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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Vast and rapidly moving social, political and economic changes characterize our times. Almost all current academic political discussion is under the influence of this massive fact. To deal with the rapidity and complexity of these changes new techniques of summarizing, condensing, tabulating, organizing and distributing information have been developed. Corresponding habits of rapid reading and machinelike memorization, reading with a minimum of reflective thought, often seem to be appropriate for imbibing much of this material.
1 On the grounds of modern, as distinct from classical, liberalism, see Berns, Laurence, “Thomas Hobbes,” in History of Political Philosophy, eds. Strauss, Leo and Cropsey, Joseph (1963), pp. 359–63.Google Scholar Cf. ibid., Warren Winiarski, “Niccolo Machiavelli,” pp. 273–75; Rosen, Stanley, “Benedict Spinoza,” p. 417;Google ScholarGoldwin, Robert A., ”John Locke,” pp. 453–64;Google Scholar and esp. Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago, 1953), pp. 181–82Google Scholar.
2 Cf. Plato, Republic 403Google Scholar C; Xenophon, Memorabilia 4. 5Google Scholar; Oeconomicus 1. 17–23; and Symposium 1. 10; Aristotle, N. Ethics 1099all–20Google Scholar; Politics 1288 a9–12; Strauss, Leo, Liberalism Ancient and Modern (New York, 1968), chaps. 1 and 2Google Scholar.
3 See below, p. 247.
4 Politics 1281a17 and 1281b19. Cf. Abraham, Lincoln, “To the Voters of the Seventh Congressional District,” 31 07, 1846Google Scholar.
Fellow Citizens:
A charge having got into circulation in some of the neighborhoods of this District, in substance that I am an open scoffer at Christianity, I have by the advice of some friends concluded to notice the subject in this form. That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general or of any denomination of Christians in particular. It is true that in early life I was inclined to believe in what I understand is called the “Doctrine of Necessity”—that is, that the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power, over which the mind itself has no control; and I have sometimes (with one, two or three, but never publicly) tried to maintain this opinion in argument —the habit of arguing thus, however, I have entirely left off for more than five years—And I add here, I have always understood this same opinion to be held by several of the Christian denominations. The foregoing, is the whole truth, briefly stated, in relation to myself, upon this subject.
I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at religion.—Leaving the higher matter of eternal consequences between him and his Maker, I still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and injure the morals, of the community in which he may live.—If, then, I was guilty of such conduct, I should blame no man who should condemn me for it; but I do blame those, whoever they may be, who falsely put such a charge in circulation against me.
Cf. Abraham Lincoln and American Constitutionalism, eds. de Alvarez, Leo Paul, Anastaplo, George, Berns, Laurence, Brann, Eva, and Thurow, Glen (Irving, Texas, 1976)Google Scholar. Cf. also Winston Churchill, letter to Lady Randolph, 14 January 1897, in Winston S. Churchill, by Churchill, Randolph S., Companion Volume I, Part 2, 1896–1900 (Boston, 1967), pp. 724–25Google Scholar. Cf. Stauss, Leo, Liberalism Ancient and Modern, p. 18Google Scholar: “In the light of the original conception of modern republicanism, our present predicament appears to be caused by the decay of religious education of the people and by the decay of liberal education of the representatives of the people.”
5 “Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbuergerlicher Absicht,” Kants Werke, Akademie—Textausgabe, B. viii, pp. 15–32Google Scholar (“Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View,” in Kant, , On History, ed. Beck, Lewis, Library of Liberal Arts, pp. 11–26)Google Scholar.
6 “Muthmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte,” ibid., pp. 107–23 (Kant, , On History, pp. 53–68)Google Scholar.
7 Oedipus Tyrannus, 11. 880–81.
8 Cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia 3.Google Scholar 6 and 7; 4. 2 and 3; 1. 2.
9 Henry the Sixth, Part Two, 4.7.4–5.
10 Ibid., 4.7.32–46, 69–82, 101–08.
11 Consider the implications for the question of capital punishment.
12 On the Theory of Marxism (New York, 1948)Google Scholar. Cf. Loewith, Karl, Heidegger, Denker in duerf tiger Zeit (Goettingen, 1960), chaps. 2 and 4Google Scholar; Rosen, Stanley, “Philosophy and Ideology: Reflections on Heidegger,” Social Research, Summer, 1968Google Scholar; Harries, Karsten, “Heidegger as a Political Thinker,” Review of Metaphysics, 06, 1976.Google Scholar The common ground, from, our point of view, of these doctrines can be seen in Hegel's remark: “For World-History moves itself on a higher ground than that on which morality has its proper station…” (“Denn die Weltgeschichte bewegt sich auf einem hoehern Boden, als der ist, auf dem die Moralitaet ihre eigentuemliche Staette hat…” Vorlemngen ueber die Philosophie der Geschichte, Einleitung).
