SHWLL NYAGOW NI WSITVUddIT 1S PORE e ESV ane ff) MODERN TIME wm : A IN HONOUR OF DG AY Eo Calan Edited by Ernest Gellner and César Cansi ROPEAN UNIVERSITY PRESSLIBERALISM IN MODERN TIMES Essays in Honour of José G. Merquior EDITED BY ERNEST GELLNER AND CESAR CANSINO a ScEU CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY PRESS Budapest. London New YorkFirst published in 1996 by ‘Central European University Press 1051 Badapest Nador uica 9, Hungary Distributed by Onford University Pres, Walon Stret, Oxford OX2 6D? Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombiy Toronto CCaleuta Cape Town Dares Silkam Dela Florence Hong Kong Tstanbal Karachi Keala Lompur Madme Madkid Melbonme ‘Mexico City Naicobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto {nd ascocited companses in Berlin Ibucan Distributed in the United Sexes bby Oxford University Pres Inc., New York © Central European University Press 1996 Allrights reserved. No par ofthis publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or tarsmitted, in any form or by any means, ‘wichout the prior pension of the pablus, Biitsh Library Cataloguing in Publication Data ACIP catalogue record for ths book wailble fom the Brith Library ISBN 1-85866-52-1 Hardback ISBN 1-85866-(53-X Paperback Library of Congross Cataloging in Publication Data ‘A CIP catalog record for this book's availble fiom the Library of Congress Designed sypetet and prodaced by John Saunders Design & Production, Reading, UK Printed and bound in Grest Briain by Bidiles of Guilford, UK CONTENTS Notes on Contributors ‘Acknowledgments Post Seriptum Triste Introduction Emest Gellner Part | On Merquiorian Thought 1. A Panoramic View on the Renaissance of Liberalisms José G. Merquior 2. Merquior and Liberalism Helio Jaguaribe 3. Modemity and Postmodernity in the Thought of José Merquior Gregory R. Johnson 4. Merquior the Liberalist Roberto Campos 5. Variations on 2 Theme by J. G. Merquior Ghita Tonesan Pare 1 On Merquiorian Themes 6. Liberalism and Trust John A. Hall vil ix 21 37 or 101Contents Adam Ferguson and the Surprising Robustness of Civil Society Ernest Gellner Politics and Morality Norberto Bobbio . On Deliberation: Rethinking Democracy as Politics Itself Ramén Maiz On ‘Postmodern’ Scepticism Raymond Boudon . The Futures of Latin America: Conservative or Liberal-Democratic? César Cansino and Victor Alarén Part II On Merquior’s Life and ‘Work 12. José G. Merquior, 1941-1991 (Celso Lafer 13. Annotated Bibliography of José G. Merquior (César Cansino and Viator Alarcén Index CONTRIBUTORS Victor Alarcén is Profesior of Political Science at the Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Econémicas (Mexico City), and a faculty member at the University of Notre Dame. Norberto Bobbio is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Turin and the author of several books, including The Future of Democracy (1987) and Which Socialism? Marxism, Socialism and Democracy (1987) Raymond Boudon is Professor at the University of Pari Sorbonne. His books include Theories of Social Change: A Critical Appraisal (1986), The Analysis of Ideology (1989), A Critical Dictionary of Sociology (1989), and The Art of Self-Persuasion (1991). Roberto Campos is a Brazilian intellectual whose writings include Refiexdes do cepiisculo (Rio de Janeiro, 1991), and O Séailo Esquitito Rio de Janeiro, 1990), César Cansino is Professor of Political Theory at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and author of several books, including Ernst Bloch, Sociedad, Politica y Filosofia (Mexico, 1987), and Carl Schmitt: Ensayos Crticos (Mexico, 1988). Emest Geller was Director, Centre for the Study of Nationalism, Central European University, Prague, and a Fellow of King’s College Cambridge. His many books include Nations and Nationalism (1983), Relativism and the Social Sciences (1985), Culture, = vii =Contributors Identity and Politics (1987), Plough, Sword and Book (1988), Encounters with Nationalism (1994), Conditions of Liberty (1994), and Anthropology and Politics (1995). John A. Hall is Professor of Sociology at McGill University; his ‘books include Powers and Literties (1985) and Liberalism (1987) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Ghita Ionescu is Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the author of several books and essays, as well as editor of Government and Opposition. Helio Jaguaribe is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Instituto de Estudios Politicos e Sociais (Rio de Janeiro); his several books include Sociedade, Estado e Partides, na atualidade Brasileira (Si0 Paulo 1992). The editors wish to express their deep gratitude to Hilda Merquior and the Colombian journal Ciencia Politia for permission to reprint José Merquiior’s article as the first chapter of this volume, and to the translators. Alan Hynds translated, from Spanish, the chapter by Norberto Bobbio and the one wmitten jointly by César Cansino and. Victor Alarcén, and also, from Portuguese, the chapters by Celso Lafer and Roberto Campos. Nevin Siders translated, from Spanish, the chapter by José Merquior. Gregory R. Johnson is an independent scholar residing in Athens, Georgia, USA. He is Executive Editor of Reason Papers and was. formerly Executive Editor of Critical Review, of which Merquior ‘was a Contributing Editor. Emest Gellner and César Cansino Gelso Lafer is Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Sao Paulo and the author of several books, including Ensaios sobre a Iiberdade (S20 Paulo, 1984), Hannch Arendt, pensamiento, persuasio e poder (Si0 Paulo, 1979), A reconsiruigdo dos direitos humanos (SA0 Paulo, 1991), and Ensaios Liberais (Sio Paulo, 1991). Ramén Maiz is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and the author of several books and essaysPOST SCRIPTUM TRISTE Owing to an inexplicable tum of fate, this book, which was coedited by Emest Gellner as a tribute to the philosopher José G. ‘Merquior, has now become Gellner’s own posthumous work - one of the last books he would ever write over his prolific career. Gellner died just as this tribute to Merquior was going into production after a period of careful editing. Although Geliner will no longer be able to see it, the book contains, as do all of Gellner’s ‘works, a profound commitment to and respect for knowledge. Perhaps this is precisely Gellner’s legacy to those of us who knew him and learned to respect and admire him. May the very words ‘Merquior used to describe his professor in England serve as a testi- mony of this, so that the remembrance will remain en famille: Gellner undoubtedly conquered a strategic place in the interpretation of modem culture. He has [written] a set of works that is extraord~ narily suggestive of a veritable sociological explanation of fundamental phenomena, such a the role of science in society, nationalism, Countercultures, as well 28, more generally, the moral profile of modem man or of man who is becoming modem. Moreover, Gellner is a first-rate writer. His mastery of the essay reveals the temperament of a moralist whore message is 2s humanistic asi is Inc. As for myself, I believe that the best tribute we can pay to Merquior, and now to Gellner, is to reread their works with the same dedication and respect with which they wrote them. We will all come out ahead if we do. César Cansino 20 November 1995INTRODUCTION ERNEST GELLNER Liberalism, unlike Marxism, has no ponderous theary of the Unity of Theory and Practice. However, if liberalism did possess its authoricarian party, its Faith and Ethics, and its hallowed person ages, then without any shadow of doubt José Merquior would stand there as a shining exemplar to the Komsomol of liberalism, as a man who knew how to combine these two commitments as few other men have done. At, so to speak, the other pole from ‘Merquior, there is Grillparzer’s devastating account of the Slav soul: Blind when it acts, Deedless when it thinks ‘That was not José Merquior’s way. He was active and he thought; and, far from finding this a strain, he gave the impression that each of these forms of self-expression wa: the necessary complement of the other. He loved thought, and he loved the life of politics. He loved even the politics of thought and its social inffastructure (his home was a place in which one could imagine oneself in one of the great salons of eighteenth century Paris or nineteenth century St Petessburg, blending elegance and brilliance), and he loved the intellectual content of politics. One does not always fee! this, but in his presence it seemed almost inevitable that it should be so, and he did more than anyone else co ensure that itErnest Gellner The liberalism to which he was committed, in thought and action, has had 2 strange fate in this century. The Firs: World War was ambiguous: to soine of its nationalist beneficiaries, it looked like the blessed completion of the work of the French revolution; to others, it heralded the end of nineteenth century optimism, the coming of a dark age. Liberalism was rapidly confronted by powerful enemies claiming, when they condescended to argue at all, that their perception of man and society was deeper than that of the liberals. They, and they alone, were au fait with the dark forces, whether of the human heart or of history, or both, that really govern us. For a time, they carried all before them, and the liberals seemed doubt-ridden and ineffectual, and on occasion worse. A retum to hierarchy, authority, violence and dogma seemed for a time to be Europe's destiny. In the end, the romantic antiliberal irrationalism was defeated in the war that it had itself preached, though this was achieved only with the help of another dogmatic authoritarianism, one that proclaimed, but did not practise, the values of the Enlightenment. For a time, this second wave of antiliberalism also looked like the voice of the future, or so it seemed to many intellectuals. When the Soviets took the lead in space, Franco, a traditionalist authoritarian and hardly suspect of sympathy with their views, nevertheless could not refiain from commenting on the event as evidence of the superiority of authority over chaos . . . ‘Authoritarians of the world, unite!’, he might well have said. ‘Things did not look any better from the viewpoint of that culeural marchland of Europe which is Latin America, from which José Merquior came and whose problems meant so much to him. Latin America is the offspring, on the European side, of that Iberia in which the Counter-Reformation prevailed, and which for a long time paid the price of this in terms of political and economic backwardness. For a long time, Latin America also seemed destined to pay the price of the Original Sin of being born of conquest in pursuit of loot rather than liberty. Independence when it came seemed to mean the establishment of a social order in which the state or the instruments of coercion dominated civil society, or were the expression of the landed interest, with or without an alliance with foreign capitalism. Then, later in this century, it became onc of the last hopes of the messianic left: there was 4 time at which you could tell left activists in Hampstead or Islington by their excellent Spanish oe Introduction accents, which, t in readiness with their passports for the ‘moment when, ieee SE expected, the Che Guevara island bridgehead would be established. It was not to be. José Merquior, one should add, was particularly good on this theme: one of my favourites among his essays contains his comments on the then fashionable ‘dependency theory’ as a continuation of Latin American self-pity in Marxisc rather than the earlier cultural-racist_ terms, ‘Merquios, with his degrees from both Paris and London, also pethaps ‘embodied that reincarnation of Latin America in a wider world, the liberation from the erstwhile Latin polarization between Catholicism and Marxism. José Merquior was a realisiiberal. He worked through cxisting institutions, not because he idealized them but because, in most circumstances, it is more effective than the pursuit of absolutist discontinuities. Those of us who saw him in action as a kind of cultural impresario of apertura were much impressed, Suddenly, the century of troubles and tribulations of liberalism is all over. A century that often looked as if it were to witness liber- alism’s demise, in fact documents its almost embarrassed triumph. It does not quite know what to do with it. We did not know our own strength, and still do not really believe im it. Enemies on the left as well as those on the right have collapsed, those on the left, once so feared, without even a push from the outside, virtually ‘without a shot inside. Liberal consumerist pluralism has been hailed as the residual legatee of history. In Latin America, 1993 saw the end of the last military regime The situation is not, in fact, quive as rosy as that. It is true that the subjection of the world to Trial by Economic Growth has, for the time being, awarded the palm to the liberal societies. It appears that they used to say in medieval Spain that warfare was a quicker as well as more honourable way to wealth than commerce. So it may have been. The twentieth century has demonstrated that, so far at any rate, pursuit of wealth is a far better and quicker way to power than the direct pursuit of power in the old style. We pluralist liberals have triumphed, on the coat tails of the success of economic liberalism In my heart of hearts, | eel that the liberal ideal has and deserves a better foundation than this, though I have trouble in locating it An instrumental and accountable state monopolizing violence but neither truth nor morality; free individual creativity unstifled by requirements of either honour or faith... know that this vision Leehas historic roots and conditions, and that there are social circum~ stances in which it is barely articulable, let alone realizable. So why should I dare claim an ultimate validity for liberal values? What answer is there to those who point out that liberalism absolutizes a relative position, that it is a philosophy of sour grapes of rootless men who have lost all fall identification with 2 community or commitment to a set of values, and who make a virtue of the necessity of their interminable quest? Moreover, the spurt of discovery and wealth-creation that has so favoured liberalism will not last for ever; or, at any rate, the law of diminishing returns will apply to its social impact. And then? So the present triumph of liberal ideas is precarious and fragile Legitimacy by Economic Growth is unlikely to be persuasive for ever, potent though it is for the time being. Comsumerist societies are not always capable of coping with ethnic tension, with the violation of that cultural homogeneity which a mobile and techno~ logically advanced society seems to require. They cannot cope with the cultural pluralism inherited by the past or engendered by contemporary labour migrations. The new practitioners of sophisti- cated technologies are no longer necessarily predisposed to a liberal turn of mind. Innovative entrepreneurs and intellectuals may be natural liberals, for only a liberal society can give them the elbow room they need and like; but mankind is not, and cannot be, made up of innovators, Can the preconditions of innovation be the basis ofa permanent value orientation? I feel that such a foundation will, in the end, lack authority or persuasiveness. Liberalism needs to face at least ewo questions: how can it validate itself, other than as the natural predilection of professional innova~ tors; and how can it institutionally establish itself in conditions of very advanced industrials? When limitation of the catastrophic side-effects of technological advance (ecological, terrorist or social counterproductiveness) becomes more important than farther incre~ ments of wealth, preconditions of growth will no longer settle moral-political issues. Perhaps they will fail to do so even sooner. These questions have no easy answers. Perhaps they simply have no answers. But the attempt to cope with them would have better prospects, if only José Merquior were still with us. Twice over, for he would be contributing both politically and intellectually. And, without any doubt, it would ako be a great deal more fun discussing and implementing the answers if he were here. us PARTI On Merquiorian Thoughtgael A Panoramic View on the Renaissance of Liberalisms JOSE G. MERQUIOR ‘A conservative’, said Irving Kristol, ‘is but a liberal attacked by reality’. The same motive for this epigram seems to indicate that the current ‘wave’ in political theory is conservative, but in reality this is not quite exact. Judging by the doctrinaire fermentation of the cightics, and even by the cxperimental and theoretical bookshelves in the libraries of Europe and the United States, the present moment belongs to liberalisms. It is necessary, however, to insist on the plural. Under an ethic often employed to classify a Friedrich von Hayek as well sa Raymond Aron, or to a certain degree a John Rawls as well as a Norberto Bobbio, it is obvious that not all liberalisms are alike. That same old word, liberal, takes on the new look of the mght, and the most recent remaking of democratic socialism. Under these conditions, how can we under- stand the rise of liberalisms without Alling into pure, simple ideological confusion? The Nature of Power le might not be a bad idea to begin by pointing out the political- ideological atmosphere surrounding the renaissance of the liberal idea. In the past, liberalism lived on the defensive because the imperfect, incomplete and — to a great extent, and with a clear disadvantage ~ unjust liberal regimes were always compared to the eoJost G. Merguior socialist ideal of liberty in justice. But the ageing of political realities after the Second World War, when state socialism was imposed by authoritarian means, made the ills of ‘real socialisen’ more and more visible. IF liberalism has currently gone on the offensive in the Production of theory, it stems fiom the fact that its second great historical adversary, socialism, is far from having clean hands or a guildess heart, According to the observation by Ralf Dahrendach liberals rarely need to be ashamed of events created in their name’ Or, when necessary, they are consoled by finding that the wn: liberals of the lee (ust as yesterday's un-liberals of the right) have many more skeletons in their closets We can arrive at the same conclusion through a more theoretical Prism, bearing in mind the evolution of the criticism of power According to what I presented in © Argument literal, the language of the criticism of power has seen two basic transformations: one referring to the objet and the other to the awe of power, Concerning the object, criticism of arbitrary power wa At expressed in the language of class oppression, and only later dealt With the topic of the individual victimized by illegitimate dominas tion, The bourgeoisie of the communes of the Middle Ages demanded, and won, franchises and estate privileges. Only much later, during the century of the Enlightenment and the Adlansie revolutions (American and French) did the discourse of liberty, along with that of human rights, gain individual emancipation, Strangely enough, Marxism in a certain way recovered this resource: first and foremost, it spoke of clas exploitation; then, late ost-Manxian Marxisin stressed the theme of alienation, the subject of which, ‘rigorously speaking, is not the working clas bat humankind, and, consequently, the individual. ‘And regarding the nature of power? Hlere the evolution was fom the criticism of politial power to the questioning of secial power, The first classics of liberal doctrine ~ Locke, Montesquieu, Constant = were still essentially concerned with the problem of despotian; they were obsessed with the excessive extension of politcal power with the arbitrariness of government. Nevertheles with the twc main classics of Victorian liberalism ~ Tocqueville and Mill = dhe core of liberal concern shifted towards the topic of the ‘tyranny of the majority’, or mther, towards the evil of an opprestoom moce "Nova Froneeir, 1985, pp. 99-104 A Panoramic View on the Rensissance of Liberalisms social than political: the weight of mass conformism on the ‘different’ individual, a product of the progress and glory of civilization. It so happens that the advent of modern tyrannies — totalitari- anisms - foreed liberal theory to focus on power as political domination, In the past, liberal thought had striven to defend the jnsticution of the separation of powers as a check on the potential despotism of political control. Classical liberalism had perceived that autocrats were or tended to be principally the head of a meric racy ~ that is, of a situation in which unique and absolute power ruled without limit or changes ~ and the efficacious antidote to this evil was the separation of authority into instivutionalized powers, functionally diverse and equally sovereign. In our century, totalitarian regimes posed the same problem, but from a different angle, By concentrating political power in a single structure of authority — the one-party system — and of economic control, these regimes exhumed the spectre of monocracy. Whence the neoliberal thesis of indivisible liberty, based on the recognition that there can be no liberty where political decisions and economic decisions remain, normally, in che same hands. The preliberal state monopolized ideology (through state religions) and the economy (mercantilism); then the liberal state monopolized, as Weber wanted, only the legitimate use of force. The — sovereign — state holds the monopoly on political authority, but it does not harbour or constitute any monocracy of an unlimited politico-social scope, The Idea of Justice ‘The thesis of indivisible liberty represents a modern sociologically shrewd broadening of the old, healthy liberal tenet of the separation of powers. What is more, modern society ~ based on technology and consumption — requires not only justice; it also demands cfliciency. And efficiency, in turn, implies economic freedom, rather than the rigid command economies of the monocratic Minotaur. Hence, to moral and political liberalism is added free economic competition, fuelling the strength of the liberal renaisance. Economic liberalism still takes on an extreme, virulent form at times, in which antistatism — one of the most Incid positions — turns into a generalized starephobia, often accompanied by antidemocratic sentiments. These two features — statephobia and antidemocratism — gg &.are perversions made up of deep conceptual confusion, of a good double motivation, politi 5, newer ore coll In Western thought, two principles of justice govem, norma~ sively speaking, the interaction between individuals and the organi~ zation of institutions. Both go back to Roman law. The first principle says neminem laedere — harm no one. Its purpose is to protect the independence of the individual, the fiee enjoyment of fieedom, understood as the broad sphere of ldiude, where every= thing is, in principle, lict, permitted to each person as long as the equal rights of others are not infringed upon. It was this freedom- licitness that Hobbes defined in Book XIV of his Leviathan (1650) as the ‘absence of extemal impediments’. Mill was thinking of this when, in his On Liberty (1859), he wrote on the equation happiness: = freedom = personality. The second traditional tenet of justice says suum cuique tibuere — give to each his own, which is to say that which, and the amount, ‘owed. This rule - which can be seen through its very etymology — is eminently distributive. Leibniz felt neminem laedere suitable for the regulation of the right of property, and aun ouique for the ordering of social law (jus secietat). Now, it suffices to consult the history of judicial-political ideas to understand that the liberalism of the crasly ideological Victorian age ~ of Spencer, for example — saw only neminem laedere, almost totally forgetting the tenet of distribu~ tive justice. With this, Bobbio noticed, liberalism reduced public Jaw to mere penal law ~ and mutilated political theory. Yet there is 2 branch of contemporary neoliberalism that openly relapses into that mutilation. When Hayek exorcizes the idea of social justice — the idea of social justice per se, not one or another of its more or Jess unsatisfactory. historical materializations — he is rewriting Spencer. Meanwhile, the excommunication of oc justice isin way a consequence of automatic logic, an evident corol Hayekian defence of economic Boeri es cu haa defend the value of the market, and at the same time redistributive taxation =a s done, iin, bythe English neotbera Samuel ittan, © The Role and Limits of Government, 198. aoe: 'A Panoramic View on the Renassance of Liberlioms Statephobia and Antistatism Neoliberals of a neo-Hayekian lincage scored quite a few points with the denouncement of economic statism. Statism in the economy does not mean the bureaucratic pachydermism of regimes that want to be produectivist but that reject economic logics rather, Se means only the tentacular expansion of state companies that, far from being slaves of a political elite, normally behave as unassailable geonomicefinancial forts, colossal examples of true bureaucratic jewalism, The industrial state does extremely pootly in terms of performance. It is unrealistic to think that the state can cease to Franage finances or plan the economy — but between that and absorbing the latter there is a vast distance, never surmounted with economic success by any modern or modemist country. However, neoliberal of the right do not stop there. They try to make the modem welfare state, together with economic statism, nother bicho-papao.? It is — they allege ~ a fundamentally unliberal, though ‘paternalistic’, system. That may be, Bobbio replied; but it js no less truc that, in liberal-type industrial cities, these welfare Systems were established by democratic governments, under the exigencies of well articulated popular demands in the political market. And from there arises the conclusion, impeccable in my ‘opinion, of the Italian maestro: democracy, as we have it today, is consequence or at least an extension of liberalism; but democratic practice led to a form of state that is not at all ‘minimal, in the ideal sense of elasical liberalism. ‘And might it be that, as statephobic — statephobic and not just antistate — neoliberalism would have it, the planning welfare state, 2 consequence of democratic freedom, is a perverse consequence? ‘The most categorical positive response continues to be Hayek's. In his famous book The Road to Seyfdom (1944), he put forward the thesis that the progressive development of the state in the economy and in society, even if by way of particular, topical interventions, fatally refounds totalitarian subjugation in the long run. However, the four decades that have passed since the war show that Hayek deceived himself. In the postwar West and Japan, planned capitalism and the welfare state helped to avoid totalitarianism: because they contributed decisively to the neutralization of political 2 Bidw-papo: fictions monster that fightens children. (Tr: Foomots in orgial ] aeat Jost G. Merquior movements that camry a model of totalitarian socialism. Who was night was Elie Halévy, author of The Era of the Tyrannies (1938): totalitarianisms were born of violence and revolution, not of the foreseeing pilot-state circumscribed by the juridical order of institu tional liberalism, In societies like Brazil's, I never tire of repeating, the problem of the state does not have one, but two, faces. Now, the truth is thet wwe have, at one and the same time, too much state and too little state. Too much, certainly, in the economy, where, the state hinders development, spends excessively. We have too li in diverse areas, puts a brike on movement and ttle state on the social level, where so many deficiencies in health, education and housing. are still scandalous ~ and have become inadmissible. For this reason, to a large degree, we see the crossfire in a dialogue of the deaf: on one side, many (but not all) antistatists ‘forget’ dous needs in welfare; on the other side, to prevent our tremen- » vatious paladins of ‘social? matters, under the pretext of justice and egulitarianism, end wy condemning, en masse, antistate positions, a8 if they did not include the well justified criticism of bureaucratic feudalisms in the economic sphere. During the very death throes of the Weimar Republic, Hermann Heller (1891-1933) promoted a fertile renovation of the the state. Heller saved the idea of the state from Mans: theory of ian oppro= brinm by trying to demonstrate that modern society is incapable of 4 complete and satisfactory self-organization. With this Hegelian ‘ype perspective, he attempted to overcome the palcoliberal notion of a guardian state, determined to preserve public order, and in its place introduced the dynamic conception of a state based on the social rule of law (Sozialer Rechtsstaat). The state was, indeed, the principal, if not the only, social mecha- nism by which it was possible to give strength to law, rather than law to force. The neorepublican social state in Brazil intends to do exactly that: like Heller's, ic wants to be social without for moment ceasing to be a state based on the juridical-tiberal construction. The tus tule of aw ~ that is, a ic _strong state, made of authority rather than repression, consists of the authority and knows ~ as Tancredo Neves says in his never-deliver ration speech — that law in modem society is ‘the social of the Law: ed inaugu- organization Of freedom’, of freedom and of justice, without which the fret diminishes or drowns in privilege. However, ap on this point, naturally, A Panoramic View on the Renaissance of Liberatisms no statephobia can be justified. Finally, as Serge recalls Micali does not mean less state — it means more enone An ee sate maybe a powesflinsumens ofthe univerazaton of Hey. It was not by coincidence that the embryo of the Bnitish aes state, the famous Beveridge Report, was written in the are he Reform Club — the very historical temple of Victorian Ii a Bobbio was right: the social dimension of democracy, as well as it political aspect, is an unfolding of liberalism. Neocontractualism low are neoliberalisms situated vis-A-vis_ the question of bea Keynes, who so deeply mansformed: economic iber- atsm, and in more than one way belongs to the English ine of social liberalism (the school that runs from Mill to Sane an Hobhovse at the end of the ninescenth century), imagined he ws saving capitalism without deserting democracy. ‘That ne rejecting both the Leninist option (extinguishing capitalism while secifcing democracy) and the fc opion sacrificing democracy to save capitalism). Commenting on this Keynesian Lae ae : Faun of Denooucy (Tain, 1984), Bobbio cbrervd sha neoliber alisms now in vogue attempt to realize the inverse operation: they hope to preserve democracy without departing from capitalism. With due permission from the maestro Bobbio, I re some current neoliberalisms to be quite cold on the issue of democratic fervour, Hayek himself went as fr as toying with ideas on isins~ tional alternatives to democracy, and (in his New Studies) felt that it is conceivable that an authoritarian government could act based on ciples. oe it would be highly unjust to suggest that meee alisms, on the whole, resist democracy. After all, a current today’s liberalisms is no more than a restoration of the democratic contracualism we find in the first classics of democracy, beginning with Rousseau (for a closer analysis see my Rousseau and Weber‘). © Rowsean and: Weber: Tuo Suies in the Theory of Laghinary (London: Roudedge LagWe are living the very rebirth, not only of liberalism, but also of the idea of the social contract. In our polyarchic societies, many of the main decisions are collective deliberations based on accords of a ed nature; and the so-called crisis of the welfare state has cceeded only in heightening the urgency of maintaining and placing in an essential position tripartite social contracts (busin ‘Wage camers and che government) that manage, expressly or acti the social Peace of pre-recesion ‘affluent society a e high priest of the neocontractualist jo Rawls. This Harvard professor gave liberal gemini y a know, are liberals of the left ~ his ethnie-poltical bible: the spirited A Theory of Justice of 1971. As 2 prologue to rationally deducing the findamental principles of a just social order, Rawls describes 4 situation of a totally hypothetical choice. He supposes that citivene as future parties to a social contract, have acces to only a bare minimam of information on social reality and about themselves The Rawlsian contractors know they live in a world dominated by. the scarcity of goods and positions, in which conflicts of interes arise for this very reason — but a hypothetical ‘veil of ignorance’ conceals all knowledge of their own inclinations, talents or pesition on the social ladder. Each individual should choose the most appre Priate social order without knowing whether he ot she ie aich poor, oe or ungualifed, black or white, etc. a Ws’ objective is to deduce a social contrac pais gn dei il te! ees yp that is, without reflecting any altruism on the part of the coutrace cor Otherwise, he maintains, the equity of the contace weld \e truly persuasive for the but not for all oe seman SES singin Given these hypothetical conditions, what wo c choose? As rational beings, mindfil oftheir ows pei would be led to adopt two principles of justice or equity: fsthy each individual should possess as much fieedom as is compatible with the freeciom of others (and thereby return to our old ngninay laeder); secondly, all inequality should be instituted to benefit the least privileged citizens. Why? Because only in this way in ch uncertainty over che consequences of their action: — will the contractors always want, for the sike of sheer prudence, vo exaggerate the risk of being individually harmed, hence, they wil try 10 supulate as fair only those situations of inequality in ae oe A Panoramic View on the Renaissance of Liberalism the harm for cach individual is minimized, guaranteeing that all inequality will become an advantage in the distribution of goods. In other words, in a blind vote, the contractors would choose a kind of social security: trying to reduce the possibility of harm to a minimum, the atizens, by maximizing that risk, would arrive at a social contract of greater equity. The Shortcomings of Neocontractualism Rawk’s model ~ the maximin social pact, a deliberately abstract parameter of justice — has been criticized from various ideological angles. For many socialists, the scheme commits the sin of being insufficiently distributivist: it is but a simplistic idealization of the present-day welfare state, Yet liberal critics point out other short- comings, They believe Rawls original hypothesis to be an overly restricted and abstract characterization. For example, in Rawls's hypothesis the original position includes implicit personal attitudes towards risk (the rek of winning or losing in the roulette of life, of being one of the disadvantaged). Nevertheless, everything indicates that some contractors would normally choose risk. They would prefer to subscribe a social contract that entails a ‘bet’ than one that constitutes ‘security’. The choice under the ‘veil of ignorance’ described by Rawls is also too abstract — so abstract that all contrac tors think and act the same way. The social contracts of chssical theory (those of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant, for example) id not assume identical contracts. Ir is not surprising that Rawls placed less emphasis on the ‘veil of ignorance’ in his later writings. But in A Theory of Justice his insistence on pure hypotheticality of the base contract between isolated and uninformed citizens gave us everything — everything except a theory of modem socievy or the passions of its children. Fortunately, history offers us what theory denies. The history of political iberalisms provides some solid examples of concrete ‘social contracts’, motivated by the rich vegetation of the interests and not by the geometric area of the calculus of unreal conditions. At times these social pacts, or politico-social alliances, took on a markedly liberal-populist form. Such was the case of the socialistic Colorismo of José Battle in Uruguay's belle époque, or of Edwardian England. ‘The latter has a special significance, because the liberal-populist erasJosé G. Merguion experience then arose as an answer to economic crisis. