo-scientific." To support this claim, they
adduced John McLaughlin, a non-academic talk show host, as a detractor of
the book. Now who, then, is spouting pseudo-science? Why didn't the person
who wrote the article get a more reputable source than a talk show host to
explain in detail the flaws of the book?
Just when I think you leftists can't get any dumber..
Pyro
NRN Consulting
Pyro 1488 <Vald...@email.msn.com> wrote:
>
>Your post is self-refuting. The article you gave referred to the work of 2
>scientists (or at the least prominent academics) -- Richard Herrnstein and
>Charles Murray -- as "pseudo-scientific." To support this claim, they
>adduced John McLaughlin, a non-academic talk show host, as a detractor of
>the book. Now who, then, is spouting pseudo-science? Why didn't the person
>who wrote the article get a more reputable source than a talk show host to
>explain in detail the flaws of the book?
>
The article was about media coverage of "The Bell Curve," so one might
expect it to cover what people in the media said. There are plenty of
articles to be found that trash the book out on a more scientific basis.
You should able to find the back issues of Scientific American and NY
Review of Books that cover the matter at your local library.
--
NRN Consulting 500 W Cermak Rd #42 Chicago IL 60616-1860 http://www.nrnc.com/
age...@post.cz
Persons who think that the idea of racial differences
in IQ is \"pseudo-scientific\" are invariably ignoramuses
who lack training in psychology. One might perhaps include
paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould in this number, but even
Gould does not dispute that the differences are real and
persistent -- he attacks mainly by calling into question
the notion of race itself, and on the philosophical ground
of whether there actually is a general intelligence factor
that is to be measured via IQ tests. This poorly-written
hit piece on \"The Bell Curve\" will convince only leftist
ideologues who are already beyond rational argument. For
a more balanced account of the issue, along with a snapshot
of just how far Western culture has declined in academia,
see:
http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Brand/camb.html
Cheers,
99
--
\"The rest of your post should earn you a pen register
with the FBI, if you don\'t already have one. A recent
post would have done the same thing. Three cheers for
the FBI, who may still be monitoring this group.\"
--susan...@aol.com (SusanJ1111) to 99 in message
<19990813194840...@ng-cm1.aol.com>,
displaying her commitment to free speech.
NRN Consulting
>n...@enteract.com (NRN Consulting) wrote:
>
>Persons who think that the idea of racial differences
>in IQ is \"pseudo-scientific\" are invariably ignoramuses
>who lack training in psychology. One might perhaps include
>paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould in this number, but even
>Gould does not dispute that the differences are real and
>persistent -- he attacks mainly by calling into question
>the notion of race itself, and on the philosophical ground
>of whether there actually is a general intelligence factor
>that is to be measured via IQ tests. This poorly-written
>hit piece on \"The Bell Curve\" will convince only leftist
>ideologues who are already beyond rational argument. For
>a more balanced account of the issue, along with a snapshot
>of just how far Western culture has declined in academia,
One of the points Gould makes is that one's potential height is mostly
inherited but realized height can be dramatically increased over a
group norm by proper nutrition during one's youth. Food for thought. <rimshot>
>see:
>
>http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Brand/camb.html
www.cycad.com is not known to be a particularly balanced site on the subject
of race and the most cursory examination of it will verify this.
Michael Kagalenko
]Pyro 1488 <Vald...@email.msn.com> wrote:
]>
]>Your post is self-refuting. The article you gave referred to the work of 2
]>scientists (or at the least prominent academics) -- Richard Herrnstein and
]>Charles Murray -- as "pseudo-scientific." To support this claim, they
]>adduced John McLaughlin, a non-academic talk show host, as a detractor of
]>the book. Now who, then, is spouting pseudo-science? Why didn't the person
]>who wrote the article get a more reputable source than a talk show host to
]>explain in detail the flaws of the book?
]>
]
]The article was about media coverage of "The Bell Curve," so one might
]expect it to cover what people in the media said. There are plenty of
]articles to be found that trash the book out on a more scientific basis.
]You should able to find the back issues of Scientific American and NY
]Review of Books that cover the matter at your local library.
THe American Psychological Association issued a statement endorsing a number of
conclusions of the book. Research on intelligence is pretty active, if
you search Medline you'll find a bunch of articles. There is a search for genes
correlating with intelligence, for example, and a few weak correlation have been
found. There's also work that found positive correlations between brain volume
and intelligence; they used MRI scanners to measure the volume of
the brain.
Michael Kagalenko
]>of just how far Western culture has declined in academia,
]One of the points Gould makes is that one's potential height is mostly
]inherited but realized height can be dramatically increased over a
]group norm by proper nutrition during one's youth. Food for thought. <rimshot>
Well, that notion pretty much refuted by the studies of twins separated
at birt, for ex., a Minnesota studies. They show that genetically
identical twins actually tend to become closer in their IQ as they grow older.
]>see:
]>
]>http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Brand/camb.html
]
]www.cycad.com is not known to be a particularly balanced site on the subject
]of race and the most cursory examination of it will verify this.
Try Medline then.
Amos Keppler
>
> NRN Consulting (n...@enteract.com) wrote
> ]>of just how far Western culture has declined in academia,
> ]
> ]One of the points Gould makes is that one's potential height is mostly
> ]inherited but realized height can be dramatically increased over a
> ]group norm by proper nutrition during one's youth. Food for thought. <rimshot>
>
> Well, that notion pretty much refuted by the studies of twins separated
> at birt, for ex., a Minnesota studies. They show that genetically
> identical twins actually tend to become closer in their IQ as they grow older.
Strangly enough it's rather if twins grow up together they tend to be
and act different. This is because they're really the same person and
are excibiting different characteristica of that person.
Amos
--
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
< My virtual, wilderness community address is: >
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< My address at midnight: >
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ http://w1.2561.telia.com/~u256100087/ ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
Feel the heat of Firewind
http://w1.2561.telia.com/~u256100087/firewind.html
«We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well
that Death will tremble to take us»!
Charles Bukowski
sofi...@gmail.com
sofi...@gmail.com
Dänk 42Ø
> There's always has to be one of you motherfuckers
discredit their opponents.
A somewhat similar attempt to discredit Ted was the prosecution's
demands that he submit to mandatory psychological tests, even though Ted
had no plans to plead insanity. He passed the tests with flying colors,
which the Dr. Phil who administered them explained as him being so smart
he could fool the "scientific" tests. Nevertheless, the media still
describes his excellently-written essay as "rambling" and "incoherent,"
the ravings of a madman.
So Ted is racist, though the people he singles out for criticism in his
essay are white leftists. He is fascist, though he describes himself
and his philosophy as anarchist. He is insane, though he passed all the
sanity tests -- including the dowsing rod and dunking stool.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Those who are most sensitive about 'politically incorrect' terminology
are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant, abused woman
or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not
even belong to any 'oppressed' group but come from privileged strata of
society. Political correctness has its stronghold among university
professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and
the majority of whom are heterosexual, white males from middle-class
families."
-- Industrial Society and Its Future