13 Hitler's Secret Conversations, 1941–1944, Signet Books, p. 252. Henry L. Mason, in a very informative and balanced article on the politicization of universities in West Germany during the early seventies AAUP Bulletin, September 1974, refers to “specifically German (Weimar-Hitlerian) explanations,” for that politicization.
However, Weimar-Hitlerian explanations may not be only “specifically German,” but may point to a more general pattern of weakness in western liberalism as a political and academic credo. I refer to the weakness of liberal rationalism in the face of propaganda attacks from totalitarian secular political religions, i.e., Marxist, communist, Nazi and fascist propaganda. The “Weimar-Hitlerian” experience may be a kind of paradigm for the weakness of a liberal rationalism that is too intellectual, too contemptuous of rhetoric, that is cut off from popular religion and popular patriotism, from the creeds that engage the affections of the larger mass of “unenlightened” citizens, from the creeds that political men who want to be effective must always take account of.
To put it in more general terms. If expectations for the universal, or general spread of enlightened liberal rationalism are unreasonable, as being based on the intellectual's typical overestimation of the rational powers of most men, then, in order to survive, liberal rationalism must ally or amalgamate itself with those creeds that 1) do engage the affections of the large majority of non-intellectual men, and which 2) can coexist with liberal rationalism without compelling it to abandon its own fundamental principles. Without this kind of support there seems little reason to expect liberal rationalism to survive the unrestrained propaganda attacks of illiberal anti-rationalism, i.e., fascism, or illiberal pseudo-rationalism, i.e., what is called Marxism. To deal with those who have no scruples about unleashing the irrational forces in most men's souls rational men should be prepared also to utilize those same irrational powers, but only so far as is necessary to protect and preserve the liberal life of reason. Where can liberal rationalism turn to find political allies of sufficient strength to ensure its survival? The best allies for liberal rationalism, I suggest, are traditional patriotism and the revealed religions. Since rationalism cannot refute revelation, because they differ about the very principles of proof, it can legitimately be open to the suggested alliance.
An application to our own situation in the United States may be useful. The strength of American liberal rationalism, it seems to me, derives in large part from the patriotic reverence still felt in connection with the Founding of the Union and the Constitution. Is this strength not a function of the Founders' and Refounders' amalgamation of their liberal rationalism with Biblical religion? I am thinking of “Nature's God” in the Declaration of Independence and “God” in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural. Is the increase of crime in the United States and the consequent necessary expansion of police forces, the internal militarization of our society, unconnected with the intellectually fashionable weakening of the bonds between revealed religion and liberal rationalism? We are reminded of Washington's warning, in his Farewell Address, “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
It should be noted that arguments for the political and social importance of religion, addressed to fellow citizens adhering to a multiplicity of religious and antireligious creeds, must be based on the common ground of reason; they presuppose nothing, positive or negative, about the claims to truth of religion. Religion's claims to truth are untouched by such arguments. Such arguments do not reach that more profound question. Furthermore, the traditional distinction between many and few, intellectually strong and weak, is not a necessarily antireligious distinction. It is at home within as well as outside of religion. Cf. the Apostle Paul's distinction between milk and strong meat, 1 Cor. 3:1 and 2; prologue to Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologies; Sayings of the [Jewish] Fathers, 2:5 and 7:13–18; and Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, 1. 2. 12; 4. 10–13.
14 Cf. Speier, Hans, “Risk, Security and Modern Hero Worship,” in Social Order and the Risks of War (Boston, 1968), chap. 9Google Scholar.
15 Summa Theologica, I–II Q. 95, A. 2.
16 N. Ethics, 5.7., 1134b18–1135a1 5.
17 Q. 96, A. 4, ad 1. Cf. John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, chap. 13, secs. 1–4; Institutes of the Christian Religion, bk. 4, chap. 20, esp. sees. 16ff. Cf. John Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul. Cf. note p on Romans, 13:1, with the end of paragraph 2 of Locke's introduction to this section, and cf. the latter with the tables of contents of his Two Treatises on Government.