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the British economy faced industrial decline, with chronic unemployment of unskilled labour, na context of growing middle class anxiety, welfare reforms began between 1906 and the Great War; as a prelude to the welfare state, they were guided by a Liberal party that had decided to renew ite popular credentials to confront the challenge of rising trade unionism. Sociabliberalism - at the beginning pure academic speculation at Oxford and the London School of Economics ~ became a politico-social lever of irreversible effect. And as can be seen from the style of the great leader who emerged during this phase and from this current — Lloyd George — liberalism was never intimidated by popular matters; on the contrary, it knew how to exploit and conquer them at the same time, in a creative leap of leadership Criticisms of the Panorama Keynes — and here he was a typical social-liberal — accepted the economic intervention of the state, and advocated a balance between liberty, eficiency and a considerable dose of socal justice. In his opinion, capitalism was simultaneously the ‘habitat’ of ‘the diversity of life" and the most efficient economic machine. The theme of ‘diversity of life, whose natural protagonist was ‘renais- sance’ personalities such ab the very same Keynes, was a direct descendant of Mill’. liberal-humanism. But the appraisal of capitalism's capacity for expansion. (which places Keynes very far fiom Schumpeter's mouming the ‘suicide’ of capitalism) cleanly broke wich Mill’ digressions conceming the ambition to achieve 2 ‘stationary state’ of the economy. ‘As much 2s Keynesian recipes, or those adopted in his holy name, have been discredited, and are today considered unsui able (or, according to some, responsible for the presene recession infla- tion cycle), I cannot help sympathizing with his historical optimism. It is not a matter of agreeing with Bobbio when he cites, 48a right-neoliberal substratum, a restorticnist philosophy of history Mininal-state fanatics do not hesitate to demand the dismanting of the welfare state, the adoption of private armies, even the use of Private currencies. Robert Nozick, Rawh’s adversary at Harvard aa = A Panoramic View on the Rensitsance of Liberalisms and author of the right-wing libertarian classic Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), went as far as comparing income taxes with forced labour. ‘These neoliberals want in fact to turn back the historical clock. ‘Their vision of history assumes a simplistic model in which negative phases alternate with positive periods, recuperation of ‘wise’ epochs to correct ‘deviations’ of institutionally and ideologi- ally evil periods. .. . I confess that I prefer the old liberal histori- cism, in which history is not a balance but rather an evolution, made up of stages, and not of monotonously alternating phases. Well-said, by Hayek, to the contrary of what occurs with the rest of the neo-Victorians among today’s liberals: historical vision is more complex. In his writings, according to what was stressed by Brittan in the best critical essay written about Hayek to date,’ faith in economic liberalism meshes with a reverence worthy of Burke for the efficiency and wisdom of traditional institutions. The differ- ence (I would add) is that the wise institution, though immemorial, was in conservative Burke the oligerchic parliamentary monarchy, which contrasted with French revolutionary republicanism; whereas for Hayek the usefull and sensible institution par excellence is the market, the same mechanism that, even more than the French revolution, universally undermined the social hierarchies that Burke tried to preserve The thing is that Burke thought in terms of religious values; Hayek in evolutionary terms. For Hayek, the market was precious, not because it constitutes the best means for distributing resources (a computer could do that better), but rather because of its ability to deal with uncertainty and the emergence of newness: previously unknown knowledge, new techniques, unexpected reactions by consumers, etc. And here, the key word is not tradition buat progress. Ii, for liberal historicism, history is evolution, it is not possible to portray this evolution outside of the mould of techno-cconomic progress. It is in this respect, by underlining the functional require ments for the economy, that neoliberals of the right are correct. The most archaic of dogmas in our ideological panorama is undoubtedly the a priori hostility to economic motivation — 2 refrain that distinguishes post-Marxist radicalism, well represented by Comelius Castoriadis. The need of the economy, which implies 7 Times Litrry Sipplonene, March 1984, aayist G. Merion respect for the logic of economics, triumphed and will continue to triumph in all of its utopian negations ~ and over any statism that ties to ignore or distort it I hope that this point has been made _ perfectly clear: if statephobia is a happy deception, then statism is much more than this ~ it is an enormous prejudice. For the neoliberalism of the right, economic liberty is, in addition to necessary, sufficient. This is why Hayek has been exitie cized in England and the United States, by neoconservatives. For the most eloquent of them, Irving Kristol, ir is not sufficient to demonstrate, as Hayek and Milton Fricdman have done. the Positive role of the market: This is not sufficient, Kristol affians, to confront the challenge of the New Left, because the New Left swears by romantic, expressivist and communitarian values, and Tot, as was the case of traditional Marxism, by utilitarian and productivist ones. In sum, man does not live by bread alone. The same criticism is aimed at Hayek from the English New Right by the philosopher Roger Scruton, who pontifictes in the Salisbury Review, Nevertheless, neoconservatives — just as all those who look at Society in terms of a substantial, not processual, consensus, a global communion of values instead of a simple accord on the rules of the game ~ forget just one detail: nobody has sufficiently specified the Kingdom of values beyond bread, And if they are unable to do that, how can they elude the uncomfortable impression that on D-Day these common values would be dictated by the right, in a manney strangely similar to the way the ideocratic elites of authoritarian socialism operate? No: overcoming the manifest inadequacies of right liberalism does not reside in this false spiritualism, What is fair is to deepen the analysis of what Aron called liberal democratic synthesis: to add democratic rights to the catalogue of civil liberties and political rights that form the valuable legacy of the liberal tradition. In industrial societies with polycentric power structures, heteroge- neous and frequently conflicting demands by society on the state Constitute the rule, pari passu with competition between parties, ‘which parties are in turn permeated by these same demands. In this ‘way, both on the social as well as on the Political side, industrial olyarchies increasingly experience diverse contracts between diverse forces, institutions and powers. As Bobbio indicates, the Privatist logic of the accord increasingly invades the public scene and ie A Panoramic View on the Renaissance of Liberslioms stitutes or imposes itself on the publicist logic of authority. From Foy een Ge oie eek social-financial pacts, the sap of social contracts goes on to feed the legitimacy of the imperium — of effective political authority. ‘Otherwise, there seems to be no better means to put 2 brake on 4 cota lighly Lami pieecrsenpe| icra a demnncntic x with stable institutions. I am referring to ees by Mancur Olson (Rise and Fall of Nations) ce longer an industrial country enjoys an uninterrupted period o democratic liberties, the mote its economic growth will suffer due to the actions of organized group interests. Britran agrees with this diagnosis, and warns of the paradox this cngeaders: democracy experiences tensions produced by freedom, that is, from its very own raison dire — also observe that the same problem is structurally sible, even probable, in a socialist-type democratic regime. Nailer a3 Pee eo paaennid halivay solutions to, the particularism of these organized special-interest groups, other than by the negotiated formula of long-range social contracts? Without Purisms or Unilateralisms The classic image of democracy assumed an individualistic view of society. Today, however, politically relevant subjects in the democ- ratic order are collective: government, congress and parties, trade unions and associations representing civil society, the Church and the armed forces. When these fail, or mutually condemn themselves to complete impasse, the institutions cease to fanction and the putrefaction of politics leads to an emergence of praetorian domination, whether or not preceded by chaotic revolutionary miscarriages. The hegemony of the group as political actor naturally anguishes the democratic libertarian; and it is true that a great number of democrats have libertarian souls, How can one be enthusiastic about the expansion of social contracts when one recognizes that they are largely hemmed in and constrained by the relentless power of the technocracy (indispensable to the manage- Ba ea ng) Se a ee large degree, by the very pressure of social demands on the stat Dee Soon me prestige e neocontractualism only makes virtue of necessity, in that, partly, it just barely conceals the growing Lig tasungovenability of this complex and contradictory animal: the technological republic. In the meantime, the absence or impossibility of the optimum, solution does not impede the acknowledgment of what is best. If all industrial societies are necessarily technocratic and bureaucratic, not all of them are so in the same way. One difference continues to be decisive: that which separates demotechnocracies, or demobureaucra= cies, liberal hybrids (in spite of everything), from the liberal and, naturally, not-at-all democratic ideocracies. How, then, are we not _ amazed by the fact that liberalisms are alive and rejuvenated? The important thing is to know how to choose among them. The way I see it, the greatest theoretical architectures, either Hayek-style (on, the right) or Rawis-style (on the centre-left), are less penetrating, and relevant — especially for the construction of freedom in devel= oping countries — than the dispersed and fragmentary analysis, however consistently lucid, of critics such as Aron, Bobbio or Samuel Brittan. Liberals, all of them, without either purisms oF doctrinaire unilateralisms and without regressive velleties. ‘These political liberalisms of a social-democratic or proto social democratic inclination, such as Urugnayan Batilismo and post= Gladstonian renouveau of the British Liberal Party, constitute historic paradigms of socal-libealism. And the relevance of social-liberalism, to our political moment is evident Finally, as the social-Liberal Celso Lafer observed in a beautiful and groundbreaking meditation on Bobbio’s analysis of neocontrac= tualism,* the growth of the state in Brazil did not derive from a social demand bue from the logic of authoritarianism. And what is more, for the same reason the liberal message that rings most true among us has not been the criticism of social-democracy, but that simed at the buresucratic-authoritarian colossus. To repeat, at the risk of being fastidious: our best liberalism is not and does not have to be statephobic; it is barely ~ and here, with increasing vigour — antistatist. * Liseralen, Cortractusion andthe Sos Pat (Sto Paulo, 1984), =2- Ep Merquior and Liberalism HELIO JAGUARIBE The Politically Engaged Intellectual i = who died, at the height of Guilherme Merquior (1941-91) - who died, at “He creativity, before reaching the age of fity ~ was recognized bot I Brasil and internationally, 26 one of the most gifted essays ar mes, Combining a swift and acute inteigence with exceP> Gamal Tearing, he excelled with great competence lucidity and fine critical reasoning in the widest domains of culture, His cultural Toduction ranges from literary criticism 0 a citical history vie from philosophy to sociology and political science. In the field of intemational relations, he gained prominence both theoret- inally as an essayist and operationally as an excellent diploma. EE lust poss were a Brazilian amabassador to Mexico and as head of the delegation at Unesco. ara ciagested and polygiot intellectual, he accom, cstmordnaly wel, that rae fat of meng immense ner? ede wit ional creativity placed at the service base See poliial engagement was bes expres no cives of 2 party militaney, but in the domains o eee sain the construction of his thought in eetion to the public interest. Having been atiracted in his yout uke ideas of social democracy as envisaged by San Tiago Dantas, et tinderwent, 25 abo " On the manifold meanings of ‘postmodern’, see Allan Megil, ‘What Does the Term, “Postmodem” Mean?, Aunal f Shlarip, 6 (1989), 129-51 Gh = Modernity and Postmodernity in the Thought of Jos’ Merguior .odernists are hopelessly enmeshed in performative self- See the use ofreazon to overcome reason, the use ofthe, {Gesern tradition to overcome the Western tradition, the use of echnical-instrumental arguments against technical-instrumental Tionality. Flowever, at its best — in the works of such writers as Gadamen Merleau-Ponty and Ricocur — postmodernism situates Seelf within the horizon of modemity; it is modernity’s self-reflec~ tive, selicritical, self-correcting moment. In order to avoid this mibiguity ~ and to acknowledge a crucial debt to Kane's critical philosophy — I think that it is best to follow James L.. Marsh in habelling the latter form of postmodernism ‘critical modernism’ G_ B. Madison expresses the critical modernist project well I may tend, in some of my writings, to portray ‘postmod- emnism’ as some kind of new ‘period’ — but it isn't. Postmodernism is simply . . . a critical reflection on ‘moder- nity’ — and a critical attempt to appropriate, in a nonfounda- tionalist, postmetaphysical way, what is of worth in it — which is alot Ie may be stretching a bit to incorporate Merquior’s work into such a liberal critical modernist project, but advocates of critical reason need all the friends they can get.* 2 Sen ames L, Man, Ps Carsin Maton: An Ey Dita Phomenty (rca Bede Nout Usivey Pea 1980) ni 28-7. For clea exempicans oie Sees Pies beeen ieee oer nd uncial mem undo CA eet eet Macks Merle Wergal ad John D. Capu, Te ciao (New York Fordham Unreniy Po, 182, and Diane F Met Richaed Paar, Dale ed eorsmcin T Galan Dei Pow (Aany. SUNY Pro, 18%) Engr (en Sy yes coneponicne, Other thiskes whom 1 won tle cee ce eee se a Jen Haber, Tomar McCay aa thc sco Cin ©. Sag od Lac Fey and Alan Reva Se me eaion oomph beeen Wengucrs wank a he et i Re as Merquor rn ea on he or of be Fry std Freie tae ean (ber oe poston bee mach spay Se) CPM, Tae Remit of Fh oie Teo Goma a Op See er ape Meriepo reac on. 10) on Fry a Fee iit aaa | Ketan her Sue eeu ruses: Oui 198) 1 fom Ae oy Me tet toc pre ed fen" atesafe Merquior the Liberalist ROBERTO CAMPOS ‘This is a liberal book on liberalism, written by someone who believes that liberalism, if understood correctly, resists any vilification, Merquior, in the Introduction to Liberalism Olé and New José Guilherme Merquior’s demise, at 49 years of age and at the climax of his productivity, seems a cruel waste. God does such things; he makes geniuses and then breaks the mould. At times he makes people want, as in the case of Murillo Mendes's poem, to ask the Creator to not repeat the ‘chirp’ of the Creation. Merquior left us a rich corpus of work, ranging from literary criticism to philos ophy, sociology and political science. He wrote in English and French, in both of which he showed a fluency equal vo that of his mother tongue. Merquior today, as a sociologist, has an interna- tional reputation comparable only to that attained in his era by Gilberto Freyre, in his groundbreaking sociological studies — with the difference that Merquior's work is more diversified, as it includes important incursions into philosophy and political science. Merquior’s masterpiece is undoubtedly Liberalism Old and New, written when he was still ambassador to Mexico, in the short period of four months. Only the prodigious erudition he had accumulated allowed him to put together, in such a short time, that ‘vast mural depicting the long and zigzagging human pilgrimage in sauceRoberts Campos search of an open society. Pethaps Merquior foresaw that the Fates pete circling him and he forced himself to take his work to its highest expression. We had been lacking, in relation to liberalism, what Toynbee called a ‘panoramic, rather than microscopic’ vision. That gap was filled by the towering intellect of Merquior, who covered nothing, lest than three centuries. His book would become an essentiel Source of reference, as it analyses the different currents of liberaliam With abundant eradition and an immense capacity for appraisal More than a simple history of ideas, it is an essay in philosophical criticism, ‘The publication of Liberalism Old and New could not have come at 4 more opportune moment. This is because the world is now Watching the victory of liberalism in its two phases — political democracy and market economy — not only as an intellectual doctrine, the evolution of which Merquior traced masterfully, but as political praxis, ‘We can say that in the annus mirabilis of 1989, with the fill of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War between capitalism and communism came to an end. The latter ceased to be a paradigm. For some this is 4 nightmare, for others itis a source of nostalgia; but for no one is communism a model. This annus mirabilis will be seen, in reteo- sect, as one of the great historical watersheds, comparable perhaps {0 1776, when the great passage began from mercantilism to bev! capitalism and constitutional democracy, The cighteenth century, which I have elsewhere called the “exquisite century’, watched the death and resurrection of liber, alism. The economic liberalism preached in 1776 by Adam Smith would only become a victorious doctrine in the middle of the tineteenth century. It contributed to the strengthening of political democracy and to the prosperity of the belle époque. “ine socialist challenges were doctrinaire, more than they were Sovernment practices. The 1917 Soviet revolution began a lef. Wing “collectivist era’, while Nazi-fascism came to represent direct ‘collectivism’. The Great Depression of the 1930s weakened liber! capitalism, and Keynesianism emerged as a saving doctrine, This ‘was based, however, on an overestimation of government's ability fo manage the economy through the ‘fine-tuning’ of macroeco. potnic vatables. Economic neoliberaism only re-emerged a polit. ical praxis in the 1980s. Ifthe period between 1920 and 1986 was = 66 ~ Menguior the Liberalist “ ”, as Paul Johnson called it, we are entering this C ue cartels an 35 Merauior quail as oe At the end of the 1940s, ee een an rk elem yen economics, interprets be age eee ies heat WW ing, across the world as the wave ee seis SR oa eat rep tiosetaatl Indus Afolution, and the creation of a tuo of pola damorracy fr ee er ench ene te Neu Nees ca SSS et re ee) ged tenionipt cle aiden American sebeb would change te face ofthe work Thot was the fst wave, Air it would come the ‘oli wave’, which took over during most of the cwentiel a Fsedman eld that wave, which spread to state intervention and reduced individual freedoms, the “Fabian wave’. He a ute ee intellectual ferment in favour of collectivism to the re sete Fabian Society by Englsh soils in 1663. The Taban Sooty preached ‘the gradual march to socialism’. This att buon is arbitrary, since we might argue that the great challenge to lil a came from the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, written iad wind isdhean omnes tacoare he er gence of economic liberalism, may have begun with another bool Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944. He WEA Friedman points out interesting characteristics Ree areas bistry. The fist is cat dey began as a pare intelectual phenom =a heretical challenge to prevalent doctrines. Seneca ne ian reread Aa Smith reazed tht, in preaching fee tae, he was preaching utopia. Nevertheless, 70 years later, with the repeal A the a Laws in England, restrictions on grain trade were a sane years later, England and France signed the Cobden Treaty trade. vis ent, which began on the European conti- poles ar Violorepe ene tt tart ee i pe ate the world, following the collapse of the old order in the Fist i“Roberto Campos was the breakdown of private enterprise that weakened liberalism, in the same way that in the 1990s the death of the state began to destroy collectivism. Hayek's theories had to hibernate for forty years. In that period — beyond Marxism — Keynesianism flourished, overestimating government's ability to manipulate fiscal instruments in order to stabilize the economy or avoid unemployment. The second interesting characteristic, according to Friedman, is that the new waves were formed when the old ones reached their apex. Marxism and Fabianism were born after liberalism had given the world nearly a century of economic prosperity and as it was leading to growing political freedom, The neoliberal wave began, paradoxically, when government intervention was at its apex, uring the Second World War. Nevertheless, only in the 1980s, after the failure of the collectivist experiences - Nazism and communism — and a dirgiste experience ~ Keynesianism ~ has neoliberalism attained political power. The elections of Margarct ‘Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States represented a watershed. ‘The third characteristic is that the periods of economic liberalism induced a certain degree of political freedom, whereas economic collectivism is habitually associated with political despotism, as occurred with Hitler and Stalin. ‘Will the present neoliberal ascent turn out to be a mere ebb of the tide, or are we facing a new historical phenomenon: the marriage of political democracy with the market economy? A US State Department official, Francis Fukuyama, in a controversial article entitled ‘The End of History’, claimed that the history of thinking on the fundamental principles that govern political and social organization has ended, with the victory of political and economic liberalism. This marked not only the end of the Cold ‘War, but, especially, the prevalence of a politicalsocial format with characteristics of ‘sustainability’ and ‘universality’. Fukuyama gives more emphasis to political liberalism. But the phenomenon is more comprehensive, since the market economy also defeated dirigiste regimes. It is precisely the conjunction of political liberalism with economic liberalism that can be called ‘democratic capitalism’ Before being proposed for the condition of universal ideology, iy World War, and the advent of the Russian revolution nearly: seventy years after the Communist Manifesto. The almost moxtal blow to liberalism would be the Great Depression of the 1930s. It ‘Merquior the Liberalist politico-economic liberalism has had to face Sonal challenges during the twentieth century. A. serious ‘ini a Challenge was the 1930s Great Depression, which created dow fegurding the market economy and encouraged dingiste oa ments. Many people spoke at that time of the ‘end of capitalism’ Nevertheless, there were two ‘external’ challenges: Nazism, ot pally in the political sphere, and communism, ‘mainly in the eee er feat of those ewo challenges, thanks to che burial of Nazism and the agony of communism, no alternative ideology is able to compete with democratic liberal in its ambition vo become 2 universal, definitive, form of government. That is the sw reality of human histoi i eee ey main few doubts that this politicalesocial format will consolidate during this fin de sifde and during the coming millen~ nium, even if it does so by exclusion. The altemative ideologies have spoken. ‘Real’ socialism exhibited two bancful ingredients — its machine of terror and its economic inefficiency. The ideological experiments in the Thicd World, such as Islamic fundamentalism, brought about violence and poverty. Nationaloid populism, so widespread in Latin America and Africa, led to a rosary of failures. Finally, due to its very nature, nationalism does not have universal- jzable characteristics. We may speak, as well, of a ‘crisis of nation- alism’, since this fin de side offers us exquisite contrasts, We have the failure of che nationalism of the nation-state. What has been strengthened is the ‘nationalism of ethnic groups’ seeking t strengthen their identity, to preserve their native tongue administrative autonomy Without, however, negating their desire to integrate into larger economic blocs. More and more, the ‘Daniel Bell paradox’ is acknowledged: ‘the nation-state is too big for small problems and too small for big problems’ Within that world-view we can consider countries as belonging to two large groups. The frst contains those that have attained the stage of “systemic tranquillity’, in which the basic institutional options are not at stake; the remaining conflicts are related to partisan programmes, personalities and priorities in the allocation of resources. Hence, within the limits of the human condition, after a Secular search, 2 form of government allowing for a reconciliation of the threefold objectives of political freedom, economic efficiency and reasonable social satisfaction (insofar as no alternative system “peRoberto Campos oe Perspectives for social welfare) has supposedly been ‘The areas of systemic tranquillity are basic: ‘Australia, Japan and Western, ESP The pil 7 liberalism as an ide fore in this fin de sidde is surprising. It supplanted Keynesianism, the welfare state, dirigiste planning, and, finally, social democracy, as the modern European economies conform more and more to the principles of the market economy, substituting equality with efficiency as an idge force. Except in Brazil, where ideas arrive late, as if we were dealing with cheese that needs to be aged, and social democracy is not perceived 2s the last redoubt of dirgsme but as the first chapter of liberalism, European governments have various labels: conscrvative, social democratic, Christian democratic, centre-right and socialist, Nevertheless, the integration foreseen for 1992 arrived stuffed with a harmonization of policies based on two principles of the modem market economy: ‘globalism’, as factories become global and finan« cial markets become integrated; and ‘clientelism’, since the will of the consumer, not of the planner, will rule. French socialist Michel Rocard — a former prime minister - calls himself a ‘free-market socialist’. Spanish socials: Felipe Gonzilez speaks of “supply side’ socialism, of a clear concem for production before distribution. ‘There is less emphasis on independence and more emphasis on ‘interdependence’ The end of history as ideology, observes Fukuyama, would not mean the end of conflict; rather, it would mean that any conflicts that arise will probably not be global. They will be the product of local outbreaks of nationalism, of sources of religious tension like Islamic fundamentalism, of the Third World's frustrated search for a third path between capitalism and socialism. The only governments able to provide systemic tranquillity will be those that show two charcerscs: tail and univenality tn other words, there Is a ne for a non-excluding ideology b: on methods and capable of being uatvemsisels spiaiiges __ Most of the countries of the world, however, are in a state of systemic intranguillty’, in various processes and at various degrees of transition. This is what is occucring in the socialist world and in the great majority of countries that are conventionally called “Third ‘World’. The two great socialist powers, the former Soviet Union and China, are, each in its own way, seeking a stable political and a Merguior the Liberalist social format. China began with economic reform, but it suffers political paralysis; the Soviet Union carried out its political glasrost, but it failed in its cconomic peretroika, since its market economy wwas still a distant vision. The formerly communist countries of astern Europe are attempting a simultaneous transition from polit ical authoritarianism to representative democracy and from a command economy to a market economy. The Asian Pacific is also experiencing a transition process: South Korea and Taiwan have market economies in the process of political democratization. Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia combine authoritarian vestiges in politics with attempts at introducing « market economy. India is a large and robust political democracy, though, dominated by a socializing bureaucracy, it is far from resembling a market economy. In Latin America, democratic capitalism is practically non- existent. It is true chat there has been a reflourishing of democracy. Dictatorships are out of fshion, with only Cuba remaining as a teratological case. In the south of the continent, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Peru have made their democratic transition, Nevertheless, none of these countries, with the possible exception of Argentina, accepts the discipline of the market economy. All insist on bureaucratic controls, maintain bloated state machineries, and protect themselves through closed markets, Those are the characteristics of ‘mercantile’ societies. Moreover, only three countries — Chile, Bolivia and, more recently, Mexico ~ adhere explicitly to the liberal ideal of a market economy and, if comple mented with political liberalization, will be the first examples of democratic capitalism in Latin America. The present victory of liberalism over alternative ideologies is the culmination of a long and complex process that Merquior unveils for us in his great mural, with a fine perception of the nuances of thinking — but without ceasing to point out to us that the ‘rebirth of greater economic liberty ~ the liberalist tendency ~ does not constitute a mortal blow for egalitarian impulses’. Society, he says, continues to be characterized by a continuous ‘dialectical tension between the growth of freedom and the aspiration to equality’. ‘As opposed to the radical utopias, which simplify reality burbarously, liberalism entails a broad variety of values and beliefs ‘That stems from the perceived difference in obstacles to liberty and in the very concept of liberty, beginning with Isaiah Berlin’s classic distinction between ‘negative liberty’ (the lack of coercion) and pa"Reber Campos ‘positive liberty’ (the presence of options). As Merquior points out, there are historical stages in the search for liberty. The former is feedom fiom oppression, an immemorial struggle; the latter a freedom of political participation, an invention of Athenian democ= ey edt tird freedom is fieedom of worship, which was painfully atained in Europe as a result of the Reformation and the Feligious Wis. The fourth and most modem freedom is the freedom of ele fulfilment, made possible by the division of labour and, the emergence of the consumer society. Merquior’s pages on ‘clawie Uberalism’ are enlightening, with their three components; the theory on human rights, constitutionaliam, and liberal economice Mach more than a political formula, iberuim. isa convichom Which found its more practical, concrete expresion in the former tion of American democracy whose patriarchs combined, during Mreerming of the republic, Locke's lessons on human rights Montesquiew’s lessons on the separation of powers, and Rousseau’s tessons on the democratic contract. One curious abservation made by Merquior relates to. the vocational difference between the theoreticians of liberalism. The English liberals. were principally moral philosophers (Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill); the Ereach Uberals were mainly historians (Guizot and Tocqueville), and the German liberals were mainly jurists. In English theory liberty meane independence; in French theory it meant sel&governmens i German theory it meant self-fulfilment, With extraordinary crudition, Merquior dissects the different {eral languages: human rights, civic humanism, historical tages uitarianism and historical sociology. He makes original obsona? tions on the emergence, in the hundred years between 1830 sad 1930, of liberal conservatism, which was faithful to individualign iad Beedom of worship; nevertheles, he was pessimistic regarding democracy of the masses, In the delicate balancing act between the {wo aspects of liberalism — libertarianism and democratism ~ libel Gonservatives, such as Spencer and Burke, favoured the formen Among modem thinkers, Germany's Max Webcr, Italy's Beneders Croce and Spain's José Ortega y Gasset, by stressing the importance of ‘charisma’ and of ‘cucural eltes'in making democracy viable, concurred in what Merquior calls the ‘curious allergy’ of the modern intellectual vis-a-vis the modem ‘Society’, Something parillel occurred recently within Marxism, a+ José Guilherme pointed out in his important work Westen Manson agi ‘Mergtor the Liberalist Wate Mucha Ggieplcd Frmedabandoncd their obec re eres REPU erat oP ber Scots concentrate on the cultural tere ae a “ole Seite ai tenes Waterco alibll i poles teenies lation, and pessimism as quiescence’. COMER nies out eae postwar languages of liber ss tei i cs foes yaa rian protest rell anc amus), the ethics of plu qa Berth), cpt atieren (Hayek) and historical sociology (assay : edehdiir nae idiel piety aot eat Need ghar plelf beast eal ae of the authors ~ is entitled Sead ee - lism’. Merquior examines one of 2 ol lectic: Une in a scholarly manner: the tension ritccgl the growth of feedom and he impuke 0 equality. There i vovhing beter for unesanding the rence between ‘new Uber and ‘neoibrisn than consing Keynes with Haye On both, Merquior wrote brilliant vignettes — more ee a Keynes, less generous with Hayek. As is well oe favoured goverment intervention to comet the market, wheres Hayek dese that action as presumptuous ‘construc’ Fr Hayck, the role of government is solely ‘to provide a structure fo the matket and to frish services htt annot provide In our last conversations, I felt that José Guilherme was becoming increasingly "iberals.In that ered, we partook in communion, The ‘liberalist’ is one who believes that if there is no enna Geedom, oer feedoms = civil and polial - dapper In at Americ, he concentration of economic power ia feeding exercise. Our diagnoses on Brazilian troubles converged. The Bra of today does not lack freedom; it lacks liberalism. ote Two of the masters — Ralf Dahrendorf and Raymon = whose thinking Merguor bilan unraveled in chapter named, ‘Sociologia Libris! — were our mutual end. Dabrendort was, in the late 1970s, Director of the London School of Economics, where Merquior was studying for his detonate in sociology. “I don’t know why’, Dahrendorf told me, ‘since he ba more to teach than to lear’. -2B-Roberto Campos Dabrendorf liked to debate with Merquior on his favourite theses on modern social conflict: the dispute between those who. advocate greater ‘fieedom of choice’, and those who want a greater {repertory of rights’ that is, as Merquior noted, the basie opposition between ‘provisions’ and ‘entitlements’. In the first case we are dealing with alternatives in the supply of goods, an incremental concept; in the second, we are dealing with the right of acces to Bpods, a distributive concept. In a felicitous antithesis, Merquioe Points out that the Industrial revolution was a revolution of ‘provi sions’, whereas the French revolution was one of ‘entitlements’ Closer to home, the 1970s was, according to Merquior, a period in which concems with ‘entitlements’ prevailed, wheress the 1980, saw a shift of policies towards those that stress production more than distribution (that is, provisions before entitlements), Moreover, Brazil's new constitution, passed in 1988, exemplifies this conflict very well: economic freedoms were restricted; social Svarantees were broadened. The only problem was that they both became unviable, With Aron, I frequently found myself in a debating group presided over by Henry Kissinger. Aron always asked me about he beloved disciple, ‘the young man who had read everything’. Still, the impressive thing about José Guilherme was not has absorption. OF reacngs; rather, it was his metabolism of ideas. He did not resign himself to being an ‘engaged spectator’ as, with exaggerated modesty, his French teacher described himself. He was an activist. For that reason he went from ‘liberal conviction’ t ‘liberal Preaching’. He strove in the last days in a double task — the enlight- enment of liberalism, by searching among its philosophical roots, and the demystification of socialism, through the denunciation of its historical failure. Thar led him, on vatious occasions, into intel- Jectual skirmishes with Brazilian leftists — an exercise in which his overwhelming intellectual superiority caused in his challengers the oe Painful of wounds, the wounding oftheir pride. It is not easy to discuss with our left-wing guardians, vitiated in the ‘seduction ot myth and the tyranny of dogma’, comfortably encrusted in the media and effectively brandishing two weapons adulation. and intimidation. They coopt idiots, calling them ‘progressive’, and intimidate patriot, calling them ‘sellouts’. Merquior's eyes were not opened until he discovered that in the Brazilian left there are still people wino do not realize that the Berlin Wal fel, = ga Morguior the Liberalist i wolemic of ideas to political ane ae Send nec duties. How did ie fe ee our confused political panorama? Cersily ee ie ‘classic liberals’ or ‘libertarians’, if we use ee a ote — that is, those who wish to preserve freedom, a political authoritarianism or economic interventionism. The classic Fheral (or the “liberaist’ ~ which is a term Merquior liked to we, sing back to the Italy of the 1920s, among Einaudi and noe Prhich the former defended the incompatibility of politcal freedom mic interventionism, whereas the latter did not refute ee differs from his ‘conservative’ counterpart in os i te sini Festi Gh a eit edo A sa ic volit scepticism. lis Pee al aes caeccenren eet ri in the institutions that have passed the test A time. ne cones ee ee eee ancl NST ag OR ae eas ee A cule Dekel epee See cai ead oe applied to public life, especially when it is directed towat ambitious innovations ! : "The antipade ofthe lasc Uber is naturally the soca’, who believes that it is society's role to redistribute the product individual labour and who accepts political coercion to guarantee cgalitarian utopias ee Renin to think that in the Brazilian political ise ee ee of what Nolan would call eftist liberal. These individuals believe in political freedom, though they accept ue So according to varios branches: the ‘assistance re a believes in welfire govemment; the ‘nationalist’ brand Die ‘protectionist’ branch; and, finally, the ‘corporatist’ branch, whic is, in turn, subdivided into three ea the sp ones ion corporatists and the burcaucratic corporatists.. These eae Upon Merquior’s death, after months in which he courageously ate the bread of sorrow and drank from the waters of afiliction, an enormous cultural vacuum was created in our ee landscape in which the bushes are much more numerous than the “TR inabe ecrtlice icbhenetcietr ent > eeRoberto Campos paraphrase Manoel Bandeira: ‘Little horses walking, Big horses eating. Brazil politicking.” José Guilherme dying. And so many people surviving, cee: se Saige Variations on a Theme by J. G. Merquior GHITA IONESCU Theme The formative struggle of liberalism was the vindication of rights — religious, political and economic — and the attempts to control polit- ical power. Historically one can say that liberty has to do with the tise of modem civilization, first in the West and then in other areas of the world. The formula, therefore, seems to be liberty equals modernity equals individualism. The scale and growth of individu- alism is a trademark of modemity.! 