18 Cf. Plato, Pheado 89C ff.Google Scholar Cf. in this order Turgenev's novels Fathers and Sons and Virgin. Soil, and Dostoevsky's Possessed, for an account of how Russia's political intellectuals turned from populism to terrorism.
19 The Selected Poems of Herman Melville, ed. Cohen, Hennig, Anchor Books, 1964, pp. 169Google Scholar and 257.
20 Aristotle N. Ethics 1179b5–18.
21 Summa Theologica, I–II, Q.92, A.2, ad 4; Q.95, A.I.
22 Aristotle N. Ethics 1105a26–1105bl.
23 Ibid., 1268b23–1269a28.
24 E.g., Aristotle Politics 1273b10–12, where flute playing is paired with shoemaking. The former addresses itself to the soul, especially the passions, the latter protects the body.
25 Melville, Cohen, , p. 24.Google Scholar Cf. Acts of the Apostles, 22:24 and 25.
26 Cf. note 4, above, and Strauss, Leo, On Tyranny (Glencoe, 1963), esp. p. 199.Google Scholar Where “higher education,” the traditional locus of opposition to political extremism and fanaticism, becomes transformed by the spirit of ideology, the antiintellectual prejudices of the uneducated begin by contrast almost to resemble classical moderation. In default of traditional resources and in so far as those prejudices are more reasonable than what they oppose, they may come to be looked upon with new interest by those seeking “reasonable security for sound practice.”
27 Cf. George Anastaplo, Book Review, Levy, : Legacy of Suppression-Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History, 39 New York University Law Review 735 (1964), esp. p. 741,Google Scholar reprinted in Human Being and Citizen: Essays on Virtue, Freedom and the Common Good (Chicago, 1975); Berns, Laurence, “Two Old Conservatives Discuss the Anastaplo Case,” 54 Cornell Law Review 920, 07, 1969Google Scholar.
28 Cf. Goldwin, Robert A., “Of Men and Angels: A Searchfor Morality in the Constitution,” in The Moral Foundations of the American. Republic, ed. Horwitz, Robert H. (Charlottesville, 1977)Google Scholar.
29 Cf. Franklin, Benjamin, “Positions to be Examined Concerning National Wealth,” 04 04, 1769Google Scholar, Benjamin Franklin, Representative Selections, Mott, F. L. and Jorgenson, C. E., American Book Company, 1936, pp. 345–47;Google Scholar referred to by K. Marx in Capital, Part Two, chap. 4, sec. 2 (E. & C. Paul translation); elsewhere Part Two, chap. 5.
30 Cf. R. H. Tawney, The Acquisitive Society, chap. 5.
31 Cf. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, I: 5, last section; II: 2, chap. 7.
32 “Fragment: The Constitution and the Union,” 1860 or 1861, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Basler, Roy, 4: 16869.Google Scholar Cf. Diamond, Martin, “The American Idea of Equality: The View from, the Founding,” Review of Politics, 38 (1976), 313–31;CrossRefGoogle ScholarJaffa, Harry V., Equality and Liberty: Theory and Practice in American Politics (New York, 1965), pp. vii, 13–14, 129–39, 175–79Google Scholar; and “What Is Equality?” in Conditions of Freedom (Baltimore, 1975), pp. 149–60.Google Scholar Jaffa supports Diamond (op. cit., p. 317) at pp. 157–59 of Conditions of Freedom. On Equality and Liberty, see George Anastaplo, “Liberty and Equality,” in Human Being and Citizen, chap. 5. Diamond argues that “the principle of equal entitlement to liberty, and the denial to inequality of its political authority, means that the ancient idea of distributive justice is publicly rejected” (p. 329). This requires qualification: it is rather a most important application of the classical principle of distributive justice that is publicly rejected.” Every political society operates in accordance with, if it is not constituted by, some notion of distributive justice, some notion of how advantages and harms ought to be distributed. Cf. my “Rational Animal—Political Animal: Nature and Convention in Human Speech and Politics,” Review of Politics, 38 (1976), 177–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar (rev. and reprint, in Essays in Honor of Jacob Klein [Annapolis, 1976], p. 29). Cf. also Diamond, p. 331.
33 Speech at Springfield, Illinois, 26 June, 1857, emphasis in original.
34 See note 6 above.