1 Merquior preferred t explain liberalism by following its history, rather than by providing new interpretations of its premises, indeed new speculations. The probity of his approach was rewarded by the basic distinctions he was able to draw between the historical kinds of what is now called liberalism. He left aside the more indirect phases, which he called protoliberalism, unlike many other authors, who took it for granted that these were the long gestations of the ultimate liberalism (the expression ‘Iiberal’ was born in 1812 as the name of a parliamentary group in the Spanish Cortes). And he then divided post-nineteenth-century liberalism into classical liberalism, social liberalism, conservative liberalism, revolutionist liberalism, * J.G, Merquicr, Lberain Old and Nev (Boston: Twayne), p16. -7-Ghita fonese nation-building liberalism, new liberalism, neoliberalism logical liberalism, Each is distinct, with the hallmark oc Zeal and its national political psychology, but all together form the continuity of the aspiration of peoples since the nineteenth century. towards the institutionalization of freedom. A more sceptical observer would perhaps be less convinced by the historical and geographic varicties of liberalism than, perhaps, by the characteristi vagueness of the conceptual ensemble of liberalism itself, a vague~ ness due, above all, to its etymological matrix: liberty itself ; But while this brings us back again to the initial choice of analyt ical approach, historical or synoptical, the aim of these variations on, Merquior’s theme is to look more closely, even if evidently fragmentary, at the symbiotic links he finds between liberalism and. individualism, liberalism and constitutionalism, and liberalism and the present spirit of ‘globalization’. 2. Let us start with individualism. The notion of individualism ‘ been particularly carefully carfied by political philosophy, ‘estate as this would have been. As is usually the case, economic and polit= ical philosophers had two different views of the concept of individ- ualism, but alo mixed them more often than not, in most confusing ways. And political philosophy has also been divided ever since the condemnation of Socrates by the polit. Some exalted and some deprecated individualism, Monotheism, Judaic and Christian, and especially the latter, clevated the individual to his rightful level of superiority for it proclaimed him to be the unique communica tion between every single human being and the one God, thus giving to the individual worshipper his or her acknowledgment of transcendent uniqueness ~ one of the conditions of individuality. “But the political philosophers, concerned ever since the nineteenth century with the rules that protect its individual citizens and members within that association ~ tainted as it was by egalitani- anism and collectivism — have oscillated ever more violently between praise and condemnation of individualism, thus amplifying Sere degree Rousscau's schizophrenic approach to the ‘The case that troubles me most in this respect is that of Pe Variations on a Theme by JG. Merquior Tocqueville. He, one of my masters, resuscitated the idea and the werd ‘individualism’ and then tried to kill it again. Merquior wwotinds us chat the word ‘individualism’ made one of its fist appearances in English in Reave’s translation of Democracy in sPherica But Merquior also remarks that Tocqueville saw individu- “yam in the democratic context as a social pathology, widespread aiiecentredaess, arising ftom an egalitarian society ridden by etevilism, competition and resentment.’ Indeed, every time that Thy eves fil on that remark? (and remark is the apposite word, given that this unexpected idea, in total contradiction with what se now now to be Tocqueville's deepest belief, never reappears in his whole oewe), I always hoped to find that it was due to a misprint or a mistake in the editing. Alas, no. Tocqueville's miscon= ception is there to stay. He docs literally give to individualism an Sgahtarian connotacion, and differentiates it from egoism only in its degree of morality. ‘To situate individualism in the civic context has been, ever since Rousseau, obviously difficult insofar 25 the human substance of individualism transcends the legal and administrative formalities The contrast has been accentuated in the modem politically egali- tarian democracy. For, in spite of the increasing similarity of Sutward appearances (the conformism of blue jeans), and of the Srelfare and other legal entitlements of most citizens, the loneliness Of the life-to-death — t0 paraphrase Heidegger — of each human being encased within the citizen was being increasingly felt But to situate individualism, as Tocqueville seems to be doing in that remark, in the exclusively economic context of materialistic Competitiveness and greed for profit in a politically egalitarian democracy (35 Tocqueville rightly thought American democracy was bound to become) ~ is unjustifiable. The sense of Tawneyan aequisitiveness of the individualism may be fitting in a socialist oF collectivist background. Indeed, as is only too well known, in Marxist-Leninist states — states which had eaten alive not only individuals but also the whole civil society ~ the word “individual- jstic’ was both an insult and a crime, like ‘bourgeois’ for example, and usually associated with it. Happily enough, today individualism even 2s a school of thought Gif it can be reduced to that) has been rehabilitated, in common 2 Lieralon Old and Naw, pp. 54-5, * Quoted atthe end ofthis chapeer aapGhita fonesea parlance and in dictionaries, as that school of thought which encourages the free activity of any human being in whatever polity he or she may be living. gi 1 would like to explain further why I insisted in the preceding: section on Tocqueville's profound personal individualism and why, therefore, against the background of what I described as his deepest beliefs, the critical economic-egalitarian sense he gave in that remark to the word ‘individualism’ was literally out of context in. his ocwore, For as it has already often and especially recently been explained (and nowhere better, it seems to me, than in Luis Diez del Corral, Pascal y Tocqueville), Tocqueville's sense of this lie is that of the “generations of human beings tottering towards the abyss’. That sense of life inspired his melancholy scepticism both towards the achievable perfectibility of che human condition and, consequently, towards the perfectibility of human associations, ‘Tocqueville was not a progressivist, or even an optimist. He never forgot that although generation after generation of the citizens of democracies might be better educated in the spirit of togethemess, social justice and human care, yet each generation would still find two shortcomings in their lives as citizens and in their ultimate obligations as servants of Time. The first shortcoming lies in the effort to catch up with the societal changes produced by unexpected scientific discoveries as well as by uncontrollable events in collective behaviour itself. Fach generation has not only to lean to live in society, with the same trajectory from the unjustified enthusiasm of youth to the unassuaged bittemess of ald age, but also to live in societal condi- tions obviously different from those in which their parents lived. The double effort to adapt, which they have to ‘experience first, might lead, given the different historical generations, either to the wisdom of gentle reforms or to the follies of ‘revolutions’ or reactions. It all depends on how elastic the brain of a given genera- tion proves in the end to be. “The problem is big and the brain 4 1, Die del Corl, La med pain de Tile am ep mfoe 4 se (Madrid, 1965}, ie = ™ pee = 80 = Variations on a Theme by J.G. Merquior small’, said the modem economic philosopher Eric Lindblom. But more of this later. The second shortcoming (and here the word sounds like a pun) of any generation of human beings lies in their mortality. All people should be able to, and presumably could, live together even if in the most collective, indeed gregarious, way. But no pluralism, let alone egalitarianism, can remedy the essential singularity of the individual's fate. Progress, which is said to be the guardian angel of humankind, stops at the threshold of any person’s death. Or, the other way round, it can be said that the only true human egalitari- anism is the equality of all human beings in the face of death. This is abo where Tocqueville's liberalism differs in essence from the Bentham-born felicity-seeking liberalism. 4 ‘There is a peculiar etymological problem to be noticed in the word ‘individualism’, Etymologically, the word ‘individual’ derives from the Latin individuus (indivisible) and individere (not to be divided). Why should the indivisible have become the individual? The sense of specificity might be one reason; that of peculiarity another; and that of wholeness or indeed wholesomeness is possibly another. Or ‘was it because the individual was like electrons, that is, the smallest unit carrying the finally indivisible negative charge of electricity, but this time of human indivisibility? Was the Latin expression a premonition of what was to become, theologically, the divine essence of individuality in every son of the Christian Church; and, politically, the slogan of liberalism: one man (later also woman), one vote? The controversies around the validity of the principle of ‘one man, one vote’, that sine qua non of the modern political condition, throw more light on the difference between liberalism and individ- ualism, The Marxists, justifiably and mockingly, asked what is the good of the vote to a person who, in his or her economic reality, is starving in the street? However more convinced we are now that economic democracy cannot be the alternative to proper democ- racy as a whole (or liberal democracy as political scientists call it in a conciliatory way), we ako know that the more democracy matures, the more economic prosperity is seen as the condition of stability. SagiGhita Toneseu But, apart fiom and above the economic relevance of the ‘one man, one vote’ principle, there are many other irrelevances in the relation between the vote-caster and, on the other hand, the policy orientations, or indeed changes, the count of the votes cast may set in motion. To be sure, the representative system which is the end= result of the one man, one vote operation is still the only system. that ensures political cohesion in a state, or even more convincingly in a canton (Rousseau’s ‘general will’). But what is in question when the operation is considered from the point of view of the ‘individual’ is the relation of causality’ between the vote of one given single person, and the huge, anony= mous arch-collectivist numbers which, in the end, divide the numerical majority from the numerical minorities. That relation of causality is questionable for two reasons, and those reasons, alas, are more evident now that the information revolution has altered, and’ is continuously altering, traditional political procedures. The first reason that questions this relation of causality between. ‘one man’ (note, not one citizen) and the general remit raises the problem of the influences which may be exerted on the judgment and the will of the one vote-caster and on the act of vote-casting. There may be overwhelming inner, personal reasons that blur the objectivity of his or her public decisions: a doctor might have thrown serious doubts on the duration of his or her life; he or she might be totally absorbed in a mathematical calculation, a musical composition or a financial operation of some magnitude, ete., ete. But ~and this is where the information revolution comes in with its new means of all-invading media publicity, and its computerized predicting ‘polls’ of anonymous interviewees ~ there are now abo more and more external influences on the vote-caster’s final and formal decision. Even if it is true that the religious and especially the erstwhile ‘ideological’ persuasions have less influence than in the past 130 years of democratic politics, or pethaps because of this new vacuum of belief, the exposure of the average ‘individual’ vote- caster to the deafening technical means of modem opinion-forming devices hamper his or her innate capacity to form a personal opinion more than ever before, and will increasingly do so. ‘And the second question to ask, again in terms of the individual ‘cause and effect’ in elections or popular consultations (and which is again aggravated by yet another impact of the information revolu- tion discussed in section 10) is that concerning the impact of the -s2- Variations on a Theme by J.C. Merquior transnationalization and interdependence of real political causality Or the question of the inability of the average vote-caster to compre- yuend {in the double sense of the expression) the real givens of the problems refiacted oa his or her circumscribed national or cantonal horizons. Most people deplore and denounce the further distancing of the already remote modern decision-making institutions. This is $f real impression, which can create either adverse votes of antipathy or electoral apathy, even abstentionism, but nevertheless it is basically an impression. For it is mot the geographic or rather geopolitical remoteness of the sites of the International Monetary Fund, of NATO or of the UN which alienate the minds of the local vote-casters. What alienates them is the esoterically scientific character of most problems, the worldwide interdependence and the supranational incommensurability of the ‘right’ decision to be taken in a given problem submitted to the individual's vote. In these two new conditions of traditional political consultation such a consultation becomes increasingly symbolic for the individual vote~ ‘aster and increasingly orchestrated, yet without an intelligible score. ‘To this must be added, even if somewhat brieffy, the question of the relevance of the national vote in problems of international import. By this T mean problems which can be properly examined and understood only when they are situated at the international or transnational level in which the national and local meanings, inter ests and sentiments are subsumed. The French referendum on the treaty of Maastricht in September 1992 remains the best example of the incompatibility of motives at the national and international levels. For there was a treaty of Maastricht which 11 out of 12 national representative governments had signed, after prolonged negotiations and discussions in the European Council of Ministers The text finally accepted was patchy and esoteric. Bur it can be assumed that the spokesmen of representative governments knew and understood it. Therefore the idea of inviting the represented to examine the same problem by means of a ‘one man, one vote! popular referendum was mistaken twice over (and President Mitterand will always be blamed for having tried to play with these constitutional and continental problems for French electoral purposes). It was mistaken first because the answers to a specifically European question lacked European significance. Most of the answers took the question to be whether France should remain in eeGhita Tonescu the European Community or whether the socialist president of the republic and the government of the Socialist Party should resign, Answers to such questions missed the European point. Secondly, it is seriously to be feared that the natural public backwardness in understanding, in specialized knowledge and, above all, in the elevation of the average national voter to the European level or to that of the mentality of the ‘highly developed countries’, with their vaster perspectives, will for some time reflect adversely upon consultations on national or international problems, ‘What is now needed is to re-educate the political mentality of the voters. However emotionally powerful the feeling, or justified the interest, of the national vote-caster, this will not cura him or her into an objective and knowledgeable observer of wansnational problems, which have to be seen in a transnational context. During, the period of transnational re-education, representative govern= ments will be well advised to avoid embarrassing quid pro quos with the representatives thinking of one thing and the represented thinking of something different. The democratic transnational consultations should be limited to the very general horizon where national consent is demanded for the first time (usually the initial accession to a treaty) and not at every subsequent development of the initial experiment. Above all, what should be avoided are allegedly transnational consultations for national electoral purposes. 5 ‘There is no doubt that both liberalism and individualism have in common the pursuit of liberty. But while their purpose may seem tobe identical, what emerges from the common pursuit is evidently the dissimilarity of its motives. To take an otherwise inadequate metaphor, this would amount to saying that both the doctor and the patient seck health. The metaphor, though, fits the real case ~ that is, the relation between liberalism and individualism in the act of prescription, which is as essential in the relation between doctor and patient as it is in that between liberalism and individa- alism, The purpose of individualism, and of the individual, is to ensure his or her freedom to act. Because of its intrinsic ‘individual- istic’ character, its aim cannot be to be of service to others (within the limits of Isaiah Berlin’s differentiation between positive and Lge Variations on a Theme by J.C. Merquior negative freedom, or in other words up to the point where and When his or her freedom of action impinges on, and therefore Sbstructs the freedom of others, which thereupon limits it), Ie is a contradiction in terms to say that individualism is altruistic, though the actions of an individual can obviously be altruistic. Individualism can prescribe only to the self, if it were to prescribe to others it would compromise the very legitimacy of its principle. ‘But liberalism, which never knew whether it was an ideology, let alone a philosophical system, is directed towards gencral humanity, precisely because its intrinsic motivation is prescriptive. Its yocation, indeed raison d’éte, is how to give feeedom to all individ uals, Even its most popular slogan ‘Laissez-fiire, lhisser-passer’, which is apparently nonsensical, because it can be taken to mean ‘stand still and do nothing’, is nevertheless a prescription. Evidently, the do-nothing prescriptive non-sense was afterwards grafted onto and consolidated with the more positive precepts of constitution- alism, Constitutionalism is a system which goes particularly well with liberalism because it indicates to auchority ~ that is, the state ~ how to proceed in order to do, if not nothing, at Icast the minimal amount; and it indicates to individual, qua citizens, how to defend their freedom without violating that of others. Raymond Aron’s formula of ‘constitutional pluralism’ is so much more precise than that of ‘liberal democracy’ preferred by political scientists. Further ‘variations on Merquior’s theme’ will also examine the relation between liberalism and constitutionalism, which we have just touched on. Here what should be added is that liberalism attempts to help self-isolated, inner-concentrated, indeed deaf individuals to hear each other, to rescue them from their ultimate sense of ‘absurd! (absurdo). Thus for that reason liberalism deserves to be considered as the protector of individualism. For indeed, as we have seen since the period of the school of existentialism's domination of philosophy, total or totally deaf individualism is so ‘absurd’ that it ends by negating even itself and proclaims with Foucault the ‘death of man’. 6 In spite of my general respect for Norberto Bobbio’s political philosophy, I wish T could believe him when he proclaims that ‘the abeChita Doneseu practice of democracy is an historical consequence of Liberalism’ and that ‘all existing democratic states were originally liberal states’, It is not only the gross approximativeness of the historical etymology which surprises me: it took twenty-two centuries for the word ‘liberal’ to be invented by the liberals of the Spanish Cortes (and for the term ‘liberalism’ to be forged by Madame de: Stael in relation to Benjamin Constant's political thought), while Plato and Aristotle give us ample written evidence of how: ficquently the word ‘democracy’ was used in the fourth century BC: in Athens, Etymological metaphors are frequent in political philos= ophy and it takes Merquior’s historically precise mind to call protaliberalism all those fourteen centuries of intellectual struggle for fieedom, a struggle which, by now, is usually called liberalism. One single continuum of gestation of the same body of ideas? Bobbio is one of those who do not object to that verbal oversimplification. No, where I do not follow him is where he does not follow Constant, Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill, Constant in particular, and especially in his differentiation between the Ancients and the ‘Moderns, also stressed the difference in the kind of civic spirit between the notion of democracy and that of liberalism (even ignoring the pejorative sense that the Greeks gave to democracy, 26 a politeia unbalanced by the domination of the policymaking, processes of the polis by ‘the poor). Liberalism concerns the individual, even the individual citizen; democracy concerns that unit called the polis or city in which the polites or cives are members of an interrelated and dominant community. It is this difference in structure, I would even say in texture, between the publicly motivated democracy and the privately dominated liberalism that is dialectically difficult to weave. Nevertheless, political practice and conciliatory political theory have actually produced the political= theoretical hybrid called liberal-democracy (ata time when. ‘Western ‘democracy’ found it necessary to be differently character ized from the Marxist-Leninist ‘popular democracies’, based on illusory economic egalitarianism), In connection with that, 1 found very refteshing Giovanni Sartori’: recent furious reiteration of Constant’s much calmer discussion of this perennial argument. Sartori proclaims: The ancients did not, and could not recognize the individual as a person and, concurrently, as a ‘private self entitled to respect, for a Variations on @ Theme by J.G. Merquior sianity and the obvious reason that this conception came with Christianity ve vaubsequently developed by the Renaissance and by Protestantism and by the modern school of natural law. What the ‘Geeek individualistic spirit licked, then, was the notion of a legit. inate private-space conceived as the moral as well as the juridical projection of the single human person. The fact that an impassioned Praividualistc impetus flourished throughout Athenian democracy Hoes not therefore contradict the assertion that the individual was ctually undefended and remained at the mercy of the collective body, But democracy did not respect the individual, it tended rather to suspect him, A fiee city is one thing, free citizens quite another. Greek democracy was, I submit, a past that we would not want back at all Don't we indeed? It depends who the ‘we’ is in this context, I am sure that Giovanni Sartori, the Prince of Wales, Mia Farrow, you and I do no like the kind of plebcian and muck-raking Gemocracy which has emerged today. But the publishers and readers of tabloids, the makers of investigative television programmes and the tens of millioas of their additive readers and viewers believe that the great symbol of political egalitarian democracy is, to paraphrase Edward Shils, ‘the torment of privacy’. This means the right of the public through the ‘media’ to torment private citizens by prying into the secrets that every human being should be allowed and that the great majority keep to themselves. By an ironical twist, while we are so proud to make privatization one of the pillars of our modern economic life, we have allowed the commercial enterprises of the media to de-privatize individual lives, ‘tormenting’ everyone in public sight. Nor do we want ‘rave’ and ‘acid’ parties polluting our own backyards and obscene images illus trating children’s textbooks and television programmes. The city oppresses the individual today more than in Athenian times, but by open vice and corruption rather than by the compubory abiding values allegedly imposed by the gods and by the public sense of collective pride. But ‘curiouser and curiouser’, what we still do not know is whether it is democracy that has corrupted liberalism or rather, the other way round, liberalism that has vitiated democracy. In the remaining sections of this chapter I will examine this very point. > G, Sartori, The Theory of Damacay, vol. 2 (New York: Chatham Howse, 1987), pp 286-7. eens7 Itis taken for granted that in the history of political philosophy two consequences follow from the ‘break’ brought about by the French revolution, Secularism, cither as agnosticism or as straightforward atheism, has since replaced, first in France and then in Europe, the religious stance of the state. Hence liberalism, born after’ the revolution, should be historically predisposed to make agnosticism, if not atheism, preside over its political philosophy. Indeed, in the most current definition, liberalism and especially constitutional liberalism is not only religious agnosticism, but also political agnos« ticism, ‘The most current definitions are not always the most complete, The abovementioned definition glides over the question of whether even at the very origin of liberalism in the nineteenth, century it did not show in its essential depths an abdication from. human reason, a recognition of more mysterious rules and obliga~ tions. Take the case of Benjamin Constant, the founder of liberalism. The logic of the argument of his work is confirmed by that of its gestation. The one subject that Constant ruminated over throughout his life was religion. It was the first subject he ever wrote about while still an adolescent, and it was the subject of his last published work (the final volume came out posthumously). This was not unusual for an alert intellect of his period, since the separation from the old religion left every idealistic mind (as distinct. from the materialistic Helvetius or his pupil Bentham) tortured, afier the first joys of liberation from the discipline of the Church, by what appeared terrifyingly as the black hole of rationalism. Even Robespierre felt the need to create a goddess to whom to devote his need for prayer. Constant’s essay on religion obviously leads on to an anticlecical and pantheistic conclusion, but the main line of the argument is the affirmation of what he call “the religious sentiment’, which he describes as the essence, the initial spark, of ‘those principles of justice and pity which no human beings can cease to observe without degrading and denying their very nature’. Once we discuss this premise of Constant's reasoning, and once wwe realize that for him the basic feeling of every individual human Wea Variations on a Theane by J.G. Merquior ‘this myscerious sentiment’, the religious sentiment, oer Es we find “in the physical world all thit belongs to nature, to the universe, to its immensity; and in the moral world all that arouses pity or enthusizsm; the spectacle of a virtuous action, of a generous sacrifice . . . of the sorrows of others asisted or gssuaged . . . contempt for vice. . . and resistance to tyranny’, then jt becomes easier to follow his liberal trend of thought. It is a trend that begins and ends with the individual and his or her conscience in the world — in the world, not only in society, itis the idealistic Iiberal trend of thought. Once we are aware of the depth from which his theory of liberal constitutionalism sprang, we are no longer surprised to find Constant stating at the very beginning of his Principes de politique that (my emphasis since the constitution is the guarantee of the freedom of a people, everything that is related to that ficedom is constitutional, but nothing which is not related to it is constitutional; that to extend the constitution over everything was to open up dangers for it everywhere, and to surround it with sheals; that there are basic founda tions which national authorities could no touch ‘The limitation of the constitution is then logically presented by Constant as the consequence of the prior limitation of the sover- cignty of the people. Thus: When one asumes that the sovereignty of the people is unlimited, one is setting up and throwing into human society in haphazard fashion a degree of power too great in itself, and which is an evil regardless of in whose hands itis lodged. It is the degree of power which is at fault, not those who wield it. One must act against the ‘weapon, not against the arm which brandishes it. Some bodies are too hneary for the hands of men to bear their weight . . . Of necessity there is some part of human existence which remains individual and independent, and which by right falls ontside all socisl competence Sovereignty exiss only in a limited and relative manner. Further, Constant extends this principle of limitation in an apparently more controversial way to human law itself. No authority on earth is unlimited, neither that of the people, nor those who claim to represent it, nor that of kings, under whatever title they reign, not even. that of the law, which being only the expression of the will of the people or of the kings, according to eeGhuta loneseu the kind of government, must be circumsenbed within the Tiinlous atte of be muoeny which tana. «Bio duty a bind... to those laws which not only restrict our legit only restrict our legitimate liber di, But onder uso actin waye which run counter wo those eternal seine of fee tele whic oman ealces aee without degrading or denying his very nature... The will of a whole people cannot make just what is unjust. pis ‘This critique of the law itself might seem controversial, i bordering on anarchy. But it is clear that Constant is oe pe Jaws made by human beings under those principles of justice and pity that are sown in every homan being by that mysterious ‘sentiment of religion’, the ultimate source of individual morality. In his recent study of Constant, Pierre Manent asked whether the limitations he placed on sovereignty were of an ‘historical’ or of a ‘natural’ order ~ that is to say, did they derive from the historical mutation perceived by Constant between the society of the Anciens and the Modernes, ot om the, by then, seemingly obsolete Law of Nature? ‘The answer, this time, is categorically in favour of the latter. ‘The bodies which are too heavy for the hands of men to bear their weight’ ‘the basic foundations which national authorities cannot touch’ and ‘the principles of justice and pity which no man can cease to observe’ emanate directly from the religious sentiment Even if this sentiment is emancipated from the established Church, it is stil that ‘certain inclination to know the truth about God and to live in society’ described by St Thomas Aquinas, who also concludes in his Summa Theologica (1a, 2ac. 94, 2) that ‘in. this respect there come under the Natural Law all actions with such inclinations’.® oe eae 8 Coleridge’s ‘Relative Individualism’ have asked then to its birthplace in all that constitutes our relative individuality, in all that each man calls exclusively himself re alien of which they know not and for the question itself so purposeless, and the very words that convey it are as sounds in an unknown language, or as the vision of heaven and earth expanded © See G. lonescu, “The Theory of Liberal Constitutions’ in Cp iberil Constinai in Consttatons in Democratic Pits, ed. V. Bogéanor, (London: Policy Sues Istute, 198). a Variations on a Theme by J.G. Menguior by the rising sun which falls bur as warmth on the eyelids of the Prt To ne class of plenomena or particulars can it be referred, itself being none; herefore to no faculty by which these alone are sppre= one TOA: Hele dare we to refer ic to any form of absraction Or enstaization; for ie bas neither coordinates nor andlor, i seetaly one... The eraths which it manifest are such ai alone aire, and in all truth it manifest itself. By what name then ca etiou cal a truth 20 manifested? Is it not a revelation? Ask canst f whether thou canst attach to that later word any consistent ‘maning not inchided in the idea of the former? And the atifesing power, the source and the correlation of the idea chus mnanifeted, is it not God?” a If the liberal political system was in trouble in the constitutional states, it was for subtler and deeper reasons than those hurled at it by its amtiparliamentarian adversaries. One was that, having sunk all its energies, indeed its very raison d’te, in establishing the constitu- tional system, once this had been achieved liberalism could have faced away like the Cheshire Cat in the atmosphere it had itself ‘created in the nineteenth century. This did happen in France, Shere to this day there is mo party going by the name of ‘liberal, snd where liberal parties have called themselves, in aa intelligently functional way, ‘of the centre’ ‘But insofar as the world in the age of planetary communication became interdependent, the first mission of liberalism was now to extend the economic system of market liberalism and the political system of constitutional pluralism as widely as possible, so as to erable the whole world to adapt itself freely to the new demands of world trade and interdependence. GATT was the new paradigm. ‘And the second task of liberalism in Europe, its birthplace, was to pave the way, in the new world formed by massive geopolitical regional units, for the regional unit of the European union. Instead, ‘progressive permissiveness’ became the ideological slogan of liber- alism, with the accent laid on the negation of ethics, and its replacement by hedonistic utilitarian catchwords, in rivalry with those of the post-1968 ‘lef’. But the repetition of progressive 7 ST. Coleridge, Ov Method, Esay XI ~Chica Towesox Permissive slogans proved to be disadvantageous to liberalism. For, from the philosophical, political and, last but not least, the mon point of view, those slogans and ideas were out of tune with the real developments of the modern world. From a philosophical point of view, the very word “progress, in which the nineteenth century had so fervently believed, was ~ after the new epistemological pessimism of science, after Stalinism, féscism and Nazism, after the First and Second World Wars, after Vietnam and the development of nuclear weaponry — badly shaken, The credibility of ‘progress! was less convincing. Politically too, ‘Progressive permissiveness’, with its overtones of egoism and hedonism, ran counter to the mentality of a citizenry prepared to make socio-economic sacrifices and to let the state curb some citizens’ rights provided i could redress some of the blatant injus- tices of the industrial society. But it was on the moral plane that the modem liberal slogan of ‘progressive permissiveness’ encountered its gravest dilemmas, Here the heritage of hedonistic utilitarianism has had deleterious effects on the education, and subsequently on the behaviour, of people within the framework of liberal constitutionalism. The utilitarian slogan of the “pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain’ was taken increasingly literally in a society which put more and more temptations in the way of a public moulded by purely secular education. The phenomenon was general in the Westem European constitutional states that tried to follow the glitering example of. the United States. By 1968 the whole Western hemisphere had entered into a general moral crisis. Te was at this moment that the materialistic liberal ideology of Progressive permissiveness came into conflict with its twin: consti- tutionalism. Indeed, it could even be said that the two former partners had now become opposed to each other: the constitutional system is asking citizens to observe the laws and abide by civic and other virtues, while the ideologies of progressive permissiveness still continue to try to ‘liberate’ man from ‘old prejudices’ and/or ‘class injustice’ And yet the more one looks at the history of constitucionalism, the more one realizes that true constitutionalism is bound to be liberal. Liberalism is featherweight in structure, miraculously ftexible in its adaptability to all economic and social requirements, and it may prove to be useful in the future unification of national Br Variations on « Theme by J.G. Merquior ignti lc European constitution. For it fits TOSI fuel nor only cht and polecal fe. I dual Ink pal ically with the individual, economically with the musket, rendes it so nna hat any astompt to epiced soon shows up serra ie general conclusion of ts secon can be sed the following syllogism. If first premise] the constitutional bbera ste & guided by individu, and if recond premite] individual ded by their moral conscience, ego the constitutional liberal ote is guided by the mora conscience of individuals, Or Conversely, constitutional liberalism can only thrive ‘if the moral conscience of the individual citizens is in harmony with the moral principles which underlie it. 10 ‘Globalized Liberalism’ © aims of liberalism were obviously greatly furthered a Lenin independently achieved by the technological information revolution, which had overwhelming effects on the moder economy and politics though its causes were purely scien tific and technical, Communications (both transport and informa- tion) are ftee and usable now from any latitude to any longitude, from one pole to another, and from any distance from the equator, the globe. a meee SSR wa shanered by the inresistible pressure of technology both on its backward armament industry, and on its sbilty to seal off te population fiom the information pouring in upon it and to conceal its military secrets from the satellites photographing its temtory. As a result, the collapse of the Soviet bloc removed the ls obstacle indeed wall, i a word now ‘ber ated’. All the markets now form a single economic and financi ‘market; and almost all units of rule in the world, minus China and Cuba, etc., claim to be ‘liberal democracies’. Is liberalism then still needed; of, because what it stood for during two centuries has now been largely achieved by those means, should liberalism now say, like the old servant, ‘Nunc dimists ...”? ‘The answer is no, because with the help of modem technology, 8 G.lonetc, “The Theory of Liberal Corstictionai’ -93-liberalism has noe fulfilled either the aim of peace or the ultimate | freedom of societal human beings, ‘The victory over the Marxist-Leninist states and ideology was, almost tautologically, a double victory. The ‘Cold War’, inter spersed with some very hor episodes and some very costly arm Preparations, was fought by the two superpowen and by. thee Hipective blocs. There was no possibility of conciliation, One of the camps had to be conquered by the other. This was because the origin of the Cold War was ideological: Marxism-Leninism was and Femuins the only ideology to have achieved power in history, from its absolute Welnschawung to. its unprecedented technique Of commupting the mind and the will of the individual and the sollecs tivities with its virus. In comparison, liberal democracy was reaction (the attitude of opposition to an ideology is by logical necessity a counterideology). Ideology and counteridcology inevitably pursued their struggle but military aggressiveness and ig. corollary, Preparations for defence, seemed to be taking the bate onto their fields. Yet the truc character of the Cold War was confirmed by its conclusion. Held in check by the firmness of the resistance of the lumanly normal countrdeeleey of liberal demotnacy, the abnormal and inhuman Marcist-Leninist ideology, ford into military ‘containment’, was slowly devoured by its owm internal contradictions, No final military intervention was necessary. And once ideology war dead and officially buried by Prime Minister Yeltsin (who proved ia ths respect to be more courageous than President Gorbachey) the Cold War ccased and normality began to come back to whie it belonged, in the world of human beings We ate now, | wrote elsewhere, in the narrowly but exactly defined situation, for the present and the future, of ‘No More World Wars’, ot NMWW. There are already, and there will be in the fature, many local wars, some affecting their respective conti= ents more, some les. But in the absence of a really world dividing ideology, the world which in the meantime had achieved slobal interdependence, with globally circumambient communica ‘tons of all kinds, has ‘localized! those wars, tured them into what they are in reality. No other World War will be caused by a local inflammation, But NMWW is not world peace either. World peace, the real peace, needs a clearly pronounced agreement of the ‘states’ (the 154 “sovereign states’, members of the United Nations). They must = 94 - Variations on « Thome by J.C. Menquior e of wemnselves ther, isrespective of the degree BE praca eS ely test omnia dove © tals over Giahout fostering nationalis jealousy oF is beweroff neghbous Ie must show respect for the obligations of interdependence, for : i is a smaller or bigger link in the chain, obliged to play eit ‘and not to obstruct it. The lesson of interdependence he . be followed by the bigger, or more central, or abe GML Phe thas, eV AM Gugh sacha the form of competitiveness and differences of development should Se izes all power. However never forget that interdependence relativi pe Siresiol awa dite or oven a regional Oomation vould over el Isei'@ be, and however much Hesfore st manifested indlecence towards those it seemed to dominate, it would soon, by the logic o| terdependence, feel the repercussions of the poverty and ae of others. This would end in the destruction of its own wealth and power, sustained as they were by interdependence alone. q Real and universal peace needs guardians. The reinstitutionaliza tion, or rather the substantialization, of some of the post-Second~ ‘World-War-ficade transnational institations, is one of the first and mos aus sks facing he liber mind in the NMWW er, Fo, ain the maiowsta whet Hiern, shough consiaionlisn, limit the power of the guardian-state, so the modem ee Seg ee calpain tees al the new sansnational guardians of peace rotecting power ~ this time of the transnational guardia cNAigBE eae ree ee automatic, power-accumulating national and probably suprana- tional bureaucracies. The second duty facing liberalism, namely to ensure the ae of the societal human being, is deliberately rendered ambiguous by the different meaning which can be given to the word ‘societal Here the term was chosen 10 indicate that it is no longer the individual alone, untouched by any contacts o associations with other individuals, familie: or groups, who is being considered in this context. What is under consideration here is the contemporary individual threatened not only by the power of the ‘sovereign state’, which keeps individuals and the whole civil society under its authority, or by modern transnational decision-making inscons, though, thanks to interdependence, their power is essentially diffuse and decentralized. The contemporary societal individual, or he wap =who has tried to find his balance between positive and ne; freedom, is threatened not only, some would even say not by the central authority (state, or super-state), but by contempo -sodety itself which has become uncontrollable and ex-centric. It is at this significant point that modern liberalism should asked how much responsibility it should itself bear for the apps origin and proliferation of the now terribly distorted, deformed perverted ideas of ‘liberty’ on which post-1968 society thrives. many respects we live now in a caricature of the liberal society as visualized by its founders. The information revolution has fostered a vertiginous speed and a colossal multitude of developments. We are aware that in economic life, the market knows neither justice nor pity. But it was not possible before the coming of instant communications for anonymous and mysterious ‘speculators’ to shift public and private fortunes — causing even the seemingly strongest liberal states to be faced overnight with humiliating bankruptcies. We know that capitalism also has an ‘ugly face’. But we do not know the faces or the names of the mafiosi-speculators who alone seem to be profiting from adventures that risk destroying all traditions of honour and public consideration. Politically, it has long been known that a degree of corruption, serves a8 a traditional and gentle lubricator of administration. But in the past, we did not read in the same newspaper, all in one day, that high state officials and leaders of political parties in Japan, Italy, the: United States, Germany, Israel, Brazil and Spain were being indicted for fraud. Nor did we ever conceive that a great British’ publisher and millionaire, Robert Maxwell, buried with official pomp by the Shamir government of Israel on the Mount of Olives, ‘was apparently little more than an ordinary crook on a very large: scale. Momlly, the post-1968 liberal society has dissolved families and marriages, has exchanged love for sex, has set women against men (politically correct?) and children against parents, even single pparents, and has experienced for the first time in history the gener- alized habit of drugs and the generalized danger of AIDS. This of course is not the overall image of the present liberal society; but it is a list of some of the differences between the present and past liberal societies. In section 4, I insisted on the inseparability of liberalism from some moral inspiration. Here, now, it is time to conclude by asking ae Variations on a Theme by J.C. Merquior A llectual and political leaders to look once more very a ie vey errs committed in the last three decades in the name of liberalism. r sigcles d’égalité, chaque homme J ft oe commen, es ee montercnmentats s femes siglo, tourne tous ses sentiments enversIuiseule Lininiuaine est une expenion cents qane its nouvelle a aa OA un amour pasion et exagere de wirméme, gui pore homme i ne rien rapporter qu’a lui seul et se préférer 3 tour. Ciindividualisme est un sentiment réfiéchi et paisible qui dispose chaque ctoyen 3 sisoler de la muse de semblables of 3 rics V6 a ses amis; de tclle sorte que, aprés #@tre ainsi c aoe are SE i son ange il abundone volte a gande 0688 3 clle-méme, fea Cee ait d'un instinct aveugle; Vindividualisme proctde d'un jjugement erroné plurée que d'un sentiment dépravé, Il prend sa source dans les défauts de esprit autant que dans les vices du coeur. Tiégoisme desséche le germe de toutes les vertus, Vindividualisme ne turit d'abord que la source des vertus publiques; mais i la longue, il attaque et déeruit toutes les autres et va enfin s absorber dans légoisine._ égoisme est un vice aussi ancien que le monde. Il n'appartient guére plus a une forme de société qu'd une autre Lindividualisme est d'origine démocratique et il menace de se développer 4 mesure que les conditions s égalisent.? » A. de Tocqueville, De 1 dimooate en Ambigue. Ocuvres Complies, vol 1 (Pate: Gallimard, 1961), eh Mp. 108,souay,,, ueombiay YO Uf IVvdGe Liberalism and Trust JOHN A. HALL ‘The most serious charge consistently levelled at liberalism is that it hhas no proper means to ensure social cohesion. The logic behind the accusation is obvious: selfish individuals concemed only to maximize their private interests will not cooperate or trust each other, and will accordingly not join together to protect the commonweal when it is endangered, The lights of Victorian liber- alism were most certainly worried as to the viability of liberalism, insisting in consequence on the need to create noble and altruistic motives to provide social cement for the whole." If the intention of those thinkers was to save liberalism, many notable contemporary political theorists, writing in a century which has seen catastrophic breakdowns of liberal regimes, suggest nothing less than the neces- sity of abandoning a fuiled liberal individualism so as to replace it with renewed emphasis on the community? ‘The thesis of this chapter is that the accusation made against liberalism is very largely false. Most obviously, there is much to be said against the communitarian position: when it is not murky, it clearly has the potential of very great illiberalism of its own. More important than this difference about the nature of the good society On this point see S. Colini, Public Mondias: otal Thought and Ineleaual Life ie iuain 1850-1930 (Oxford: Catendon, Pres, 199), expel ch 7°A representtve fgute here i Charles Taylor, whose views are pardcubly clay stad in Cro Pupotst: The Libs Cammunisnian Debate’, ia Ni Roser, 24, Ute andthe Maal Lif (Cambie MA: Harvard University Pres, 1989). S'S. "Holmes, ‘The Permanent Stuctare of Antieral Thought’ in’ Rovenblum., eon dh Ma Hal, Ubi nn: Pala, PS, apes ch 3 = 101 -John A. Halt is basic disagreement about the sociological claim that liberal societies tend to collapse. The collapse of setiled liberal democracies < as compared to the breakdown of recently created liberal regimes, fom Weimar Germany to contemporary Peru — is, mercifully, historically very unusual. The fundamental stability of liberal regimes should be very much at the forefiont of our minds, given, the success of liberalism in comparison with state socialisn.* Points such as these could each be debated at length. But I prefer to make my case by analysing a key theme in a single thinker in the belief that the particular will on this occasion yield striking but unpleasant generalizations Alexis de Tocqueville seems to me the greatest theorist of trust. This claim can be specified: it should not be misunderstood. ‘I have only one passion’, Tocqueville declared in 1837 in a letter to Henry Reeve, ‘the love of liberty and human dignity, All forms of govern ment are in my eyes only more or less perfect ways of satisfying this holy and legitimate passion of man."® Differently put, no radical claim is being made here to the effect that Tocqueville is a sociolo~ gist of trust rather than of liberty; the claim is simply that what ‘Tocqueville did have to say about trust in political life is exceedingly high-powered, and of particular interest in a period in which many attempts to create ot to restore cooperative relations are being made, It is not of course surprising that his ideas about trust are so impres- sive once we understand that there are several affinities between. trust and liberty. Tocqueville has much to tell us about psychological and institutional links between trust and liberty, and pleasure can be derived from reconstructing his views. Tocqueville's views of a word without trust are specially striking. A particular thesis maintained here is that Tocqueville changed his mind about the circumstances that caused the loss of wrust. The Position at which he amrived is one in which kings rather than people are blamed for the Joss of trust in society. In my view, Tocqueville’s final position is not just more powerful but actually correct * This stress on the sociological viability of liberal regimes nced not and shoul not «nail complacency; diferenty pat, there romaiss inuch to be said fora shared commis rent co iberal secs. ? Good wie of Tocqueville s made by G. Hawthons, “Thrce Ini in Trust, in D. Games, ed, Trt: Making and Breaking Coppentive Relaten; (Oxford: Blackwell 1088) ‘This is an excelent volume, marred slightly by + ek ofateacion to Tocquevile SA. de Tocqueville, Sdtel Lets on Palio. and Sacty, ed. K. Boctche, tas. J. ‘Toupin and R. Boesche (Berkeley: University of Caifoia Pres, 1988), p. 118 ~ 102 - Liberalism and Trust Without farther ado, let me tum to Tocqueville's view of a world without trust. It is important to appreciate that Tocqueville regarded the possibility of a democratic tyrenny of the majority with visceral dread and fear.’ Much more was involved here than such facets of the democratic era as the distaste for great men and noble literary themes. Tocqueville had been deeply infiuenced by Pascal and Rousseau, and accordingly belicved that men could be subject to base and depraved passions quite 2s much as to ones more noble. In particular, he believed that human beings had within them a devil which once released could make social and political life sheer hell. The passion in question, envy, is not always properly understood. In particular, it is crucial to understand the difference between jealousy and envy. Jealousy leads an individual aware that someone else has something, including the affections of another person, to imitate and copy: it is a positive and vitalizing emotion — with links to crust ~ that encourages the individual to reach higher in order to achieve. Envy is exactly the opposite.® Its central core received inimitable treatment in Shakespeare's Othello: when Lago realizes that there is a beauty in Othello’s life that makes his ugly, his response is not to emulate the Moor but to destroy him, Envy is the evil eye which seeks not to imitate but to pull down: the destruction of a quality or a person removes the offence. Ie is this passion that Tocqueville feared would be released by modem circumstances. At best, the release of envy would remove all distinction, At worst, Tocqueville felt that there was a natural fit between despotism and social equality: rather than allow difference and divergence, the many would prefer to suffer in common, to be equal under a single ruler. The initial presupposition of Tocqueville's thought is that the advent of democracy was responsible for releasing this passion. To hold such a view was entirely characteristic, as Roger Boesche has recently demonstrated, of a whole generation of French intellectuals.” Generalized dislike was showa (0 the individualism encouraged by bourgeois society, together with premonitions as to 7A. de Tocqueville, Demorary in Americ, tans. C, Lawrence (New York: Anchor Books, 1969), p. 12 3H. Shoece, Emy: A Theory of Sxil Rehan trans. M. Glenay and B. Ross (New ‘York: Harcourt, Brace and Werll, 1969) 7 R. Boeiche, The Stange Liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville (Ithaca: Cornell University Pres, 1987), part ene = 103 ~John A. Balt the political consequences of the isolation that its social form encouraged. Tocqueville insisted that individualism was a modern concept, ‘unknown to our ancestors, for the good reason that in their days every individual necessarily belonged to a group and no one could regard himself as an isolated unit.!° Such individualism began by encouraging a retreat into private life, only then to create an egoism opposed to all public spirit.!! This was naturally anathema to Tocqueville, given his allegiance to that republican tradition of political theory which insisted that the health of the polity depends ‘upon public-spirited ‘civic virtue’.! Admiration for Montesquieu, the most recent exemplar of republican theory and major influence on Tocqueville, stands behind most of these attitudes. Tocqueville certainly took for granted Montesquiew’s view that liberty naturally characterized aristocratic circumstances: liberty was guaranteed by the presence of competing groups, each one of which generated powerful tics of mutual loyalty and support, Perhaps a shared aristo= cratic background explains their insistence thet sel restraint and self mastery were necessary were liberty to be sustained. But if Tocqueville shared much with his generation, he also chose to differ ftom it. In private life, he opposed the dictates of his family’ and married a middle class English woman." In political affairs, he chose to serve the bourgeois republic of Louis Philippe ~ against the wishes not just of his father, but also of his class. This decision to adapt to the new order explains his interest in the United States: by examining the most advanced of all democracies, Tocqueville felt he would be able to say something about France's likely fuure. It is important at this point to be more precise than was Tocqueville himself about his exact Problematik, Confusion has been caused by the different connotations attached to the concept of democracy. Tocqueville takes democracy to be a new era of equal 1 A. de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Fronds Revlon, wans §. Gillere (New ‘York: Anchor, 1955), p96 "A. de Tocqueville, Denocacy in America, pp. 539-41. C.J. C. Lamberti, Tocqueville es deus demoeaties Pats: Preis Universitas de France, 1970). ® On this edition, see J. G. A. Pocock, The Mictiavlian Moment (Princeton: Princeton Universvy Press, 1975). For an appreciation of Tocqueville's allegiance to his ‘sadtion in Comparison to thinkers who endorsed bourgeois sociery without majoc qual fication, see A. O. Hirschman, The Pasions and the Intoeds (Princeton: Princeton Univenity Pres, 1977), For details, see A. Jardin’ excellent Tecquavile (New York: Farrar, Staus & Giroux, 1988). = 104 = Liberaliens and Trust social conditions. As his ultimate value is liberty, the central theme ‘of his thought can in fact be simply stated. What will be the politics ‘of the era of equality of conditions? Will this new age be character ized by arbitrary rule or by the presence of political liberty? And ‘would it be possible, when people are so similar, to prevent a more thoroughgoing despotism than ever before? The first volume of Demooacy in America produced a favourable report on the United States. But it is vital to note that Tocqueville ‘was surprised to discover that political liberty and equal social condi- tions could coexist. He confided to his travel journal his contempt for the middle classes, noting almost reluctantly that ‘in spite of their petty passions, their incomplete education and their vulgar manners, they clearly can provide practical intelligence’.!* Let us examine in tum the three factors ~ accidental, legal and cultural - by means of which the United States reached its happy condition. ‘The most important accident allowing the United States to be at once equal and free is provided by geography: ‘The Americans have no neighbours and consequently no great wa's, financial erises, invasions, ot conquests to fear: they need neither heavy taxes nor a numerous army nor great generals; they have also hardly anything to fear from something else which is 2 greater scourge for democratic republics than all these others put together, namely, military glory."* This point can be put in slightly different terms: the creation of a powerfil state apparatus makes it hard to maintain liberty. The United States was saved from this fate by geographical isolation from the major centres of interstate conflict. But other accidental factors are also considered to have played a part. Most importantly, abundance of land allowed for the egalitarian spirit of the early settlers to be maintained: no hierarchy could be easily created given that a labourer could always move on towards the frontier. In these Gircumstances, acquisitiveness did noc breed corruption: to the contrary, the ability to extract plenty from the land depended upon knowledge and independence, and this joined together with the benefits of prosperity to maintain the republic. 1 A, de Tocqueville, Jouney to America, ed. J. P. Mayer, ani. G. Lawrence, revised ein in collaboration with A. P. Ker (New York: Doubleday, 1971), p. 259, cited by Boesche, The Stcage Litelisn of Alexis de Tooele p. 89 18 A, de Tocqueville, Donoaaey in America, p. 278 = 105 -John A. Hall Liberty was maintained, secondly, by means of the laws, Tocqueville has much of interest to say about the judicial system, particularly about its capacity to restrain sudden outbursts of feeling, But of greater import here are his comments about participation, Tocqueville stresses that the American constitution managed to combine the benefits of a great power at one and the same time as it allows the involvement characteristic of smaller societies. The United States, in another of Tocquewille’s formulations, possesses executive centralization with administrative decentralization. One benefit of this is that the United States is not dominated by a great capital, But of absolutely central importance is the fact that a decentralized system allows the people to engage in polities, Tocqueville was impressed by the political participation he observed in New England, and he suggested that it served as @ bulwark against the tyranny of the majority." When people are actively engaged in political life, they begin to appreciate the benefits of hearing differences of opinion; equally, they gain both a taste for freedom and the necessary skills to be free. Liberty depends upon the citizen-training that can come only from taking charge of one’s destiny. Cooperation between classes and individuals is relatively easy to achieve within such a world, and this amounts to Tocqueville's genealogy of trust. His general position is made particularly clear in a passage disputing the claim that the state needs to become more skilful and active in proportion as the citizens become weaker and more helpless: Feelings and ideas are renewed, the heart enlarged, and the under- standing developed only by the reciprocal action of men one upon another.” For Tocqueville, a state can only truly be powerful if it is in a relationship of trast with its citizens ~ an idea that, as we will see, became central to his later work The third type of general cause concerns what Tocqueville felici- tously called ‘the habits of the heart’. Here Tocqueville's argument goes very much against current preconceptions in insisting that itis “6 Tooquevill’s admiration for New England cown meetings was, in a. sere, overdone, G. W. Pierson. Tocqueville ani Beaunout in Ameria (New York: Oxford University Press, 1938) makes it clair that by the 18305 ~ in the mids: of the Jekson presidency! ~ New England was no longer a guide to the complete political rah of the United Sts. 7A. de Tocqueville, Danooacy in Ameria, p. 515. — 106 - Liberalism and Tras .ct for religion that underlies liberty in the United States. One par of is ee is particulary clear and strikingly sociologically perceptive. Tocqueville suggests that freeing the Church from state Penurol will encourage the spread of religious faith: differently put, secularization is usually at least half a political movement, that is, it E Sceasioned by the need to assault the strengthening of the politi- ‘ally powerful by religious legitimation. Altogether harder to understand, however, is the core of Tocqueville's argument, amely, that religion is necesary for liberty because it places some jimits on human behaviour. It is worth quoting Tocqueville at some length on this point, After noting that the general respect for religion supports family life, he notes: ‘The imagination of the Americans, therefore, even in its greatest Gberrations, is crcunispect and hesitant; i is embarrased from the ‘Scart and leaves its work unfinished. These habits of restraint are found again in political society and singularly favour the tranquillity of the people as well as the durability of the institutions they have Sdopeed. Nature and circumstances have made the inhabitant of the nied States a bold’ man, i suficienly aneued by he enter th which he secks his fortune. If the spirit of the Wrag SP Gee of al impediment, one would soon find ‘among them the boldest innovators and the most implacable Jogicians in the world, But American revolutionaries are obliged ostensibly to profess a certain respect for Chrisian morality and equity, and that does not allow them easily to break the laws when those are opposed to the executions of their designs; nor would they find it easy to surmount the scruples of their partisans even if they were able to get over their own. Up till now no one in the United States has dared to profess the maxim that everything is allowed in the interests of society, an impious maxim apparently invented in an age of freedom in order to legitimatise every futare tyrant." This passage offers, in my opinion, a very powerful insight into ‘American political culture, but it needs, nonetheless, some highlighting. Tocqueville's ceuvre as a whole suggests that what is at issue here is not in fact very complex. When we recall that the devil in modern political behaviour is envy, it becomes apparent that the key selflimitation imposed by religion results from it regarding that passion as sinful. Religious belief entails respect for © Thid, p. 292John A. Halt the gifts shown to humanity. What do differences between os the mach lager fit of equality in the sight of Goda requeville's contemporaries a well as ¢ found the second volume of Democracy in ines cecfal ta the first, despite its obvious felicties. What is noticeable here is Tocqueville can be seen as beginning to doubt his basic argument, that it is equal social conditions which create envy and there encourage despotism. His chapter ‘Why Democratic Nations Shi a More Ardent and Enduring Love for Equality than for Lil begins by being true to its title. But towards the end of the chapter, the target of the discussion subtly changes: Democratic peoples always like equality, but there are times when theis pasion for ie tums to delirium, This happens when the old social hierarchy, long menaced, finally col ai eels ly collapses after a severe The foregoing applies to all democratic nations, what follows only to the French. Among most modern nations, specially those of Europe, the taste for ficedom and the conception of t only began to take shape and grow at the time when social conditions were tending towards equality, and it was a consequence of that very equality. It-was the absolute monarchs who worked hardest to level down ranks among. their subjects. For the people's equality had come before liberty, 0 equality was an established fact when feeedom was still « novelty; the one ba seady shaped customs, opinions and laws to is ws when the other was first stepping lonely forward into broad daylight. Thus the latter was still orly a matter of opinion and Preftene, whereas the former had already insinuated tel into Popular habits, shaped mores, and given a particular owis slightest actions of life.” Mii eae Ie is this line of argument that is fully developed in The Old Regime and the French Revolution, to which we can turn after making one important prefatory point. In the most general terms, what is noticeable about the United States is that it was a cultural offhoot of England. It was created swith equal social conditions and political liberty: it was born free. This renders Tocqueville’s analysis essentially static: it is an exami- nation of social and political institutions that counterbalance the " Ibid, pp. 505-6. ~ 108 - Liberalism and Trust tendency, inherent ia a society of equal social conditions, towards the ae ‘of the majority. The ealy cheerful report that ‘Tocqueville issues on the United States is accordingly of limited use when it comes to understanding Europe. For European society did have the ‘old social hierarchy’ of feudalism, and the nature of the transition that the various national states makes towards the world ‘of equal social conditions accordingly becomes absolutely vital. If Tocqueville's central problem — how can liberty and equal social conditions be combined? — remains the same, a key part of the agenda now becomes the historical development of both these forces. So let us turn from the striking book that he wrote when young to ‘his masterpiece, The Old Regime and the French Revolution. ‘We know thar Tocqueville had originally set to work in the 1850s to produce an analysis of the failure of France to embrace political liberty in the years after 1848 — a failure which drove him to the depths of despair.2° That remained his question: the central subject of the book is the propensity of France to embrace despo- tism. But in seeking to understand why this was the case, Tocqueville was driven backwards in time; he found the explana tion less im modern social circumstances than in the nature of the old regime, Outlining his account must be our initial task. But Tocqueville's argument gains very considerable force because he has ~ half implicitly, half explicitly — two control groups. He devotes an appendix to Languedoc, an area of France which resisted most of the centralizing encroachments of the absolutist regime, and had, in consequence, a very different social physiognomy, Far more impor tant are the comments made about England, a society with a feudal past which nonetheless possesses liberty in the area of equal social conditions. Tocqueville is one of the greatest of France's anglophiles, and the English comparison serves as a foil for French developments at every step of his argument Tocqueville was a far more systematic thinker than is often realized, Whea dealing with France and England, he asked about the same types of social cause that had structured his account of the United States, namely, accidents, laws, and mores or habits of the heart. We can follow him in using these categories, though clarity of presentation will be enhanced in taking them in an order 2 R. Hem, Taguerile and the Ol Regine (Princeton: Princeton University Pres, 1962) = 109 -John A. Healt different from that used when dealing with the United States. Ler ss begin with the laws cee i ‘ocqueville tells us that what surprised him most im for his book was the discovery Wat sdmimatatee cen kemae was the work of the old regime rather than of the revolution, Several aspects of this centralization are traced. The absolutist regime placed its own servants, the intendants, in every area of France so as to rule and tax through them. Even where old systems of authority were left, they were effectively undermined: court cases which presented difficulties for the regime were ‘called’ to _ Paris. Furthermore, the autonomy of the towns was destroyed by Richelieu and that of the aristocracy by Louis XIV — who buile Versailles so as to neuter his aristocracy by removing them from their power bases and by placing them under his supervision. The consequences of all these changes were profound. Most obviously, the administration learnt to distrust the people: 4 ‘Any independent group. however small, which seemed desicous of taking action otherwise than under the aegs of the administration filed it with alarm, and the tiniest fice asociation of citizens, hhowever harmless its aims, was regarded as 4 nuisance. The only corporate bodics tolerated were those whose members had been hand-picked by the administration and which were under its control. Even big industrial concems were frowned upon. In a word, our administration resented the idea of private citizens having any sayin the control of their own enterprises, and preferred seeilty to compection.*! an fener ‘the adminisadon realized that is power was ive, resting as it did on preventing linkages mobilize the people, And the people, bereft of the chances of Participation, looked for social improvements ever more to the sate which they came ‘6 regard almost as a deity in its own night. lese circumstances, Parisi: its be, effect on French politics as Sauue aun sas earls Administrative centralization was but one side of the picture of laws and institutions. The most brilliant pages in all of Tocqueville ate contained in chapters cight to ten of the second part of the book. ‘The first of these three chapters explains ‘How France had % A de Tocquevile, The Old Regie ent the Frevch Revolution, p. 6 — 110 - Liberslisns and Trust become the county in which men were most like each other’. ‘What was involved here, in Tocqueville’s view and in that of later historians whase work supports this point, was the convergence of income levels and styles of life of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisic.? The second stage of the argument is a nice example ‘of Tocqueville’s love of paradox: chapter nine considers ‘How, though in many respects so similar, the French were split up more than ever before into small, isolated, sclf-regarding groups’. This section begins with an analysis of local politics before the advent of absolutism. Records showed that classes had once been able to trust each other, and to cooperate with each other in defending regional interests. This spirit of class cooperation was shattered most of all by the granting of tax and legal immunities to the French aristocracy: this destroyed all community of interest, and naturally made it sense- Jess to serve as leaders against the encroachments of the state. This basic separation of the classes was exacerbated by the state's raising of extra revenues by the granting of more special privileges. This was so excessive that it not only set bourgeois against aristocrat, but some sections within the bourgeoisie agsinst many of their colleagues. The final stage in the argument, chapter ten, bluntly considers ‘the suppression of political freedom and the barriers set up between classes’, It is here that Tocqueville finds an explanation for France’s inability to combine equal social conditions with political liberty. The excreise of political liberty depends, as noted, upon trust between different social clastes, whilst it in turn breeds responsi- bility; differently put, participation is the only effective means of training citizens suited to liberty. The trouble with the paitem of the French past, in contrast, is that envy has been so encouraged by rulers as to make people prefer equality under a despot to differenti- ation under liberty. The whole burden of Tocqueville's argument is thus to offer a political explanation for the rise of envy and destruc tion of trust. His own summary on this point is brutal: ‘Almost all the vices, miscalculation and disastrous prejadices that T hhave been describing owed their origin, their continuance, and theit proliferation to a line of conduct practised by so many of our Kings, that of dividing men so as the better to rule them. 2 p. Higonnet, Class, Melo and te Rigts of Nobles daring he Frenh Revolution (New York: Oxtard University Press, 1981). 2 Ade Tocquoville, The Olé Retine andthe Frende Revlon, p. 136, ~ 111 -Jolin A, Hall _ Tocqueville has changed his mind about the loss of trust. Lil is csecugieltn oe eae Gems Passions released by the age of social conditions and much mi age of social eonctions and mach more by the strategy of the Let us complete Tocqueville’s argument. The ans “habit of the hear” of French people s well nown, both fe hel 2 staple of nineteenth century French social thought and because it. fave rise to a striking thesis by Daniel Mornet on the intellectual origins of the French Revolution2+ Three critical and mutual reinforcing points are made by Tocqueville about the political culture of eighteenth century France. First, the divide-and-rule strategy of the absolutist state meant that the intellectuals, quite as much as other Social actors, lost touch with political reality. They criticized society remonselessly, heedless of social costs, and produced plans which looked perfect on the drawing board but were to prove extremely dangerous in practice. Particularly important in this regard, secondly, was their assault on religion. Tocqueville explains this assault in terms familiar from his earher book: it was the alliance of Church and state that Jed to anciclericalism. That attack was, he stresses, exceedingly: dangerous because it removed all limits from politics: when every thing is posible, in Tocqucvill’s eyes, despotism becomes likely Thirdly, Tocqueville notes that a particular group of intellectuals, the economists, much preferred order to liberty. The Physiocra to muke the sate rational unaware, in Tocqueviles oye that ee ‘was really necessary was a diminution of the presence of the state ‘The central comment made about accidental causes is a neat counterpoint to the isolation of the United States. The fandamental ‘origin of the absolutist state in France lies in an institutional change introduced at the blackest moment of the Hundred Years War with England: It was on the day when the French people, we 1 chaos i Ci Ate Bie ih et eae of King John and the madness of Chatles VI, permitted the King © impose a tax without their consent and the nobles showed so little Public spirit as to connive at this, provided their own immunity was Snantced it was on that Gf day tha the seed were son of el uses which led to the violent downfall of 2D. Momet, Les ogines inlets de ls Revuion 7 Sei Serars Revolution francais, 1715-1787 (Pasi - 112 - Liberaliem and Trost The basis of class cooperation had been respect for the two maxims of canon law that governed representative estates, namely, ‘no taxation without representation’ and ‘what touches all must be agreed by all Once these maxims were undermined, the state ‘could divide society and perch despotically on top of those divisions. Before contrasting this portrait with those of Languedoc and England, the nature of the case that Tocqueville has made can usefilly be highlighted. We are really being told that history — and not, as Freud had it, biology — is destiny. France lost its freedom under the old regime, and it is accordingly basically incapable of having liberty in the new age of social conditions. It is not, in other words, the actual process of transition to equal conditions that matters: rather, patterns of political organization and culture persist across social transformations ~ a general ethic that also applies, as we shall see ina moment, to England. This is 2 highly deterministic conclusion, and itis depressing. Languedoc had been able to resist the centralizing tendencies of the monarchy, and Tocqueville makes much of the decision of notables of Languedoc to collect taxes locally ~ and this despite the fact that their total tax burden was heavier Running one’s own affairs allowed trust in society to continue; much is made of cooperation between classes. It is at this point that Tocqueville most clearly spells out an important theoretical point about the nature of state power. What he notes about Languedoc is that it ‘was better governed than the rest of France. A lessening of despo- tism/retention of local liberties increased total taxation since the aristocracy contributed to a government that it could control; in consequence of this and of the greater knowledge created by trust in contrast to the power stand-off characteristic of social atomism, the level of social infrastructure and general prosperity was stnk- ingly high. Constitutionalism breeds trust, and trust empowers. ‘And this is true more generally of England as compared to France: for Tocqueville, what matters about England is that its state is far more powerful than that of France, despite ~ or, rather, because of = its lack of absolutist powers?” % A. de Tocqueville, The Old Regime an fe French Revolution, pp, 98-9. 2% A, R. Myers, Parliaments and Estate in Euope #2 1789 (London: Thames ard Hudson, 1975) 37). Hall, Power and Liberes (Berkeley: University of Calforia Press, 1986), ci 5. LJ Brewer, Te Sinews of War (New Yore: Knopf, 1988). - 113 -Johns A. Hall England provides a neat counterpoint to France at each the ical juncture on which Tocqueville’s thought concentrates; and equally forms a coherent and comprehensible whole, Tocquevi himself writes most extensively about the laws and institutions England. What impresses him most is the resilience of the aristoe- tacy. That resilience is explained by continuing function. The lack of centralized state administration means that the aristocrats provide local government. As in Languedoc, the aristocracy is not exempt from taxation, with the English state accordingly being strength- ened by large revenues; what matters most in this for Tocqueville that the aristocrats can at times join with other members of the. community in resisting any extension of arbitrary state power. Both _ a consequence and a cause of this happy situation is the openness of the English upper classes. In France, privileges, legal and fiscal, had tumed the aristocracy into a caste separate from the rest of society. In England, the absence of such privileges encouraged intermar. Tiage, and allowed the aristocracy to be opinion leaders for the whole of society. The success of that leadership was scen, for Tocqueville, in the way in which the idea of the gentleman became popular throughout socicty. Tocqueville's comments about English geopolitics and the habits of the heart are less developed, though the contrast with France at each point is exceedingly neat. Geopolitically, Enghnd has the advantage of being an island, far less fearful of invasion and accord- ingly with citizens les likely to hand over their liberties because of the pains of war. Furthermore, Tocqueville s encouraging us to say simply that the presence of naval forces, rather than of a standing amy, encourages liberty.?* In more general matters of political culture, Tocqueville notes that English intellectuals are far less Prone to create wild schemes because they have practical experi= ence of political life. This is certainly an accurate description of the world of Hume and Smith, creators of the very grand theories of empiricism and capitalism, both of which are marked by and seek to encourage prudence, calculation and moderation, [t is not of course true to say that these figures were themselves advocates of religion. Nonetheless, both Hume and Smith sought to discourage enthusiasm of any sort ~ Hume by showing a decent respect for the 2 CE B, Moore, Sicial Onbins of Diaatonkip and Demsoucy (Boson: Beacon Press, 1966). = 114 = Liberalism and Trust jead certainties of established religion, Smith by encouraging an ieeuete religious sects, able to balance and to, check cach other. For the sake of completeness, it is well worth aie = ne of the later members of the liberal and Anglophile school ot thought to which Tocqueville belongs can sensibly be see ‘completing his thought at this point. The first volume of Elie Halewy’s celebrated history of Engand in the nineteenth century offered an explanation for the relative moderation of the working class in Englind as compared to France during the course of the nineteenth century? Those attacking the upper orders in France became by necessity anticlerical, wit al the increase in radicalism = in this case towards Marais ~ that superimposition aes normally imposes.*! Such a course of action was not in ne ‘The paral dsestablshment of the Church meant that the ‘working class did not need to attack religion per se: to the contrary, it could invent its own. The moderation and organization of the British working class in the nineteenth century is to be ascribed in large part to its being Methodist rather than Marxist. ‘Let me summarize and conclude. The principal argument has been that Tocqueville came ever more powerfully to blame kings rather than people for the loss of trust with society. This is a matter of great import. Tocqueville has sometimes been utilized by conser vatives who wish to argue that the ‘socialistic envy’ of the people is both vile and a danger to settled contemporary capitalism. There is everything wrong with such a view. HE Gbviously, st & not correct “Tocqueville's concem with state-centred explanation can helpfully be seen, to begin with, as Iving a the back of an important recent breakthrough io under standing the rise of socialism. There is now something of a genera agreement among political sociologists to the effect that socialist militancy was not created by the capitalist mode of production but rather by ruling class strategies.™® Differently put, the character of a yf nd Univeriy Press, 1950); © D, Hume, The Naural Hiver of Relgon Sanford: Stanford Universiey [A Smith, The Weath of Nations (Oxford: Oxford Univesity Pres, 1976), Book V OE, Haevy, A History ofthe Engl People in the Nowaeonhs Century. Volume One: England in 1815, trans. E. L Watkin (London: Emest Benn, 1934), and The Birt of ‘Mehedir ns England, ans. B. Semel (Chicigo: University of Chicago Pres, 1871), 8. The imporance of superimposition suesed by R. Dahendorf, Class and Clas Confics in ndwarialSscety (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959) 7 There is now a lage Herature on thi point. Sec, iner ala, D. Geary, Ewopean Latotr Pest 1848-1945 (London: Methuen, 1984); R. McKibbin, The lolbges of Class = 115 -John A, Fall social movement often results from the way in which it is treated by the state with which it interacts. In a sense this is obvious: levels of militancy within capitalism vary by nation. Before 1914, American workers famously had no interest in socialism, British workers were labourist rather than socialist, German workers were theoretically Marxist but actually reformist, whilst Russian workers were genuinely socially revolutionary. The character of the scale best explained in political terms: whereas liberal states allow workers to become reformists and to seek gains at the industrial Tevel, states that exclude workers thereby politicize them, Established liberal democracies within capitalist society diffuse social conflict, whilst authoritarian and autocratic ones concentrate and enhance it; differently put, capital and labour in and of themselves can quite casily cocxist. A further related point should be made, The whole spirit of Tocqueville's work is one which stresses the Possibility of working cooperatively, that is, of cranscending ‘material “interests reductively defined. Contemporary historical sociology underlines the importance of this point when demon- strating that European social democracy has depended on cross-class alliances, most obviously those between peasants and workers in ‘Scandinavia. Further points can be made against the conservative use of Tocqueville by considering a recent work by Robert Bellah and his colleagues. Habits of the Heart should not be allowed to get away with its attempted appropriation of Tocqueville for its argument that American society should be reformed through reinforcing community sentiment at the expense of individualism.>* Most immediately, Tocqueville was a pessimist, reluctant to concede that reform was ever likely to succeed. His analyses of the difficulties involved in liberalization arc, of course, subtle and quite well (Oxford: Osford University Pres, 1990); M. Mann, “Ruling Clas Serstegies and Ciszcmbip’ Sadlegy 21 (1987); I. Katenelon and A. Zelherg, ei, Working: Clas Fomatin (Princeton: Princeton Univericy Pret, 1987), and T. McDaniel, Catlin, Auton and Revelation (eikeley: University of California Pres, 1988) 2) G. Esping-Anderson, Potts against Markes (Princeton: Princeton University Pres, 1985) % R. Bellh, R. Madsen, W, Sullivan, A. Swidler and 8, Tipton, Habit of the Heat (Gerkeley: Univeriy of California Pret, 1985). Serking negative comments were made by A. Greeley in his review in Saclay an Sade Reeidh 70 (1985), as wan noticed by 8 tenon, ‘Einstein, Renoir and Greeley: Evidence in Sociology", Aman Sacolol Review 57 (1992), — 116 - Liberalism and Tras known. His crucial point is that the envy encouraged by the old regime made cooperation impossible once the regime fe 1 fellow citizens who had lived Eee eae ek Wiese wy ober ad teaching them t conperte in their own aff It bad been fr Sey ah ire ald ease Ga IVR Via years ago the various classes which under the old order had been isolated units in the social system came once again in touch, it was oon their sore spots that they made contact and their first gesture was to fly at cach other's throats. Indeed, even today, though class distinctions are no more, the jealousies and antipathies they caused have not died out? Differently put, once trust has gone ~ as anyone who has experi- enced divorce will surcly know ~ it can never be restored. In this context, it is worth noting that Tocqueville's passionate love of liberty did not prevent him reaching conclusions which to him ‘were quite repulsive: The segregation of classes, which was the exime of the late monarchy, became at + late stage a justification for it, since when the wealthy and enlightened clases were no longer able to act in. conceit and to take part in the govemment, the country became, to all intents and purposes, incapable of administering itself and it was needful that a master should step in.>* In this there is a certain grandeur. Tocqueville has sufficient stature as a thinker to be able not to write his hopes into history: to the contrary, his hopes pointed one way whilst his analysis of social and political processes often indicated another. If one hopes that his pessimism may be refuted by contemporary transitions from authoritarianism, his work does at least allow one to be armed against likely dangers. Ppa Ge esi aprchacd tate bea hep a Map CE Tocqueville would certainly not see it by means of restriction and control. Most immediately, let us remember that Tocqueville liked a eee order, respectability and uniformity. At a deeper level, his injunc- an oe Gace: people: the only guarantee of liberty 2 A. de Tocqueville, The Old Regime ard te Fiench Revolution, p. 107 6 Tbid, - 417 =Jol A, Halt consists in the hearts of those who know the value of libs that can only be created as the result of living in freedom? The ‘injunction has been strikingly applied to the contemporary stuatio of Eastem Europe by Barbara Misztal, a true ‘Tocquevillian. insisting that the ‘only way to deal with a decided lack of trust is Penevere with repairing the democratic deficit.” In the long liberty will tach people trust. It is accordingly appropriste sovelude with he works of Sing, an English pop sa sho stands Tocqueville better than docs Bel ‘you laresomecon tertheaiece. hd eae 27 B, Miseul, ‘Must Essen Euro} Follow the Latin American Wy? Jounal of Sociology, in press. rs the Latin American Way”, Ewopean de - — Adam Ferguson and the Surprising Robustness of Civil Society ERNEST GELLNER Historically, Adam Ferguson's An Essay on the History of Civil Soviety' is one of the points of origin of the use of the expression ‘civil society’. However, Ferguion’s work is of far more than merely historical interest. His manner of handling the problems, which clearly haunted him, help throw light on the contemporary issues connected with this notion, novwithstanding the fact that (or perhaps all the more because) the situation he was facing was quite different from the one prevailing over two centuries later. Ferguson, like his contemporaries of the Scottish and continental Enlightenment, was an observer of the transition from aristocratic to commercial society, and of a society, though he is not aware of it, destined to become industrial. Ferguson is not an economist and disclaims, rather convincingly, expertise in this field, referring to it as ‘a subject with which I am not much conversant’, and refers the reader to a book which is soon to appear on the subject, by one Mr Smith, author of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. Ferguson’s direct observations on economics do indeed seem muddled and unsure. But when it comes to the social and political implications of economies, or economic sociology, his perceptions are profound and important, Ferguson anticipates and perhaps partly shares in a curious error of Adam Smith, who attributed the switch from feudal-aristocratic 1 Fourth dition, revised and comected (London, 1773), reprinted by Grege International Publishers (Famboroagh, 1969), = 119 -Emest Gellner independence to the fact that the nobles allowed themselves to be seduced by ‘baubles’, as Smith put it, by the temprations of conspie~ uous display through possession of prestige objects, and switched. their expenditure to the acquisition of such objects rather than the recruitment and maintenance of retainers. Smith confused cause and effect: in an effectively centralized state, a tail of retainers ceases to be of much use, whilst baubles constitute a more liquid and storable form of both wealth and display. Ferguson notes the same tendency, but places it in the context of more centralized, monarchical government: “The Sovercign himself owes great part of his authority to... the dazzling equipage which he exhibits in public. The subordinate ranks lay claim to importance by a like exhibition, and for that purpose carry in every instant . . . the ornaments of their fortune’ (p. 114). This seems to be closer to getting the causal connection right, though there is still a suspicion that display may be credited with a greater political role than it really had. What, however, really distinguishes Ferguson is that he is a bemused, perplexed and somewhat worried observer of the kind of civil society which he sees emerging around himself He under= stands fall well what distinguishes the society emerging in Europe in his time, from earlier societics, including those of classical antiq- uuity, and his account of the difference is very similar to the one which Emile Durkheim was due to offer a century liter, using the expresions Mechanical and Organic Solidarity. Like Durkheim, Ferguson focuses on the social division of labour. “By having separated the arts of the clothier and the tanner, we are the better supplied with shoes and with cloth’ (p, 384). Nothing very contentious here, and Mr Smith was due very soon to bestow great notoriety on this idea. But Ferguson immediately proceeds to the heart of the matter, the point at which the division of labour really acquires crucial implications for society. The very next sentence reads: ‘But to separate the arts which form the citizen and the statesman, the arts of policy and war, is an attempt to dismember the human character, and to destroy those very arts which we mean to improve. By this separation, we in effect deprive a free people of what is necessary for their safety; or we prepare a defence against invasion from abroad, which gives a Prospect of usurpation, and threatens the establishment of military government at home.” The thought continues to haunt him: ‘The boasted refinements, - 120 - Adam Ferguson and the Surprising Robustness of Civil Society ¢ poll divested of danger. They open a Ce et MGI ead erence os any of those they have shit, IFthey build wall and rampars, they enervate the inds of those who are placed to defend them ... they reduce the tnilitary spirit of entire nations . .. they prepare for mankind the government of force’ (p. 387). Ferpuson’s contemporary Gibbon had noted with a vouch of incredulous surprise that the barbarians had gone, or at any rate had been greatly reduced in relative numbers and strength, so that the danger which had in the end overwhelmed ancient civilization was no longer present. The nobles of Polind, Germany and France can stand up to whatever the Asian steppe can throw at them. Ferguson does not think that this particular danger menaces Europe either: fon the contrary, he notes the new disproportion of strength berween Europe and the Rest, and perceptively anticipates the consequence, namely the emergence of the colonial empires which in fact were the feuits of that very disproportion in the nineteenth cent It isn't the external danger which troubles him; it is the internal consequences of the diminished participation in coercion by a population of a ‘polished’ society whose citizens turn to production rather than martial honour, aud allow legitimate coercion to be not {ast a specialism, but a monopolistic specialism of a single insttu- tion, the state ~ e point which a later theorist was to tum into the very definition of the state. This surely must be a danger, Ferguson nervously insist. Here Ferguson unwittingly echoes the theorist of another eiviliza~ tion, Ibu Khaldun, who made this point not as a nervous anticipa- tion but as a simple matter of fact: producers who delegate security to others, to specialists, become politically and militarily emasculated and helpless. In the world which Ibn Khaldun knew this was indeed true, and for this very reason there was indeed no civil society in any real sense. Specialized, atomized producers were politically helpless victims of cohesive, unspecialized tribesmen, who manned the citadel and in effect constituted the state. In the world familiar to Ferguson, this was not true; it hadn't happened yet, and conse- quendly his wamings have more the tone of an uneasy disquiet, rather than a confident prediction of disaster ~ though he docs use that word, as we have seen. He refers to Demosthenes often, and half but only half~ assumes his posture = 121 -Emest Geliner A Demosthenes, in fact, was not called for in eighteenth century Europe. The danger was not that concem with productive and commercial activity would tum the minds of citizens away from civic virtue to such an extent that they would no longer be able to resist an external menace, or succumb to internal coercive special~ ists whom they had called in to ward off external dangers. Ferguson wasn't really in a position to understand what the real new dangers would be: the new society had not by then revealed itself suffi- ciently to make such discemment possible, But his reflections on. dangers that were no longer real nevertheless greatly illuminate the social order with which he was concerned. He also has his halfoptimistic moments, when he refuses the Suggestion that men must choose between (politically participant) virtue and (politically supine) concern with wealth. He speculates that those who ‘think of nothing but the numbers and wealth of a people’ do so ‘possibly from an opinion that the virtues of men are secure’, whereas those who ‘think of nothing but how to preserve the national virtues’ do so ‘from a dread of corruption’ (p. 244). But he repudiates the fork: ‘Human society has great obligations to both. They are opposed to one another only by mistake...” So it would seem that we might have both modern wealth and ancient virtue} or at any rate not be wholly bereft of either, and enjoy a society based both on virtue and affluence. In opposition to anyone who tried to impose an uncompromising dilemma, he does observe, quite correctly (p. 228), that ‘the characters of the warlike and the commercial are variously combined: they are formed in different degrees by the influence of circumstances . . .’ But at times, as we have seen, he is not too sure in his guarded optimism, and it is this anxiety which inspires his excellent and profound reflections, ‘The Romans are praised for their lack of specialization, in other words freedom from indulgence in the division of labour, even in the matter of martial skills: ‘the antagonists of Pyrrhus and of Hannibal were . .. still in need of instruction in the first rudiments of their trade’, But instruction they took, even if it had to be from gladiators: ‘the haughty Roman .. . knew the advantage of order and union, without having been broke to the inferior atts of the mercenary soldier; and had the courage to face the enemies of his country, without having practised the use of his weapon under the fear of being whipped’ (p. 385). But Ferguson goes on to say that = 12 - Adan Ferguson end the Surprising Robustness of Civil Society ¢ Roman ‘could ill be persuaded, that a time might come, when eer and aallgese ‘rations would make the art of war to consist jn a few technical forms; that citizens and soldicrs might come to be distinguished as much as women and men; that the citizen would become possessed of a property which he would not be able, or required, to defend . . . Ferguson clearly credits the Romans with an aversion to specialization, and a pride in amateurism, a feeling which the English also liked to indulge later, notably in contrast to humourless Prussian professionalism. Ferguson clearly feels that the Romans had a point: he who allows the specialist to take over a crucial aspect of life is giving hostages to une. ec more contemporary example he offers is that of an American chief, addressing the (British) governor of Jamaica, at the beginning ‘of hostilities with Spain. The chief is astonished not only by the smallness of the body of armed men at the disposal of the governor (who was waiting for reinforcements from Europe), but even more by the presence of civilian, merchant spectators, who were not being enlisted for the conflict. The governor explained to him that the merchants and other inhabitants took no part in the service. The chief is appalled at this idea of civilian status: ‘when 1 go to war, I leave nobody at home but the women . . .” Here Ferguson takes on a superior air and comments that this ‘simple warrior evidently could not realize that among us, the sophisticated nations, ‘war and commerce were not so very distinct, that ‘mighty armies may be put in motion from behind the counter, ... and... how often the prince, the nobles, and the statesmen, in many a polished nation, might . .. be considered as merchants’ (p. 251). The sheer fact that it is carried on by specialists, in a sense also. makes it commensurate with other activities: war is a continuation of commerce by other means, or the other way round. Ferguson does not patronize the Romans, but docs patronize the chief Yet Ferguson does not always take this air of hautain superiority: In the progress of arts and of policy, the members of every state are divided into clases; and... there is no distinction more serious than that of the warrior and the pacific inhabitant; no more is required to place men in the relation of master and sive. Even when the rigours of an established slavery abate, as they have done in modern Europe . . . this distinction serves still to separate the noble from the base Tt was certainly never foreseen by = 123 -Emese Geliner ‘mankind, that in the pursuit of refinement, they were to reverse this order; of even that they were to place the government, and the miliary force of nations, in different hands, Butis it equally unfore- seen that the former order may again take place? and that the pacific citizen ..... must one day bow to the person to whom he hus entrusted the sword? If such a revolution should actualy fallow, will this new master revive in his own order the spirit of the noble and the free? ... Lam afraid to reply. (pp. 251-2) Ferguson clearly is afraid of the prospect, and refers to the absence of Bruti and Fabii, once the praetorian bands became the. Republic in Rome. Coercion might return in practorian rather than pristine civic form: thet is his fear OF course, he refuses any simple binary choice between producers and coercers: his world is not that of Ibn Khaldun. The Fhe ae et virtues of civilization and those of cohesion is not, in his world, absolute, which is i Saute is what it was for Ibn So Ferguson has his sanguine (though still anxious) mood, If binary thinking — wealth or virue ~ be a mistake, as he hopes, iti one which nevertheless haunts him: he is far from sure that it i indeed a mistake. He likes to think itis, but can't help wondering As it happens, it is a mistake. Adam Ferguson teed not have wortied. Gibbon saw no danger of barbarian invasions fom the Eurasian steppe, none at any rate that the nobles of Poland, Germany and France could not face. Ferguson's more sophisticated anxiety conceming possible new practorians, or pethaps new barons or Mamelukes, alto did not prove justified. But it was not a silly anxiety, and Jakob Burckhardt was to echo it in the next century. Ferguson's basic model is one involving the interaction of honour and interest: commercial societies replace martial ones, and whilst he i not unplessed about the process, clearly he is eather anxious concerning its permanence or irreversibility. To put it simply, he fears a backlash of honour, and ofa rather inferior Kind ~ the domination of practorians rather than the self-government of a free and proud people. ‘A weaknes or deficiency in his account is that, whilst describing the interplay of the two main participants, he doe: not consider the role of religion. In that respect he is inferior, for instance, to David Hume. Ferguson's main account of the emergence of the modern — 124 = Adam Ferguson and the Surprising Robustness of Civil Society state (pp. 220-1) is simple: the monarch subdues the feudal ordships in alliance with the people, freeing the latter from subjec— tion to the lords, and encouraging the practice of commercial and Jucrative arts. This could sometimes strengthen the crown, but it could also turn against it, and lead to ‘a spectacle new in the history of mankind; monarchy mixed with republic, and extensive verri- tory, governed, during some ages, without military force’. This is the favourable, British variant of the story. But there is nothing in all this about the possible role of the Reformation Nevertheless, there is one place where Ferguson does accord a place to religion, of a kind, in the genesis of the social forms with, which he is concemed. History is not only the interaction of honour and interest; on occasion, a third partner, virtue, also enters the stage. A society committed to the imposition of virtue is different from one either addicted to honour or seduced by interest, In its uncompromising devotion to virtue, and its ruthless subjection of its citizens to its practice, it is indeed an Umma, a charismatic community, of a kind. But Ferguson is not thinking either of the Muslim or of the Puritans: what he has in mind 1s Sparta. He quotes Xenophon: ‘the Spartans should excel every nation, being the only state in which virtue is studied as the object of government’ (p. 267). Ferguson calls the Spartans a singular people, in that ‘they alone, in the language of Xenophon, made virtwe an object of state’. A devotion to virtue so complete does indeed make the society into a kind of sacramental community, but this one single intcusion of religion into Ferguson's scheme docs not really modify it: all that religion achieves, in this case, is to strengthen beyond all normal measure those political attitudes which are otherwise sustained by honour. The excess leads only to a quite exceptional rejection of comfort and interest, and dimin- ishes, as no doubt it was intended co do, the danger of seduction by comfort or by greed. So all in all, Ferguson was worried about a danger that in the end did not arise, and to this extent at any rate, misread the world he inhabited. But if we ask ourselves what it was that Ferguson perceived in the current situation, and considered to be a problem, ‘we shall see more clearly what it is that really characterizes civil society, and what its problems are Societies are concerned with the maintenance of order and survival in the face of enemies, on the one hand, and with = 125 -Emnest Gellner enhancement of production, on the other. The two concerns dominate societies in various proportions, but by and large, one could say, almost by definition, thar the firt concer predominates in ‘rude! societies, and the second in ‘polished’ ones. The first concem can be satisfied in two ways: by centralized power (yranny), or by participation of some kind. Participation naturally requires a manly spirit, a willingness and capacity to defend oneself against oppression, from those who take part in it. The values which encourage this kind of attitude may be summed up a5 honour’. The values which constitute the orientation towards production, commerce and comfort, may be termed ‘interest’, Now Ferguson notes a strong tendency towards a shift from honour to interest in modern European nations. In itself, this makes the world richer and more populous, and there is nothing objectionable in it. But here is the ruby this enhancement of production and life's comforts depends on the ivision of labour. Nothing wrong with this either, when it simply involves the separation of the clothier’s and the cobbler's activities, indeed of their persons. But the matter becomes graver when it abo. Separates the citizen from the warrior and the statesman: may not the market, to pat it in the simplest terms, lead to a new serfdom? Long before Hayek expressed the view that the abolition of the marker would constitute a Path to Serfilom, Ferguson gave very good teason for anticipating the very opposite: the market itself and not its elimination, would lead that way. Ibn Khaldun had brilliantly analysed a world in which precisely this had happened, though Ferguson was unaware of this. Ferguson was wrong, altogether wrong: nothing of the kind happened. We know that now. But the reasons which made him think what he did were good ones, and in Joking into why they did not in fact operate in the real world, we shall learn a good deal, In other societies, the kind of situation which Ferguson observed in modern Europe did, in fact, in the end have the kind of conse- quences which he fearcd. Commercial populations, which relied on others for their politics and/or defence, were liable in the end to lose their internal or external independence, or both. Of the commercial city republics of early modern Italy, only Venice survived into the eighteenth century, and then only as a shadow of its former self — and it too fell, without resistance, at the approach Of Napoleon. Participatory self-government is a sturdy plant when = 126 — Adam Ferguson and the Surprising Robustness of Cit Society and ws among pastoral or mountain pessant communities, ate nekee Teaeed well into the modern world: but oe ed with commercialism, though ee ee ee fl fant is scldom long-lived. Why should the free ee eters tes tase tacinpredeces: fons, who lie buried in the historic past? SO\Well, there are some reasons why this fate did not befall chem (though these reasons escaped Ferguson): erpetual and exponential growth. What happened in Ene a ae mierda coe ae tenetieami which may have occurred on previous occasions, in wl Ce eon cae haeank aes peainaid domination 2s central social themes and values. This had inde happened, but this time it was accompanied by two other processes = the incipient industrial revolution, leading to an entirely new method of production, and the scientific revolution, due to ensure an unending supply of innovation and an apparently unending exponential increase in productive power. This meant that the new social system had a so to speak unlimited bribery find, It could, in the end, bribe its way out of any external or internal threat. Its cella aslo lined iy capac tacalt say any Danegeld to barbarian outsiders. re Civ oe could do so, and only it could grow; and Europe ‘was a multi-state system. This is important, for although the new social order could acquire che means to pay off discontent, it could only do 30 if it was left in peace to operate the new economy. ‘There was no guarantee that the specialists in politics and coercion, ‘whom it used, would necessarily allow it to operate: in their greed, they might well kill the golden-egg-laying goose. In fact, on at least wo occasions, they did precisely that: the agents of the Counter- efoto the brit es shee x eo pa ive the same part, though they overlap) of Europe. But in a plural sated as penenmatcasal ani Abana y ae throttling systems do in the end get eliminated by a kind of social variant of natural selection, It was possible to throtde civil society in some places, but not in all: and the civil societies which did survive them demonstrated their economic, and military, superi- ority over the authoritarian politics which spumed interest and sought honour or virtue or both. - 127 -Emest Gelber (3) In these circumstances, within societies that were not throt= ted, production becomes a better path to wealth than domination. In traditional societies, he who has political power soon acquires wealth as a kind of consequence. This is not wholly unknown even in commercial and industrial societies, but it is incomparably less important. The best way to make money is to make money. It is possible to do this without acquiring or bothering with power, The economy is where the action is, and it is postible to indulge in economic activity without attending to problems of power. This is another way of saying that the law protects wealth, independently of whether one has formed special alliances for its protection, Wealth leads to power, more than the other way around. This is remarkable and exceptional. (4) The division of labour assumes a completely new form. It is not merely that there is far more specialization than there had been before; it is a qualitatively different kind of specialization. Ferguson saw some of this: he saw that what really mattered was not merely the separation of the clothier and the cobbler, but the separation of the citizen and the soldier. But there is more to it than that: it is the ‘manner in which they arc separated which has changed, and this is supremely important, This is something which even escaped Durkheim a century later, when he lumped together diverse kinds of complex, ‘organic’ divisions of labour, without really distin- guishing with emphasis the difference between a complex advanced traditional civilization, and the modern industrial world. In one sense, the division of labour has gone further in industrial society than ever before. There are more distinct and separate jobs which are carried out. But in another sense, there is less of it, and far more homogeneity: every job is carried out in the same style, the manuals and the rules are articulated in publicly shared and accessible idiom, for there is mobility between jobs, retraining is relatively easy, guild monopolies rare; a generic education fitting a ‘man for all specialisms is more important for his identity than the specific taining which fits him for his particular job. In other words, men are primarily members of a shared High Culture (that is, ofa nation), and only secondarily, ifat all, members of a guild or caste. In consequence, although the separation of the military from other functions, which Ferguson feared as the harbinger of a new and worse rule of thugs, does occur, in another sense the military specialism is made to resemble all others: it generates no caste or ~ 128 - ‘Adan Ferguson and the Suprising Robustness of Civil Society it isa cc any other (like agriculture, for Smple, movenient into it and out of iris not rected, and is semuneration follows the laws of the market rather than the law of extortion, which had in the past enabled those who could coerce to take as much as they wanted from those who could not. It is this unique kind of division of labour which explains that strange feature of civil society — most strange, in a comparative historical context — namely, that those in positions of power are not remunerated out of all proportion to all others; on the contrary, their rewards are relatively feeble. In traditional society, this could only occur in those very participatory communities whic h ensured the temporary nature of the occupancy of powerful positions ~ for instance, by selecting the holders by lot, as did the Greeks, and for a limited time only — or which, as in the Spartan case that so impressed Ferguson, made a fetish of ascetic virtue and imposed it ‘on its own leaders. Wes H (3) Scl€-policing or modulasity. A type of religion emerged in Europe with the Reformation, which eschewed external sanctions and the ritual underscoring of social obligations, and, on the contrary, laid an enormous burden on each individual as his own priest and intemal judge. Whether this ethos engendered, or followed, an cconomy increasingly orientated towards individu alism is a big question which we can hardly settle here. The disin~ terested and individually sanctioned pursuit of virtue clearly made a significant contribution to the emergence of civil society: according to Tocqueville, it is this which made democracy work in America. Virtue as the aim of state or public policy is probably disastrous for liberty. Virtue fecely practised between consenting adults may be a great boon to it, or even its essential precondition. Concer with virtue led men to speak of the disinterested pursuit of interest ~ accumulation without enjoyment, hence reinvestment, hence continuous growth rather than transformation of wealth into power, status, pleasure or salvation. (6) The ideological stalemate. For virtue to be privatized, as it were, what may be essential is that the practitioners and preachers of uncompromising and absolute virtue, and the practitioners of the rival socially rooted ritualistic religion, should terminate their conflict in stalemate, and so in mutual toleration, as happened in England. This leads the ritualistic traditionalist to provide the overall social framework, but to do it with a light hand: their rivals, = 129 -Emest Gellner after all, are not unbelievers, but rather those who believe with too ‘much conviction and sincerity. It leads the puritans to turn inwards, and incidentally to disinterested and hence most effective accumu lation, and indeed to preach and practise tolerance, as they need it for themselves. The disinterestedness of their pursuit of wealth is not only most beneficial economically, it is also splendid politically: they do not use their wealth for the acquisition of power (any more than they use it to purchase either pleasure or salvation, as had been. the usual practice of mankind), so they brezk through the vicious circle which in the past obliged power-holders to suppress successful accumulators of wealth as an imminent political menace. (7) Political stalemate. This is something of which Ferguson is fally aware, though he fails to link it to the ideological stalemate, The political stalemate generates that blend of monarchy and republic which he admired in England and which led to unique perfection of the rule of hw. In his remarkable People, Cities and Wealth,? E. A. Wrigley points out that the great classical economists, normally held to be the prophets of emerging capitalism, were in fact exceedingly nervous, not {© say pessimistic, about its prospects. They saw internal economic contradictions within it which would eventually lead it into trouble (views taken over, in modified form, by their disciple Karl Marx). Ferguson should be counted alongside them, as a person preoccupied not with economic contradictions (which he did nor claim to understand), but with its political contradictions, which he sensed acutely. The interesting thing is that both sets of pessimism came to be invalidated by the same factor, by the tremendous expansion of productive power consequent on the impact of scientific technology. The victory of commercial over predatory society in the eighteenth century was made permanent, and did not in the end destroy itself, because the commercial revolution, and the political one, were in duc course comple- mented by the industria-scientific one, which supplied the means by which it could make itself permanent and secure. One may consider, in reverse historical order, two deep reflec- tions of civil society ~ Leszek Kolakowski’s account of what it was that bothered the Marxist tradition about civil society,* and Adam 2 Oxford: Dlckwell, 1987. 5 "The Myth of Human SelfIdentty: Unity of Civil and Politesl Society in Socialist ‘Thought’, in L Kolskowski and S. Harpthire (@39, The Soialt lea: A. Reape = 130 - Adam Ferguson and the Surprising Robustness of Civil Society suson’s 48 it were anticipatory concern with its political viability. The te ia fd ae Ceectaayy diferent in style und human tone. The Marxist one belongs squarely co the world of nineteenth century romanticism; it is clearly a descendant of the Sorrows of Young Werther. Man wants to be hole, and complains bitterly if his soul bifurcates between political and economic concems. Marxism wanted a man fice of the separation of the economic and selfish man from the political and moral one: unity of soul was the underlying ides. The earthy realism of the eighteenth century Scot does not leave room for such recherché anxiety: he is Jess bothered about what the division does to the soul, as with what it may do to society, the danger that it may lead to a disagreeable form of servitude, In fact, this separation is an inherent feature of civil society, and indeed one of its main glories. The price of liberty may once have been eternal vigilance: the splendid thing about civil society is chat even the absent-minded, or those preoccupied with their private concems, or for any other reason ill-suited to the practice of eternal vigilance, can now look forward to enjoying their hberty. Civil society bestows liberty even on the non-vigilant. What is true is that this kind of social order is not practicable at all times and in all kinds of conditions: our task is to find out what helps and hinders it. Only the brave deserve the fair, says the poet: but may we not hope for a social order in which even the timid may enjoy the fair? Civil society is indeed an order in which liberty, if not pulchritude, can be enjoyed even by those who have given up the exercise of arms, and have no taste or inclination for it. Ferguson saw the emergence of civil society but feared for its future. By under standing why his fears — perfectly reasonable on the evidence at his disposal — were not justified, we alo lear something about the foundation of civil or liberal society, so dear t0 the heart of José Merquior (Lovrdon, 1974), and republished in C. Kikaths, D. W. Lowell and W. Malley (ec), The Transition rom Secilin (Melboume, 1991) = 131 -pee Qs Politics and Morality NORBERTO BOBBIO ‘The relationship between morality and politics is one of the many aspects of the question of morality ~ alive today as never before. ‘This problem expands 2s human action enters into fields previously reserved to the mechanisms of — morally indifferent — nature, Among moral questions, the relationship between morality and politics is one of the most traditional, along with the relationship between morality and private life, especially in the field of sexuality, or between morality and law, and between morality and art. The current philosophical debate deals with the relationship between morality and science, whether physics or biology; between morality and technical development; between morality and economics or, as ‘one also hears, the business world. The problem is always the same, It stems from the verification that there is a divergence between human actions in all these spheres and some fandamental and general rules of behaviour called moral’ without which human coexistence would be not only anpossible but unhappy as well. Summarily and provisionally, we ‘can be content to say that the purpose of moral rule is to make a satisfactory coexistence possible; I understand satisfactory coexistence to mean a relationship in which the suffering that is an indispens- able part of the world of human relationships ~ just as it is part of the animal world, dominated by a merciless struggle for survival — diminishes as much as possible, The issue of morality arises when, we become aware that there is a divergence between specific - 133 -Norberto Bobbio actions or groups of actions in particular spheres, and rules that are: universal — or which try to be universal ~ and therefore valid for _ any problem of morality. ‘The simplest, yet least convincing, way to solve the problem is to uphold the autonomy of the diverse spheres of action vis-2-vis the sphere regulated by moral prescriptions. The autonomy of art: art has its own esiterion for judging what is beautiful and ugly, distinct from good and evil within the realms of morality. The criterion by which science should be judged is ‘truth and falschood, which is also 2 different judgment than that of good and evil. Similarly, in economics one speaks of the autonomy. ‘of market laws, which obey the criterion of usefulness, In the _ business world we hear talk of the criterion of efficacy, which calls for discarding the universal rules of behaviour which, if followed, would make business, if not impossible, at least more difficult and. less profitable. One of the most controversial areas, and one in which each man or Woman ~ and not only the artist, scientist, businessman or any other human being — is very sensitive, is that of sexuality: autonomy in sexvality means freedom from common morality in erotic relationships. It means, in othcr words, that sexuality has no precise rules of behaviour, or that it obeys rules other than morality. The same answer has been given to politics, and it is the answer that in the fatherland of Machiavelli or Guicciardini has been called the raison d'état or the autonomy of politic. It is unnecessary to recall that it was Cad] Schmitt who very successfully validated that thesis, attributing the political sphere with its own criterion of evaluation, which is that of the friend-enemy, and which is a different guideline than the most common ones, under which actions in other spheres are distinguished. He says, textually: ‘Let us assume that on the moral plane the main distinc tions are between good and evil; in the aesthetic one, between beautiful and ugly; and in the economic one, between what is useful and what is harmful. The specific distinction to which it is posible to remit the political actions and motives is the friend-enemy distinction.” It is clear that the analogy between the traditional distinctions, true-false, good-evil, beautifil-ugly on the one hand, and friend-enemy on the other, does not work. These oppositions are Jocated in different planes and cannot be aligned among themselves Liga Politics and Morality as if they were on the same level. The traditional binomials allow value judgments to be made, in the true meaning of the term: that js, they allow approval or disapproval to be expressed in reference to am action, and therefore, consent or dissent with that action to be shown. The binomial friend-enemy, Carl Schmitt points out, stresses the maximum degree of intensity of a union or separation, of an asociation or dissociation. But in no way does it express a yalue judgment allovring politically positive actions to be distin- guished from politically negative actions in the manner that the binomial beautiful-ugly serves aesthetically approvable or reprehen= sible works of art to be distinguished. The friend is, purely and simply, one’s ally; the enemy is the person against whom one fights. In any casc, the opposition is not exhaustive, because between the friend and the enemy there can be a neutral, who is neither the former nor the latter. If we wished to place next to the traditional binomials a pair that allows a value judgment of political behaviour to be made, we would have to resort to the pair constituted by ‘what is appropriate (or in accordance with the objective), and that which is inappropriate (which does not adhere to the objective)’. ‘This is a useful criterion for issuing a positive or negative judgment on a political action, insofar as it is a judgment criterion of action distinct from that of useful-useless, through which economic action is judged, as well as from that of good-evil, through which moral action is evaluated. If we examine all the theories that maintain the autonomy of politics vis-i-vis morality, they oppose the guideline of appropriate or inappropriate to the judgment criterion of good-evil. It is fele chat politics can said to be autonomous as soon, 48 an action is judged to be politically appropriate, even if itis not ethically good, or economically useful. Schmitt's distinetion between friend and enemy in no way serves to characterize politics as an autonomous sphere vis-a-vis values, but rather only to Provide an explanatory definition of ‘politics’. ‘The problem of the relationship between morality and polities arises in same way as it arises in other spheres, where, to continue with the examples, there can be works that are aesthetically worthy but morally reprehensible, actions that are economically usefull but morally reprehensible. I have in mind, to give a couple of examples of great importance at present, the issue of selling human organs. It has been argued that the best way to solve the dificulty of finding transplant kidneys is to classify them as merchandise, as any other = 135 =Norberto Bobbio marketable good, because there will always be poor persons who, to pay their debts or merely to survive, or, as has also been pointed out, to buy a small house, will be willing to sell a kidney. Or, to give another example, if the purpose of a company in a market. society is to earn profits, it cannot be ruled out that companies will seek profits without paying much regard to the demands of persons’ rights proclaimed by moral law. By analogy, the problem of the relationship between morality and politics is formulated as follows: anyone who knows a little about history and who has thought to some degree about human behaviour can verify that in the sphere of politics actions are _ continually taken that are considered illicit by morality om in contrast, that actions are permitted that morality considers manda- tory. This verification leads us to the consequence that polities obeys 2 code of rules that is different from and partially incompat= ible with the moral code. The moral code, in all times and in all countries, has ordered: “Thou shalt not kill, Nevertheless, human history can objectively be portrayed as a long, continuous, uninterrupted chain of murders, ‘massacres of innocents, attacks without apparent motives, uprisings, rebellions, bloody revolutions, and wars, which are normally justi- fied with the most diverse arguments, Hegel once said that history is ‘an immense slaughterhouse’. It has been observed, correctly, that the precept “Thou shalt not kill’ governs within the group, but not outside of it — that is, in relationships between groups. With this explanation, the precept that prohibits killing becomes purely instrumental, loses its character of a categorical imperative. It applies within the group because it ensures peace among its members, a peace which is necessary for the groups survival, but not for what is outside of it, because the group survives only if it succeeds in defending itself from the attacks of others hostile to it: the authorization — or, might one say, the obligation? ~ to kill the ‘enemy forms part of the defence strategy. The same thing is said of the other fundamental precept of all morality: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness’. There is an immense literature on the art of simulation and dissimulation in politics. In Crowds and Power, Elias Canetti wrote very beautiful pages on the topic: ‘An unequal discribution of looking thoroughly is character- istic of power. He who holds power knows the intentions of others, but does not let his own intentions be known. He must be — 136 ~ Politics end Morality very reserved: no one must know what he thinks, what he intends [to do].’ As an example of impenetrability he offers the example of Felipe Marfa Visconti, of whom he says: 'No one was equal to him in his ability to conceal his inner self. ‘Anyone who wants to know more on this topic can read Rosario Villari’s Praise of Dissimulation (1987). Although it refers only to the baroque period, it offers examples and notes for all periods. Of the many quotes, I have selected a passage by Justo Lipsio, who writes: ‘Shake any beautiful soul and it will shout: “May simulation and dissimulation be removed from human life.” From private life, yes, from public life, no, and he who has the Republic in his hands can do nothing else.” This is one of many passages in which we see that the distinction between morality and politics coincides with the difference between private and public. What is correctly called morality operates only in private life; in public life there are other rules. No political sphere is free of conflicts. No one can expect to gain the upper hand from a conflict without resorting to the art of fiction, of deception, of masking one’s intentions. In nature ~ the kingdom of the eternal conflict for survival ~ the diverse vechniques practised by animals of hiding, seclusion, changing colour are universal. From the true duel or the Iudic duel, which in the art of military strategy means knowing how to feign, ‘feigning’ to deceive the adversary is part of the very conditions for success. There is no polities without the use of secrecy: secrecy not only tolerates, but demands, lying. To be bound to secrecy implies the obligation to not reveal what is secret, which, in tum, implies the obligation to lie. I will give a third example: the maxim that is the foundation of any coexistence is pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be fulfilled). Any society is a network of relationships of exchange; a society svevives insofir as the security of transfers is guaranteed. Hence one of uze moral maxims, which demands a reciprocal observance of agreements. One of the examples proposed by Kant to explain the meaning of the fundamental ethical principle that says ‘do not what cannot be converted into a universal maxim’ is precisely that of respecting agreements: ‘I must respect agreements because I could not live in a society in which agreements were not observed’. To do so would be to retum to the state of nature in which no one is “obliged to respect an agreement because s/he cannot be sure that = 137 -Nosberio Bobbio the said agreement will be observed by others. Anyone who fulfil, agrecments in a world in which others do not feel obligated to do so is in danger of succumbing. This maxim is valid for private life as well, though it does not have the same meaning in public life. It is often said that interna- tional treaties are only sheets of paper; acquired commitments depend on the formula rebus sic siantibus (depending on how things are). International relations are buttressed more by mistrust than. trust. A contract society is, by contrast, a society based on trust. A society in which people distrust each other is one in which, in the end, victory belongs to the strongest and each person seeks salva~ tion in strength more than in wisdom. This reference to wisdom places us in front of another radical difference between the moral world and the political one, which. summarizes in itself all the other differences, Ir is not coincidental that the maximum virtue of a politician is not so much wisdom as prudence, that is, the supreme ability to understand specific isucs, to adapt principles to the solutions of particular events requiring insight and restraint, In the famous eighteenth chapter of The Prince, Machiavelli says that a ‘prudent’ man is not obligated to keep his word when ‘such a fulfilment is unfavourable to him’. One of the masters of behaviour in the baroque period, Baltasar Gracidn, wrote: ‘Serpents are the teachers of sagacity, They show us the road. to prudence.” Immediately after prudence, the politician's essential virtue — which also goes back to the Grecks — is astuteness, represented not by the serpent but by the fox. Astuteness ~ metis in Greek — remits Us to none other than Ulysses. In Dettienne and Vernant’s The Tridks of Intelligence in Ancient Greece we can read: ‘Mais should foresee what is unforeseeable. Committed with [what will] become, atzeniive to ambiguous and new situations, the occur- ence of which is always certain, astute intelligence is able to affect beings and things because it is able to foresee, beyond the immediate present, a more or les broad segment of the future. Metis appears multiple, cosmetic, undulating. It possesses the duality by which it always presents itself different from what it is, and it hides its deadly reality under the appearance of security. The invention of schemes that serve to deceive the adversary — traps, smares, ambushes, disguises, stratagems of the most diverse - 138 - Politics and Morality kind (of which the most famous is the Trojan Horse) ~ is part of astuteness In an ancient Greek treatise on hunting and fishing, the two animals that most practise metis are the fox and the octopus. The fox's astuteness consists of turning over when attacked by the eagle; the octopus’s consists of becoming ungraspable because of the many forms it takes on, Its human equivalent is the ‘polutropos’, the peson with a thousand tricks. In the last few years the use of metaphors, especially animal metaphors, has proliferated in political language. They are used continually: think of how many everyday political discourses refer directly or indirectly to ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’. The metaphor of the fox is very well known; less common, if not altogether forgotten, is that of the octopus. This animal is capable of adapting to the most variegated situations, of assuming as many facets as there are categories of types of city dwellers, of inventing a thousand fallacies that will make its action more efficacious in the most diverse circumstances. By this inter- pretation, it appears, rather, that today the same characteristics are attributed mainly to the political man, who with contempt is called a ‘chameleon’. 1 would like to point out that none of these metaphors ~ serpent, fox, lion, octopus, chameleon ~ could be used to represent the moral man, who acts in consideration of the universal good, and not only for the benefit of the city. This is one more proof, if there is a need for it, of the impossibility of reducing the so-called political virtues in the Machiavellian sense of the term to moral virtue. In arriving at this point, alter verifying that there always existed — and, in fact, there exists today — a divergence between the rules of morality and those of politics, there arise two fundamental questions: How is this divergence explained? Is it good or bad that it exists? The first is a quaestio faci; the second is a quaestio juris. Let us examine them separately. Certainly we cannot find a plausible explanation, as I pointed out at the beginning, in the thesis that maintains the autonomy of politics from morality. This thesis explains nothing; it is a mere tautology; it is like saying that morality and politics are distinct, because they are distinct. Nevertheless, the problem of the differ exce is serious because, despite the historically found and proven distarce, throughout our history we have also heard the demand that this distance diminish, or at least that good government be that - 139 -Notberto Bobbio in which politics and morality tend to coincide. Or that it be recognized that alongside realistic theories, for which this difference is mandatory, there are idealist theories, for which politics should adhere to morality, and ifit fails to do so, itis bad politics. In a well known book, the Diabolical Face of Power, the German historian Ritter maintains that these two forms of thought are well represented at the beginning of dhe modern era: realist thought by Machiavelli, and idealist thought by Sir Thomas More, who describes the Republic of Utopia in which perfect pesce reigns alongside perfect justice. According to Ritter, of the two orienta- tions, one of amoral politics and the other of moral politics, the first culminated in Hitler’s Germany, the second in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi criminals, and in the United Nations, Also, we should not forget that in the same years during which Machiavelli was writing ‘The Prince, considered the highest example of realistic politics, Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote The Education of a Christian Prince, an. ‘equally pure example of idealistic politics. The contrast between realism and idealism is recurrent in the history of political thought. No clearer example of this contrast can be cited than the opposite position assumed vis-i-vis the problem of the relationship between morality and politics by the two greatest philosophers of the modern era: Kant and Hegel. Kant’s ideal was the ‘moral politician’, that is, the sovereign who interprets the principles of the art of politics in such a wey that it can coexist with the principles of morality, and who clevates to a rule of behaviour the maxim correcting the defects of the constitution in accordance with the principles of natural law, ‘even with a possible sacrifice of his particular interest’. For Hegel, by contrast, the principle of state reason in its purest form is valid — that is, the principle by which political morality, ethicalness, takes priority over morality per se, which is private morality. From this it is inferred that the affirmation according to which there is an opposition between politics and morality ‘rests on a superficial manner of representing morality, the nature of the state, and its relationships with the moral viewpoint’. Despite the constant aspiration to remit politics to morality, the contrast continues to exist. And it has provoked and continues to provoke attempts at explanation. These attempts are countless Here I will look at only three of them: (1) The distance between morality and politics arises from the = 140 = Polities and Morality {fact that political behaviour is dominated by the maxim ‘The end justifies the means’, and the end of politics ~ the preservation of the ‘tate, the public or common good, or however one wants to call it “is so superior to the good of individuals that it justifies the viola tion of fundamental moral rules that abound among individuals and jn the relationships among them. Here, we see the traditional maxim: Salus rei publicae suprema lex (‘The salvation of the state is the supreme law’). Tt would prove tedious to point out all the weak points of this maxim, The moral criticism focuses basically on the value of the end. Notall ends are so lofty that they justify the use of any means: hence the need for a government of laws, as opposed to the government of men; or even for a government in which the rulers act according to established laws, controlled by popular consensus and accountable for the decisions they make. In the same passage in which Machiavelli states and echoes the principle of the salvation of the fatherland as a supreme end, he also says, in reference to the king of France: ‘the king cannot be sorrowed by any of his decisions or by his good fortune or misfor~ tune, because whether he loses and wins everyone will acknowl edge that these are the king's own aflairs’. A similar assertion would be unacceptable in a state governed by the rule of law. Moral criticism contemplates, as well, the licitness of the means, ‘Are all means licit? Let it suffice for us to think of the norms that have been periodically established by the so-called law of war, noms whose essential purpose is to limit the use of force. That these limits are not respected does not mean that their violation is not taken as a moral offence against civil consciousness. From this perspective, there is a difference between the democratic state and the non-democratic one, either regarding the use of mote or less violent means by public forces, ot with respect to, for example, the abolishment of the death penalty. Q) It is the second justification that has been offered by the theories of state reason, which maintain that politics should be subordinated to morality, but that there might be situations in which it is legitimate to repeal principles. No moral principle has absolute value; there are also exceptions. Even the rule ‘Thou shalt not kill’ can, in certain cases, be violated: one of these cases is provided for in any penal code: legitimate self-defence. Another is the state of need, because need has no law; it is the law itself = 141 -Norberto Bobbio An author such as Jean Bodin, who liked to portray himself as anti-Machiavellian and who felt that the absolute sovereign should be submitted to moral laws, in a chapter of his famous treatise on the republic — in which he distinguishes between the tyrant and the good sovereign who obeys the moral law — recognizes that the monarch who ‘employs violent means such as murder, edicts, confiscations, or other acts of force, as necessarily [note “neces. sarily'] occurs in the change or resurgence of a regime’ should be. labelled as a tyrant. And since we quoted Carl Schmitt at the begin= ning, we must recall here that the characteristic of sovereignty lies in the power of deciding what is a state of emergency, which is precisely the situation that, based on the principle of need, permits the silencing of prevailing laws, or the temporary suspension of, their enforcement. From this perspective, there is a difference between the democ- ratic and the non-democratic state. The Italian Constitution, for example, does not contemplate the state of exception, but rather, only the state of war. And not generically the state of necd. 3) Ie is the third justification that locates the difference between morality and politics in the unsolvable opposition between two forms of ethics: that is, the ethics of principles and that of results (or consequences). One judges action based on what is before, the principle, the norm, the maxims ‘Thou shalt not kill’, “Thou shalt not bear false witness’, ‘Thou shalt respect established agreements’; the other justifies action based on what comes later, that is, the effects of the action. The two judgments may coincide, though they frequently diverge, They would converge if it were always true — which it is not ~ that the observance of a principle produces good results or that good results are obtained solely by respecting principles. There are two examples, the first of which takes a prohibitive norm, and the second of which is obtained from a permissive norm. Let us look once again at the universal prohibitive norm “Thou shalt not kill’. The death penalty, from the standpoint of the ethics of principles, should be repealed; however, ifit is shown that it has useful consequences for society insofar as it contributes to diminishing the number of crimes, it may be permitted in some specific cases. And this is the favourite argument of its advocates, Nevertheless, it is possible to maintain the opposite, that is, that the death penalty — which adheres to the principle of retributive justice = 142 - Politics and Monality = should be faking into account the consequences, when it a been pecrges ‘does not create a dissuasive effect, and that it therefore, in the end, becomes a useless cruelty. As can be seen from this, the owo judgments, according to principles and according to consequences, diverge in both cases. ‘As an example of a permissive norm | will take the abortion legislation that now prevails in many countries, including Italy. Based on the principle of ‘Thou shalt not kill’ there are good arguments for considering cbortion a crime; however, whoever accepts abortion does so based on the consequences, for example the impossibility of properly supporting the unbom child, or even the danger of overpopulation, which all of humanity might no longer have adequate resources to fice. ‘What js the link between the distinction of these two ethics and the difference between morality and law? The link stems from the verification that in reality the distance between morality and politics corresponds almost always to the distinction between the cthics of principles and the ethics of results, in the sense that the moral person acts and values others’ actions based on the ethics of results. The moralist asks: “What principles must I observe?’ The politician wonders: “What consequences will stem from my action?’ ‘As [ have written elsewhere, the moralist can accept the maxim Fiat iustitia pereat mundus, but the politician acts in the world and for the world And s/he cannot make a decision whose consequence would imply that ‘the world will perish The first explanation, ‘the end justifies the means’, is supported by the distinction between categorical imperatives and hypothetical imperatives. It only recognizes hypothetical imperatives: ‘If you want, you must’. The second, the explanation based on annulment, is based on the difference between the general norm and the exceptional norm. The third, and last, explanation, the one that ‘opposes the ethics of principles to the cthics of accountability, goes further and discovers that the judgment of our actions, to be approved or rejected, unfolds, even opening the way for two distinct. moral systems whose judgments do not _necesarily coincide, From this unfolding stem the antinomies of our moral living; from the antinomies of our moral living spring up the particular situations from which each of us forms, every day, her or his experience, and which are called ‘cases of consciousness = 143 =— 9 — On Deliberation: Rethinking Democracy as Politics Itself RAMON MAIZ, La République est une forme qui entratne le fond. (Gambetta) ‘A democracia conceito pode até ser vitima da falta da democracia conduta, (Merquion) Beyond the Antithesis between Liberalism and Republicanism ‘The most recent episodes in the historically recurrent dispute between the advocates of the liberal (representative) and republican (participative) models of democracy have thrown up a series of hovel issues and problems that make evident the artificial nature of the conventional, facile notion of an antithesis between two mutually exclusive archetypes, and instead call for an approach which cuts across the traditional battle lines by developing arguments that in the past have been insufficiently or only narrowly explored. For the purposes of what follows, and at the risk of artifi- cially oversimplifying an extremely complex controversy, the discrepancies between the liberal and republican stances, as expounded hitherto, will be treated as concerning six basic areas. The liberal postulates in these areas are as follows. 1, Politics is to be understood essentially ax the strategic interplay of independent individuals in pursuit of their pre-existing (prepolitical), immutable preferences. = 145 =Ramén Matiz 2. For each individual, politics is therefore essentially a mere tool for the achievement of his or her prior preferences, 3. Politics is thus a maticr of the choices and actions of private individuals, and its highest expression is the secret ballot 4. In view of the above, democracy is a means subordinated to an end consisting in the defence of the individnal’s subjective rights against interference from the state or other individual. 5. The scope of citizenship is limited to the pursuit of pregiven. preferences via mechanisms of representation that allow influ= ence in decision-making processes, 6. The individual is characterized identified) on what might be termed a purely individualistic basis concerning solely the differen- tial characteristics by virtue of which he or she competes with other individuals, and their prepolitical and external configuration, Against the above postulates, the republican theory of democracy traditionally offers the following alternatives I. Politics is essentially an integrative, communicative activity aimed at transmuting conflicting interests into non-conflicting interests by attainment of rational agreement in pursuit of the common good. IL. Rather than a means to an end, politics is thus an end in itself, a sel justified, educational, outward-looking activity secking ever broader concord and collective ethical progress. IIL. Consequently, politics is an eminently public activity carried out through rational debate and communication among zens. IV. Individual rights guerantecing non-interference by the state are seen as the instruments of democracy inasmuch as they further the realization and development of democracy qua participa tion and social transformation. V. Citizenship is conceived of positively as direct, active, coutward-looking participation in the genesis of public policy. VI. Finally, the republican view occasionally includes » communi- tarian component whereby interindividual solidarity and cultural and institutional norms together constitute a collective identity in which the identity of the individual is subsumed, ‘The following brief critical review of the antithesis between the two archetypes sketched above will reveal firstly that they share ~ 146 = On Deliberation: Rethinking Demooary as Polts Ise in their semi-implicit premises and Ghexplored astmprions, and secondly that both conmbute insight that should rightly be retained, developed and emphasized in» plausible theory of democracy. For this, it will be necessary approach at least the following issues « the notion of interests and Pastenene seh . tion of ideologies and values; ate of politcal action, and with it the redefinition of individual and collective identities; « the productive function of social institutions; and, steraming from the foregoing, i the scope of democracy and of politics in general Politics as the Shaping of Interests and Preferences It is a basic premise of liberal theory of democracy, and one pursued to its utmost consequences in the theory of rational choice, that interests are exogenous t0 political activity, that is, they are prepolitically defined individual preferences that are unaltered by the democratic political process as such.! The objectives of political action are considered as determined a priori by complete individual preferences, and politics is accordingly viewed as essentially consisting in the manoeuvres of individuals attempting to maximize the satisfaction of their prior preferences. In spite of the vast differ- ‘ences between liberal idcology on the one hand and communi- tarian republican or Marxist traditions on the other, somewhat similar views often emerge in the latter: the postulation of social groups (cas, community or nation) with prepolitically defined needs and preferences is taken to limit the political activity of sa groups (and of their individual members) to the pursuit of their highest preferences. 4 eg attitude, advocates of participative democracy have insisted that the axiom of exogenous preferences is not, in fact, tenable; interests are mot given, causal antecedents of the democ- ratic process, but are shaped, moulded and even generated in the 1p. Bowles and H. Gints, Demorary and Capitation (New York, 1986) = 147 -Ramén Matz course of this process.? To maintain that prefer and interests area priori necesary, and can at most be ‘dconeeee by aeaGo to mets they are not already evident, is to overlook their incomplete nature a i political proces of ther consruedons > nom te Sigg This dispute can be considered as an aspect of a dis i between two kinds of traditional politcal theory that sr po received insufficient attention. For, at bottom, what seems to differentiate political philosophers such as Sicyés, J. S. Mill or Dewey from Rousseau, Pateman or Rawls is the erphasis placed by the former upon the creative, productive role of politics, upon the absurdity of considering politics 2s the mere exprestion. of discovery of pre-extant priorities, as if cach citizen were, ab initio, the bearer of totally determined, inalterable objectives. In fact, the assumption of pre-extant ‘real’ priorities determined by the nature of society (and hence inherited, albeit unwittingly, by each individual) implies, unrealistically, that politics is an essentially trivial affair in which the gradual ‘discovery” of this set of priorities results in progressive convergence to the true general interest: ‘Tant ue plusiers hommes réunis te considérent comme un seul corps, ils n'ont qu'une volonté, qui se rapporte A la commune conservation et au bien-étre général. Alors tous le ressort de I’Etat son vigoreux et simples, ses maximes sont claires et lumineuses; il n'a. point interéts embrouillés, contradictoires, le bien commun se montre pail pe évidence et ne demande que du bon sens pour etre Furthermore, this notion can prompt not only the exorbitant requirement of unanimity athe ‘ukimate erterion of legitimacy, ako the ingenuous (and dangerous) belic e " cues poultice oe ea _ For Sicyés, for example, politics is quite the contrary, consisting: in the design of combinations politiques that allow the people to formulate a coherent aim. The problem of democratic representa tion of the people is the problem of the joint construction of a 2 Suntcin, ‘Consitutons ad Democnie’. in J. Eler and R Gonsinionaiso ond Democucy (Cambiidge, 1985), pp. 45fE I Hine, wonen ey Sea feel bp. ABE, P Hint, Repmseave aur and Chane New Haven CT, 199 £ poet Du contrat social, TV, 1 a 5 B. Manin, “Volo gente oa delteraton” Die (985) 3: 72-03, J. G. Merquior, Liberalisor Old ond New Boston, 1991). UR Hage On Deliberation: Rethinking Democrary as Polites self common will.” For there are innumerable issues concerning which Citizens in general do not have fixed prior preferences, let alone a Coherent set of such preferences, and the role of politics as a process $F information and communication is not only to provide new Solutions to familiar needs, but also to engender, shape and enrich citizens’ preferences. Sieyés and Mill admittedly shared the Enlightenment’s excessive rationalist optimism, echoes of which can indeed still be detected in the Offentlichkeit - and even in the Kormunicativen Handelns — of Habermas. Although they realized that consensus concerning the common good can require onerous, institutionally mediated public debate, and that the unrealistic unanimity implicit in Rousseau’s idea of inherent, prepolitical preferences must be repliced by majority rule, they still cherished the belief that, once privilege is abolished, individual interests will tun out to be mutually compat jble and disagreement on the common good can be overcome by public debate. In other words, they retained an implausibly episte- mological view of the democratic process, whereby information and communication lead unfailingly and progressively to consensus. It is hardly necessary to point out that this dream has little defence against the attacks it received from such dissimilar authors as Marx or Schmitt, The former, in Zur Judenfiage, railed against the delusion that polities might achieve the sublimation of class differ- caces; while Carl Schmitt, in Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlementarismus, criticized the notion that debate necessarily gives access to truth (‘la discussion substituée 2 la force’) and stressed the existence of political conflicts in which persuasive argument will never lead to concord. At the same time, however, one must recall that neither Marx nor Schmitt comprehended the practical impor- tance of democratic institutions, the essential autonomy of the state as an institutional framework, or the profoundly. integrative, constructive nature of the political process. In open opposition to Marx’s and Schmit’s attitude to politics, some progress towards breaking the impasse wes made by authors such «8 Kaufmann and Heller. For Kaufinann, the will of the people is not an entity that is given a prion, apprehension of which requires 7 RL. Mie, Nation and Representation: The Polite Theory of the AB Sieys (Baseelons: cps, 1990) 8 J Habermas, Siktunvendel der Ofentichlet (Frankfurt, 1962), and Theotie des komm uktiven Handelis (renee, 1981). = 149 =Ramin Matz only its inspection, but rather something to be actively worked at and put together in some specific form via a process of demands, counterdemands and alternatives;? while Heller drew. attention to the fact that political groups are not mere passive representative projections of their members’ preferences, but are the result of inters active organizational behaviour among these members.!” It is here that current debate on the question of the ‘general will” continues to be centred. For social choice theorists since Arrow, the problem is not so much whether there in fact exist a ‘general will” underlying political discord, but rather that no such general will could ever be discovered by any ‘political proces’, being understood as the aggregution of individual preferences by some kind of voting system with properties that, a prior, it seems quite reasonable to demand of a fair voting system. It would appear that the very heart of democratic theory is stricken by the finding that no such voting system is stable in the sense of guaranteeing the lection of an alternative that would win all two-way ballots against other alternatives. Admittedly, this conclusion is bascd on the following set of debatable premises, 1. The set of voting agents is fixed (which ignores the question of the normative specification of admissible agents) 2 There isa single given total set of alteeatives, which cach agent knows and orders, prior to any voting process, in accordance with his or her own individual preferences (which in many circum. stances ignores many, ifnot all, kinds of agenda manipulation). 3. The order of preferences of each agent is fixed throughout the Political (that i, voting) process (which is thus reduced to a purely passive inedium of expression). 4. In the usual version of the theory, preferences are purely ordinal, that is, comparison. of differences in. preference intensity are impossible both between agents (agent X cannot be said to prefer alte mative A more than agent Y does) and within a single agent’s Preference order (X may be said to prefer A to Band B to C, but cannot be said to prefer A much more than B and B a little more than C) 5.5. Kanaan, “Zur problematik des Volkswilens', in Gessmmelo Sdifen 3 (Gotcingen, 1931), pp. 2348, |. H. Heller ‘Poitsche Demokratle und scrile homogenitit’ (1928). in Cesammele ‘Ssrifien 2 (Leiden, 1971), pp. 428 ~ 150 - (On Deliveration: Rethinking Domoacey os Politics self of ivi a are both complete (for any pair ; See a he agate prefers A to B, orB to A, or strictly indifferent between the two) and wansitive (if A is preferred wo B and B co C, then A is preferred to C). ne e For cach particular set of individual preference orders, there exist a ‘social preference order’, or “general will’, that is, a complete, transitive ordering of the tocal set of alvernatives such that, for any subset of aiematves, those chosen by the voting gptem ac actly the top-ranking members of the subset. TNE Meecatiges ebipnes aren UAIDaet ne “ agent preferring B to A, then B will not be chosen (the ‘strong Pareto condition’), BT outbao eoting ot ey ef rons a dent of individuals’ ranking of the altematives not included in that subset 9. The voting system treats individual agents fuirly, and the individual agents behave sincerely, in the following senses: {anon ‘of vote); (@) all individuals are treated equally (anonymity (b) no single individual agent is able to impose his will regard- less of the preferences of the other agents (that is, there is no dictator); (©) there is no restriction on the preference orders of the dividual agents; (UIT aes Sega nae nen preferences (that is, strategic voting or vote trading is assumed not to occut). il all Since it turns out to be impossible for a voting system to falfl the above conditions simultaneously, Arrow and his followers conclude that the concepts of general will, common good and rational social choice are in fact empty." For our present purposes, the import of the major analyses of Arrow’s and related theorems!? is that they question, directly or indirectly, their premises concerning individual preferences: either 1 KJ. Amow, Soil Choe and Individual Ves (New Havens CP, 1970):J. 8. Kelly, silty Thenens (New York, 1978 AT Sen Sol Chace Theo A Re-xaninen, Emromana (197) 45 () 35-51; j. Eltes, “The Market and the Forum, sm J. Biter and A. Fiylland (et), Foedations of Seal Choice Theory (Cambridge, 1986); A. Doménech, De la étze al pla (@arcelons, 198). = 11 -Ramin Miz their very existence as given, prepolitical entities; or their being sincerely respected in voting (Tversky has suggested that voting systems often conceal individual preferences rather than reveal them); or the admissibility of all conceivable combinations of individual preference orders (if, contrary to premise 9c above, it is assumed that all agents agree that the alternatives can be characterized by their position on a single dimension, and that each agent votes in accor dance with 2 utility function that is a single-peaked fimction on this dimension, then the social choice process is stable!3), In particular, it has been argued that the reformulation of the liberalist model of democracy in rational choice terms (fundamen tally, the assumption of complete, immutable, given individual preferences) incurs the Benthamite confusion between the kind of behaviour that is appropriate in the market and the kind appropriate in the political forum.'* In other words, it is not valid to treat the citizen choosing among political options affecting both himself and. others as if he were a buyer whose choices only concern himself Although rational choice mechanisms may prevent market anomalies deriving from endowment of the consumer, or buyer, with unlimited ‘sovereignty’, they cannot do the same when it comes to identifying the general will. For the task of politics is not just to favour efficient government, but to achieve social welfare: and for this end the simple aggregation of prepolitical preferences, even if possible, is inappropriate. It is not only demonstrably impos sible (by Arrow’s theorem), but manifestly implausible, to think of the “will of the people’ as consisting of some Arrow-inffinging, Pareto-satisfying combination of individual preferences. The will of the people must in general be the outcome of the revision of individual preferences as the result of inter-individual communica~ tion with a view to the common good. Pat another way, the polit- ical process serves not merely to identify the general will, but, as a process of social deliberation, to create it; the purpose of mutual communication, information and rational discussion and reflection is to transform the initial ‘naive’ preferences of the individual. ‘The notion of rational deliberation thus goes beyond the limited view of politics as the arena of conflict between interests defined totally independently of the political process. Deliberation clarifies 18 W, Riker, Llealom aun Popalon (San Francisco, 1982). " B Man, ‘Voloaté générale ou deliberation?’ J. Flier, ‘The Markee and the Fonuny. = 152 = On Deliberation: Rethinking Demoarecy as Potties lself assumption and reorders preferences. It is therefore not tenable €0 try tordivide citizens sticly, as Mill does, into chooses (citizens with fall information on, and preferences among, all possible alterna tives) and learners (citizens lacking such information, and who are thas ignorant of their own true interests). Nor is the Marxist Gistinetion between class an sich and class fir sich any better (in any of its several versions), for its assumption of a social structure Gcfining a priori chs interests subject to teleologically determined discovery and pursuit, effectively reduces politics to an epiphenom- enon and ‘illsory form’ whose ‘ruth resides fundamentally (and virtually exclusively) in production relations;"> it is ingenuous to a that preferences determined ‘socially’ in. this Marxist sense! can obviate the need for 2 constructive political process, Rather, a political process is essential for the genesis of interests and the clarification of preferences; the highest objective of politics isto emerge from an initial situation requiring not merely the strategic acquisition of the means to satisfy preferences, but the very defini- tion of the preferences to be satisfied. In this way, making prefer- ‘ences constitutes the very essence of politics.’” This is, if possible, even more evident in relation co ‘second- order preferences’, that is, preferences about preferences, 2 comer stone of the republican model of democracy. For the latter, the general will ideally comes into being through a process of ethical self-enlightenment that is promoted by democracy not only through the convergence of preferences due to information sharing and discussion, but also through the encouragement of citizens’ self-government and self-determination.'* In other words, democ- racy increases citizens’ autonomy: their capacity for unmanipulated modification of their preferences and for discourse giving birth to a more fitting individual and collective political will.” Democracy Mi “Karl Max: aspen de sao dea del prod F.Valeipa (3) Hise eto plan Mad, 192) 172 Roemer (ol Anaya Min (Cabri, 930 7 Witlnky “Choosne by Contucing Intaion’, Amen Pot Saewe eae (987 81 3607 Ds Hel, Moat of Domo (Cambri, 1787 1 P Mombedge, Bjond Advonny Denn (Chicago, 19802 J. G, Merge, anya to pase Gio ay 1942), O puma (Ro dee, 1983); J thee Soar Gaps (Canbnage, D3). Beto. “Autnomy, Woden) and Sannin Ar Hanon Te MacCxhy an ©. Of (eh), Zero Poca Aahing (nkfon, 1967, Habeas, El eens fdr & le moleedd ara, 189) = 153 -Rambn Miz both allows citizens to develop and fulfil themselves, and consoli~ dates their control over their own development and fulfilment.2® ‘Thus the second-order property of autonomy is both desirable in itself as the power for refinement of preferences in solidarity with’ others, and also as the source of voters’ information and self-deter= mination, desirable as a decisive component of the legitimacy of organs of representation.2 Furthermore ~ and this is of paramount importance as regards delimitation of the scope of politics — deliberation necessarily involves certain procedural requisites (frecdor, equality and access to information) which transcend the political sphere to affect the whole social order and force revision of the classical liberal view of - politics as the handmaiden of economic competition. There is no doubt that in an advanced democracy the economy must be under= stood as embracing not only the production and distribution of goods and services, but as an instrument for the promotion of a much wider range of democratic values. If citizens’ wealth and income are also political resources, and are not equitably distributed, how then can citizens be politically equal? And ifthey are not polit~ ically equal, how can there be democracy. Liberty is intrinsically inseparable from equality, one of its dimensions.2 It has been suggested that, because of its economic roots and connotations, the concept of interest should be excluded from a theory of democracy aware of the creative nature of the political process.4 Others, however, have plausibly argued in favour of a concept of interest as the product, rather than the determinant, of citizens’ political activity.?5 The notion of the individual as the locus or seat of such politically created interests is an appropriate comple- ment to the republican premise that the individual requires autonomy, since recognition that autonomy is reduced by divergence between needs and preferences can direct the theory of democracy towards the design of processes ficilitating reconciliation of the two.” Furthermore, a notion of interest as the product of political ® C, Goule Rethinking Demons (Cambidge, 1988) 2G. Suntcin,‘Cousdtutons and Democrat ® RD, Demomary and it Crus (New Haven CT, 198), 28 JG. Merguion, A nant do procs. 2D, Bowles and H. Gints, Demeoay and Capon © M. Warren, ‘Democracy and Sel-Tratsformation’, Amevion Pla! Stee Reine (1992) 86 0) 2 G. Offe, Duogenzed Catal (Cambie, 1985) = 184 - On Deliberation: Rethinking Democracy a2 Politics Iself fits in with the problem of ethical self-enlightenment and eee by ey implications for the qualitative improvement of the political competence and informed autonomy of the citizen” However, the fundamental effect of considering the democratic citizen as the seat of politically created interests is to install him or her within a network of power relationships, a pattern Sfeonsensus and conflict, This viewpoint allows reformulation of the Gtherwise excessively abstract antithesis between conflic: and solidarity by taking into account that the specific benefits attaching to interests generally concern other citizens as well as the particular individual, and that they are of very diverse kinds ~ private or social material or (in a broad sense) ethical, scant or abundant. 28 And this ‘will be seen to overcome both the limitations of the liberal model of democracy, which treats all interests as materialistic and pertaining to the individual, and those of the republican model, which tends to overemphasize the existence of collective and social interests. The introduction of a constructive concept of interest into the theory of democracy recognizes both the ill-defined nature of prepolitical preferences and the need to reformulate the antithesis between solidarity and pluralism in keeping with the particular characteristics of the diverse spheres of interest and their differing tendencies to conflict or concord?” In the next section we shall see how the required constructive concept of interest arises from consideration of interest in terms of both goods and politically relevant values, and that this more complex, less one-sided approach not only embraces the political construction of interests from ill-defined prepolitical prefer- ences, but can go on to address the question of the integrational or ageregative nature of the political process involved. Consensus or Conflict? Ideology, Values and Political Culture If we are to give up the notion of exogenous interests or prepolitical preferences in favour of the concept of democracy as a deliberative process in which preferences are created rather than merely chosen 2 W. Connolly, Mouity/Difoence (ithaca NY, 1991); R. Dabl, Democracy and is Cats. 2M, Warten, Democracy and Self Transformation’ 2 J. Mansbridge, Beyond Advesiry Denercy, M. Walzer, Sphews of Jusie (Oxford, 1983); M. Warren, ‘Democracy and SelfTransformacion’ = 155 -Ramin Maiz or passively learnt, then we must alto reconsider the nature of ideology. For, rather unsurprisingly, the liberal, communitarian republican and Marxist viewpoints coincide in stigmatizing, as the product of ‘false consciousness’, ‘mere ideology’ or the ‘distortion of preferences’, any train of argument that fails to set forth the true interests of the components of society as propounded by the school in question be these the defence of individual rights and prefer ‘ences, class interests or the traditions of the community. All thrce regard any broader concept of values as a red herring that distracts attention fiom the reality of conflicting interests, The notion of democracy as deliberation, on the other hand, means that political discourse cannot be considered as merely echoing the structural interrclationships of production, communal traditions or personal preferences ‘The notion of political action as mere choice dictated by fixed prepolitical preferences reduices politics to 2 mechanism or weapon for the dispute of scant resources and the achievement of short= tezm gains; broader concepts of political value arc seen as a smoke screen concealing and confusing the Realpolitik of interests, which, are the truly meaningful determinants of choice. In contrast, the deliberative approach seeks to recover the more demanding classical idea of politics as the creation and transformation of conceptions of life and of the world, This approach postulates that it is through. politics that individuals develop and express their personal and social identities and the common good; that it is the traditions, rituals and conventions involved in their identities that allow them to achieve a coherent interpretation of the ambiguities of political life; that many political activities are defined in terms of socially current ‘myths’ and ‘symbols’ rather than material interests; and that the use of such ‘symbols’ is an essential part of political strategy, to the extent that decision-making is often constrained or determined by symbolic socio-political considerations.” In short, political action does not consist solely of choice, but abo, to a large extent, of interpretation. There are occasions on which social agents are less concemed about material results or expectations than about the processes that endow their political behaviour with meaning. The involvement of cultural, ideological and ethical references in the political construction of interests fiom specific preferences 2 J, March and J. Olson, Redioverng Inttions (New York, 1989) ~ 156 - (On Deliberation: Reshinking Democracy as Politics self associated with various kinds of benefit means that preferences axe essentially oversignified; and these ‘symbolic’ contributions cannot be treated merely 28 a decorative veneer overlying the coherent ‘material reality, but are an integral part of politics, that is, of che articulation and construction of values and interests.°! Values and symbols are neither a by-product of reality nor 2 means of concealing true interests, but are, on the contrary, the form in which interests normally arise in political discourse, @ unstable signifiers with essentially temporary meaning that form part of a permanently open, shifiing, semantic network. In view of the above, it is impossible to maintain the assumption = common to liberalism and Marxism ~ that it is ‘contradictions’ between social interests that, sooner or later, inevitably generate political antagonism. For antagonism is in fact a major dimension of the politico-ideological transformation of ‘unripe’ preferences into politically established interests incorporating values, myths and symbols. Politics, as a process of oversignification, takes precedence over inertial social processes as the basic premise of a transforma tional theory of democracy, and the imaginaire consequently emerges 2s central to the politico-ideological constitution of interests Let us look at this in more detail. No need or preference can be apprehended in isolation from its semantic context. Interests emerge as relationships between signifiers and their meanings that continually outgrow the limits of denotation as values, properties, connotations. In other words, interests have connotational meanings that are neither material nor rational entities, but images, In fact, needs and interests cannot emerge as social needs and inter- esis other than via a cultural process of transformation in which preferences and benefits are moulded into interests by being valued, revalued and organized within a system of intersymbolic relation ships. Indeed, modern rationalism itself is in this sense an image or symbol, since in Western society, more than in any other, the artifi- ial definition of needs in social terms only arises thanks to a degree of economic development that has progressed beyond the satisfac tion of basic necessities.>2 ‘The relative shift towards postmaterialist values. (euch as self expression, sense of belonging and quality of life) that is evident in 3B Lala, New Reflections on the Revlon of Our Time (London, 19). % C. Castors, Lintotionsmaginie del svi (Pais, 1975), = 157 -Ramin Méiz current Westem political culture has highlighted the metamorphosis that is slowly taking place within the civic culture of these societies, ‘There is empirical evidence that values play an increasingly central role in this process, that is, that ‘cognitive mobilization’ makes a growing contribution to political militancy. At the same sime, the delay in the successfull expression of these new preferences in the polling booth has been shown to be largely due to factors of an. equally cultural nature: the inertia of political tradition, party loyalty, cte. Thus images and symbols tend to play an ever greater role in. the active configuration of political understanding, and are hence a necessary condition for the emergence of interest. On the communitarian republican front, the problem is different. Here, the contribution of politico-ethical discourse to the construction of preferences and identities is often treated too narrowly and unilaterally: too much reliance is placed on the potential of ethical self-knowledge for the creation of solidarity, and the contribution of pluralism is underrated. This encourages an offhand attitude to the aggregative processes that are an inseparable ppart of politics, and that arc indeed essential if the external and transactional costs. of political decisions are to be kept within. reasonable bounds. More importantly, it is overlooked that the discursive construction of conscious interests from. untipe prefer- ences can and does bring about both conjunction and differentia tion; it is by no means a one-way process leading necessarily to the identification and acceptance of common interests engulfing those of the individual, but can also engender awareness of differences To be sure, it seems reasonable to admit that democratic political participation can promote substantial reorientation of prepolitical preferences towards greater solidarity and awareness of the coramon good, and that it can thereby achieve consensus where once there ‘was strife. Even when no specific agreement on common interests is reached, the habit of democratic interaction, of mutwal communi- cation among conflicting parties, nurtures a certain general sense of reciprocity®* and increases tolerance of discrepancies. But such discrepancy, such plurality, is not necessarily negligible — above all, 3 R. Inglehart, Celeure hf in danced Industrial Sooty (Princeton I, 1990), 3 E, Lackas, New Refletons, % B Barber, Stang Densoncy (Berkeley, 1984). $5 ©. Gould, Rethisking Donne. ~ 158 ~ On Deliberation; Rethinking Democracy as Polites lself because politically constituted individual identities are never composed of interests that are absolutely general; there is no under lying communal reality guaranteeing unanimous agreement on ‘Shared understandings’. Thus communication can also generate farther discrepancy, disagreement and a plurality of new differenti- ating attitudes at the same time as, in other areas, it enables the imersubjective sharing of new aspects of the general will by the community as a whole; while favouring unanimity on some issues, it ulkiplies the bounds of unanimity by facilitating the emergence of new, disjoint sets of group interests.°® The plurality of interests and values is consubstantial with politics, something that not even the most perfect process of communication and cthical self-learning could or should do away with; politics is still, as Weber put it, ‘polytheistic’, or in Nietzsche's words ‘the wrestling of gods’, however communicative the gods may be. ‘The plurality of forms of life of the modem world, the world of ‘disorganized capitalism’, ceaselessly engenders values and interests that are not of general validity, bur which are nevertheless in many cases deemed eligible for legal protection (for example, in view of cultural or social variety); in such cases the fact that conscious inter ests are politically constructed serves to check the communitarian: republican tendency to homogenization of the general will, reinforcing pluralism rather than dissolving the individual or minority in communal anonymity, The social, cultural and political pluralism originated by political participation and by the prolifera- tion of spheres of decision makes it necesary for politics to pursue both the common good and the protection of interests and values Which neither are, nor pretend to be, of general scope; which may well be controversial to the point of making consensus impossible; but which, as part of society’s cultural and political heritage, should nevertheless enjoy the safeguards emanating from acceptance of minimal rules of fair play. Democracy, ultimately, is not only about the discovery or attainment of common ground; it also involves collective recognition of the fact of social conflict, and of the consequent need to supply such conflict with appropriate institu~ tional arenas.”? ‘Recognition that, in spite of communitarian republican ideas to % M. Waker, Sper ofc 9% D. Zolo, i Piteipa Demoaatico (Milan, 1992), 99 1.6. Merguior, A nanan do pres - 159 -Ramén Maiz the contrary, the existence of a diversity of interests is an inescapable consequence of the existence of a diversity of lifestyles, means, of course, that some kind of aggregative mechanism, with all its attendant strategic activity, is necessary for political efficacy. It is the handling of practical aflairs with finite time constraints that ‘we are dealing with, not philosophical ideals, so if consensus on. certain isues is impossible then non-unanimous decisions must perforce be taken and respected. If not all political issues can await the transformation of prepolitical preferences into integrated inter. ests, this integrative process must be complemented by an aggrega- tive process; some acceptable balance must be struck between the goal of maximizing agreement and the goal of minimizing the costs of reaching such agreement, which include both the transactional costs of the decision process itself and the external costs to certain. individuals or groups that are caused by their minority position in the decision-taking process. In tur, the introduction of aggregative mechanisms and strategie behaviour means the emergence of power structures. Power strag- gles are thus a socio-political fact that cannot be definitively swept away by communitarian republicanism. A democracy is not a utopian society enjoying total intemal harmony and perfectly rational, sincere discourse, and in which power struggles and strategic political behaviour have no place; rather, it is a society in which power relationships are so structured as to favour the attain~ ment of qualitatively superior political will. The deliberative theory of democracy rejects the communitarian republican tendency 10 transfer political philosophy to the sphere of ethics, replacing it with a view of democracy as a complex synthesis of convergent and strategic political activity, of rational discussion and pursuit of individual or group preferences. And the achievement of this synthesis involves an issue shied from by aggregationists and integrationists alike: the nature of the institutions through which democratic power is wielded. But before addressing this issue in a later section, we must first look more deeply into the nature of political action and its relationship to the identity of political agents = 160 - (On Deliberation: Rethinking Demosracy as Politics eelf Political Action as Self-Definition Process In chssical accounts of politics, whether liberal, communitarian republican or Marxist, the notion of exogenous interests is closely inked with the ideal of political action as the expression of individual or group identity. For the liberalist, social action has an explicitly predefined objective, the achievement of prepolitical references for the satisfiction of completely selfdefined needs. Similarly, the communitarian republican tends to see admissible social action as the mere manifestation or execution of the nature or objective of an underlying social entity, be it the nation or a set of either vague or precise but inherently unquestionable civic values. Finally, Marxism regards social action as simply the dynamic reflection of the objective interests dividing collective subjects (the social classes) that are defined by relations of production. In each case, and in spite of other differences, the social action described is fully determined by the fixed nature of agents defined prepolitically in terms of exogenous interests. This view reduces polities, in ‘Marx’s words, to the illusory form in which conflicts are manifested that are really being waged elsewhere, on the ‘true stage of all history’ defined by the matrix of given prepolitical preferences. An immediate consequence of both liberal and Marxist expres sive views of social action is that incompatibility between pregiven preferences automatically implies political antagonism between the corresponding individuals or groups. Admittedly, in the liberal case, political dispute of limited resources is regulated by adver~ sarial institutions that manage the aggregation of preferences and limit the extent to which victorious preferences may damage the rights and ficedoms of other parties," but there is no feedback between political activity and the formation of preferences; prefer- ences strictly precede action, which is limited to a sequence of choices that are strictly dictated by the given preferences. ‘Communitarian republicanism too tends to cherish an expressive view of social action as dictated by that utopian entity the general will, which is not only identified with the ‘true’ will of the individual, but is held to emanate from an underlying unity of interests that denies any positive value to the plurality of opinion (© J, Mansbridge, Beyond Advesary Demos. ~461'-Ramin Miiz that is an inevitable consequence of diversity of lifestyle. lasical Magan ca aartaebte polial sain 65 ee ‘nda (that is, such action as is not the product of false consciousness’) ig the mere expression of class interest, the internal solidarity of the social classes being taken for granted; and politics, obcying laws following by unbending necessity from the antagonistic interests defined by the relations of production, not only makes no contri= bution to the definition of preferences," but can even afford to ignore the problem of choice Recent democratic theory, it must be admitted, shows the way beyond the expressive theory of social action and how to avoid its denaturalization of politics. Connolly” has rejected the concept ofa Rousseauian general will discovered and identified with by che individual through altruistic ethical transformation, and has instead stressed that self-government consists in che genesis of a general willl that, in general, differs from prior individual preferences, and that capacity for democratic self-determination lies precisely in the identification and awareness of chis difference. In other words, individuals define themselves and each other through political inter= action, which thereby generates interests and preferences. Certain, parts of the most overtly post-structuralist theory of discourse, Laclau's, would indeed appear to push the transmutational capacity. of social action beyond credible limits, postulating a total lack of determination, but it should not be forgotten that social action does: not take place in a vacuum; its transformations potential cannot be identified with the complete absence of structural influences, firstly because it seems difficult to deny that the feasibility of political action, and the range of possible options and arguments, must in the Jong term be subject to economic constraints, and secondly because of the inevitable institutionalization of social action by means of rules, conventions, custom, routine and procedure. Rather than by completely dissolving prior identity, democratic participation allows the transformation of political identity by developing citizens’ autonomy, that is, their capacity to exercise judgment fee from manipulation, free from coercion and free from total predetermina~ tion by group membership or postulated innate preferences. {1 R. Mie Hal Mars: de supeasin del Eado al cara de proketariado \W. Connolly, Poltial Theory and Modemity (Oxford, 1988); sd ldenity/Dilene #9 S Benhabib, ‘Avtonomy, Modemity and Community’; J. Haberms, EI dame _flosifeo de a medaidad; D. Heli, Motes of Demoouy +462 = On Daliberation: Rethinking Demorscy as Politics Itself ‘Autonomy is political self-determination understood as a capacity for interactive communication and informed judgment, and hence for a kind of political action that can generate and transform values, beliefs and second-order preferences. ‘Models of collective action such 2s those pur forward by Olson or Hardin, in which action boils down to the mechanical aggrega~ tion of prepolitical interests, are in fact disproved by empirical social science, which has repeatedly found that action is often influ- enced by cultural dicta and social norms that have crystallized from the melt of history. In other words, behaviour often derives more from a notion of what is fitting, from @ logic of appropriateness, than from rational calculation of the effects of possible alterna tives." Duty, a sense of fitness and disinterested trust are just as important a part of political motivation as rational expectations of the outcomes of decisions. Political action thus often seeks to be the appropriate expression of a certain role in a certain kind of situation, and decision on what actions are to be taken accordingly involves identification of situations and consciousness of roles and their associated obligations. In this sense, political action is frequently dictated more by a notion of what is expected than by rational calculation of expectations. And it is to a large extent citizens’ autonomous ability to accept or reject, adhere to oF deviate from, support or criticize, roles, routines and traditions that allows their individaal or collective identity, interests and values to bbe modified and moulded as the result of their political interaction. Polities is not just the arena of sctife among conflicting interests and values; by allowing, favouring and channelling citizens’ autonomy and capacity for judgment, it brings about the constitution, construction and articulation of personal and colllective identity. This theory of political action thus implies chat the political agent is himself a political construct defined, not by his static objective situation, but rather by the intrinsically provisional, continually fluctuating set of his positions on diverse issues. The political subject is in a sense an abstraction, a ‘myth’; the political agent is not uniquely determined by his prior preferences, but is instead overdetermined by his context and origin. And it is this construc- tivise concept of the political subject that unfolds the fall potential J. Elser, Sour Gnpes; R. Dahl, Contlling Nuclear Weopems Syracuse, 1985); M. Warren, (Democncy ard Se-Transformation’. ‘J. March and J. Ozon, Rediconoing intinutions - 163 =Ramin Matz of the insights contained in the republican model of democracy — in fact, the fundamental difference between the liberal and repub- lican models can be said to lie in the political subject's being treated as prepolitically defined by the former and as the locus of continu= ally mutant interests and values by the latter.4® Favouring individual autonomy and judgment, and the construc~ tion of political identity, political interaction can favour solidarity and the convergence of perceived interests and values; but, as already pointed out, it docs not guarantee this outcome. The continual rearticulation of individual and collective interests, values and identities does not necessarily lead to cooperation, but can instead engender intolerance, violence and domination of a minority by a despotic majority. It is the insight of the most socially conscious liberalism that this cannot be guarded against by faith in eventual convergence to a general will in harmony with nature; what is required is an appropriate system of institutional safeguards = first and foremost, constitutional rights and the separation of powers, Reinventing Political Institutions: Participation versus Representation? The least subtle versions of the traditional theories of democracy share a marked failure to comprchend fully the function and value of formal democratic institutions. In consonance with their view of social action, hardline liberalism and Marxism look upon democ- ratic forms as mere channels for the expression of exogenous inter- ests; any shifting of preferences in the course of the ageregative processes that ere considered to constitute the formal institutions’ role is treated as 2 strictly secondary effect. In the opposite camp, naive communitarian republicanism implies much the same relationship with the general will; while in more recent versions concentrating on the proliferations of areas of autonomous decision (Arendt's ‘new domains of public freedom’), a similarly passive view of state institutions leads to their disparagement, to the point of encouraging a kind of Staatsverdrossenheit or ‘allergy to the “© B. Barber, Stong Denaauy: C. Offe, Ditowaized Capitation; C. Gould, Rethinking enveaey, J. Dryzck, Disewsive Deronacy (Cambridse, 1990). = 164 - On Deliberation: Rethinking Demecracy as Politics itself state’7 In actual fact, contemporary research provides abundant empirical evidence that formal democratic institutions do not act merely as the neutral arena of conflict or as the aggregative machines. On the contrary, not only are they the womb in which individual and group positions, values, identities, norms and customs are conceived and defined,** but also, in Western ‘polyarchies’, the means of avoiding the instability theoretically inherent in aggregative processes. Through their formal procedures, democratic institutions are able to limit, coordinate and integrate social agents and alternatives to achieve a stability that cannot be guaranteed by purely aggregative mechanisms, Hence analysis of the social context of politics and of the individual motives of social agents must be complemented by examination of the specific efficacy of political institutions if, as dechred above, a theory of democracy as deliberation mast reconcile aggregation and integra- tion, The institutionalization of suitable democratic procedures is the key to a plausible theory of democracy, since it is institutional procedures and structures than can favour or make impossible simultaneous fulfilment of the twin objectives: the attainment of compromise among conflicting interests, and progress in conver gence towards consensus.°° Liberalism’s traditional miscrust of power and its fear of despotic majorities have achieved the establishment of institutions and proce- dures which rile out communitarian republicanism’ exorbitant aim of attaining unanimity through ethical self-understanding, and have encouraged a healthy regard for civic virtue and plurality as a defence against didactic authoritarianism.® However, awareness of the actively constructive role of the democratic institutions allows one to advance much further. To begin with, it clearly shows how artificial is the traditional antithesis between political participation and representation, since the treatment of plurality of interests in the political forum cannot be the same as in the marketplace, where 2 much wider plurality is admisible. Political deliberation implies a reduction in plurality on two accounts: on the one hand, because it does not simply help maximize the realization of independent © JG. Merquion, A nanweza de pros. 48 J March andJ. Olion, Rediscovering Institutions, © R.Dabl, Demecrcy ad is Cis, 5 A. Lijphirt, Damaaces (New Haven CT, 1984). 51 J.G. Merqtiog, A natoeza de pres, and Libaalion Old and New = 165 -Raméu Maiz prepolitical preferences, but contributes decisively to the transforma- tion and convergence of these preferences and to the institutional- ization (in law or the constitution, for example) of qualitatively improved second-order preferences; on the other, because the delib= erative construction of interests, values and decisions in the democ- ratic forum via a heterogeneous process of integration and. aggregation requires minimization of the number of possibilities to be explored in defining the general will. For both reasons, a deliber- ative theory of democracy must overcome the eighteenth century's aversion to factions and recognize political parties as essential inter mediaties between the individual and the general will, between the prepolitical preferences of the private citizen and the deliberatively constructed will of the state. Furthermore, it is not only political parties as such that are necessary for deliberative democracy and the integration and aggregation of preferences: complex societies are characterized by their plurality of lifestyles and by the wide range of social movements and intermediate or second-level associations that spring up within them for the purposes of discussion, communica- tion and decision ~ in short, for citizen associative pantcipation;>2 if this rich variety of organizations is not to lead to confusion and incoordination, but rather to assist in the cooperative construction of the general will, then mechanisms must be implemented for their adequate representation, so that they serve as stages in the overall integrative, aggregative and coordinative process, ‘The above conclusions reinforce the importance of the organiza tion of the state as the ‘pattern of politics’ (Skocpol). As de Tocqueville or Durkheim knew, the efficacy of the state ~ in the broadest sense — arises from the way in which its institutions, rules and procedures configure a certain kind of political culture, encourage the formation of certain kinds of group, facilitate certain Kinds of collective action, and sanction certain kinds of decision, And it is worth recalling that one of the sources of the efficacy of democratic institutions and procedures is simply their enforcement of a generous time scale, which favours stability at two levels: firstly, by encouraging political agents and social groups in general to take a broader view of particular situations, which can help resolve immediate conflict; and secondly, by providing frustrated “2 J. Cohen and J. Rogers, ‘Secondary Associations and Democrsey’, Palit end Soity (1993) 26 (4) 393-473, tae (On Deliberation: Rethinking Democracy as Politics Itself groups with a framework for negotiation and for recruitment of support which offers them the posibility of future success and so justifies their participation in the democratic process. This latter ‘Acentive is particularly important: the core of democratic institu tional strategy is the provision of room for all with appropriate procedural guarantees.°° Recognition of the importance of the state as institutional frame~ work guaranteeing participation as well as representation naturally demolishes liberalism, since it denies both the hardline liberal justifi- cation of democracy as pure aggregation of initial preferences and likewise denies an alternative liberal view of democracy as a sequence of changes of ruling elite (Schumpeter). But it also demol- ishes communitarian republicanism: democracy is no longer govern ment by the people, out court, but government by the people subject to certain limitations, procedures, guarantees and precommitments.*+ Democracy is not justified by its ensuring pursuit of the general will 3s fihfal reflection of an undedying harmony, but by 8 guaran ceeing participation in the integrative and aggregative construction of poten datoe ei ced ovtsl eskngeeotike Aliant tive democratic edifice is the existence ofa constitution that, striking a viable balance between participation and representation, defines a sovereignless, law-abiding constitutional state guarantecing the rights of minorities> for a constitution produced by an appropriate constituent body is the ultimate expression and abdication of a sovereign people in that, born at a time of maximum political partic ipation, awarenes and debate, it voluntarily abolishes sovereignty by limiting the powers of aif the components of the state. Henceforth, the law, for example, is not the expression of a general will reflecting an external objectivity, but simply the outcome of the political balance of power at a given moment. Recognition of the importance of democratic insticutions for a deliberative theory of democracy abo brings with it the question of their adequacy and possible reform. For although the pressure of republican arguments in favour of participative democracy has succeeded in achieving a quantitative increase in participation (for 2 A. Praeworsky, Damscaey and the Marke (Cambridge, 1991). 51 5) Holmes, “Precommitment and the Paradox of Democracy, in J, Ester and IR. aga (ed), Cartiuionalisn and Demooacy (Cambridge, 1988) 55 B. Ackerman, ‘Neo-federlism®, in J. Elser and R. Siagstad (ec), Cousttutonatsn and Demo. = 167 =Ramin Miiz example, by progressive expansion of sufftage, direct presidential elections and the generalization of procedures such as referendums or automatic prior consultation with those to be affected by projected decisions), room remains for its qualitative improvement. The limita tions of massive unstructured participation in Bligerinitiativen involving ethnic or religious minorities or sexual discrimination, for ample, has been clearly demonstrated, and derives not only from. the difficulty of determining exactly who the affected citizens are, oF from the tendency of certain forms of political pluralism to degen= erate into segregationism,*® but also from the increase in participants being accompanied by a decrease in the quality of the information and debate upon which their individual decisions are based. Condorcet’s obsession thus returns to haunt us: we must not only make rational politics democratic, but also make democratic polities rational.®” The outstanding objective is no longer to give power to the people, but to do so in such a way that the people dispose of the: information necessary for responsible exercise of power. Otherwise, the advocates of participatory democracy must sadly acknowledge that increased participation tends to be asiociated with increased manipulation of public opinion, or with increased mistrust of democ- ratic procedures, or both. In short, the participation of the masses is achieved only at the expense of rational ponderation of the subject of decision; elitism, which contradicts the principle of equality, has in practice been guarded against by promoting mast participation without regard to the quality of deliberation.°® To sum up, deliberative democracy involves the following three things: 1, politcal equality as opposed to elitism, that is, real equality that includes the removal of economic and cultural constraints preventing informed political participation:>” 2. deliberation as opposed to roughly quantitative mass participation, that is, mechanisms and customs promoting discussion leading to the maturation and integration of prepolitical preferences and to the aggregation of pluralities; 5K. Off and U. Preuss ‘Demecratc Institutions and Moral Reourees, in D. Held (ec), Potncal Theory Today (Cambridge, 1991), po. 132-65, 5°". Mii, ‘Las teoras de la democracia en la Revolucgm francesa’ Plies y Sociedad (1990) 4 23° J. Fishkin, Donooay and Delbeution (New Haven CT, 1991). 88 RDabl, Deneoacy dit Crit, = 168 = On Deliberation: Rethinking Democracy as Politics tvelf 3. institutionalized tolerance, that is, defence of minorities against majorities as the result of recognition of the former as central to the political constitution of complex, differentiated modem societies. Ensuring fulfilment of the above characteristics of qualitatively superior democracy requires not only that existing organs of Gemmoctatie representation and participation be reformed, but also the introduction of mechanisms relating traditional state institutions with the newly emerging forums of deliberation and grass-roots organization. Devices for improved construction of interests and values, for more informed, more considered citizen participation, must be designed and tried out. The secret ballot and the principle of one man, one vote must be supplemented with increased access to information and with the establishment of vehicles for informa- tion, temporalization, dialogue and debate such as deliberative opinion polls, secondary associations etc: Democracy as Politics Itself, at its Best ‘The above re-cxamination of certain feetures of politics and democ- racy stressed by the liberal and republican traditions suggests the possibility of a synthesis between these traditions in the following terms In the first place, politics is not a specific sector ot level of social life, an. activity running parallel to economic or cultural life (for example); rather, itis « distinct ontological category, the process by which society is continually constituted, society’s mise en forme Hence there is no question of politics depending on underlying elementary or natural social steuctures, subjects or interests (class or community structures, for example). Accordingly, politics — the dynamical articulation of society — ultimately takes precedence over social phenomena deriving from the existence of certain structures created in the course of history. Secondly, politics is noc the mere reflection or expression of © B Backer, Stone Demos, J. Fishkin, Demorary and Deibiraton: K. Otfe and U. Preus, ‘Democrat Insttatons ‘and Moral Resources; J. Cohen and J. Rogen, ‘Secondary Asscciatons and Democracy. ‘OC. Lelore, Ess sul polite (Par, 1986). - 169 -Ramon Matz prior preferences, but a complex open-ended process of positional articulation that simultaneously creates and enriches interests, values, identities, practices and institutions. Consequently, all these _ political products are essentially uncertain; there is no immanent or teleological necessity fixing them once and for all prior to their political constitution. Thirdly, according to deliberative theory, politics should not attempt to reproduce philosophical debate, nor ingenuously assume the existence of an underlying communality that will ensure the achievement of social concord through ethical self-enlightenment, but instead possesses both integrative and agogative aspects (in Hirschman’s terms, political activity is both voice and exif). Politics ig integrative — and hence an end in itself — insofar as it transforms. prior preferences, debates and promotes agreement on second= order preferences, and generates consensus and solidarity; it is | aggregative insofar as it must provide mechanisms for achieving: balanced, negotiated, tolerant compromise among a plurality of conflicting interests. It is this dynamical equilibrium between convergence and differentiation — between the ‘logic of identity’ and the ‘logic of difference’,°* community and pluralism, wholeness and dispersion, ctcyen and homme ~ that gives rise to the radically articulatory nature of politics in complex modera socictics, Democracy can now be seen as the very essence of politics, as an ideal of political activity, with characteristics paralleling and intensi- fying those sketched above. Firstly, democracy implies the definitive disappearance of fixed repews de ceriiude; democracy can no longer be thought of in terms of a totally unified gencral will or any other kind of predetermining entity. Neither the state, not the people nor the nation exists like 2 sort of Natugrind prior to their political construction. Consequently, fundamentalist ethnic nationalism, for example, becomes not only antidemocratic, but strictly antipolitical. Democracy is @ process in which the results depend on what the participants decide, but in which no one can control the outcome; as such it can be described as rule-governed relative uncertainty. Secondly, democracy emerges as an ideal of individual and collective self-determination, as the unceasing development of W. Connelly, Identvy/Difire: Ch. Monfie, ‘Penser la démocratie moderne’ Rome Franaive de Sion Paitque (1991) 4, 1238 © C. Lefort, Esai ur le polnique, A. Prasworsky, Denocay andthe Meret E, Laclau, [New Reflections on the Revelation of Our Tine - 170 - On Deliberaion: Rethinking Democracy as Politics self procedures and institutions that reconcile integration and their aggregation, and whose legitimacy derives both from their long- term results and ffom the participation of all citizens. This is not co advocate a purely procedural concept of democracy; for democracy to work, its formal characteristics must be realized in terms of the ongoing struggle for satisfaction of substantive demands. Democracy js thus @ model to be striven towards, an unattainable guiding paradigm of liberty, equality, tolerance, plurality and solidarity in which democratic procedures are at one with values deriving from the procedures themselves. The democratic process requires real equality, the equality of all citizens the sources of the demands that ic must satisfy — as regards material and communicational conditions under which they participate in this process, which must accord~ ingly possess more than what Hofstadter referred to 28 a slight social democratic tinge. Democracy, by its very nature, grows; unceasingly seeks the qualitative maturation of the concept of citizenship; removes, rather than merely identifies with, social, economic and cultural issues. Democracy promotes political activity for the constructive re= definition of collective identity within limits imposed by rights guaranteeing plurality of lifestyle. Democracy, in short, is a never- ending process of democratization: politics at its best.=H (— On ‘Postmodern’ Scepticism RAYMOND BOUDON J. G. Merquior was one of the few people who looked with competence, gentlemanly detachment and irony to modem intel- lectual movements.! He was a critical mind in the best sense. He belonged to the few true unbelievers, who are always convinced of four things. First, that the social world is too complex to follow a simple theory. Second, that a complex world generates « need for simple theories. Third, that the role of intellectuals is to be critical against simplism. Fourth, that intellectuals are as likely, however, to contribute to the consolidation as to the criticism of received ideas: the irahison des clers would be a normal phenomenon. In one of his last papers,? he elaborated brilliantly on the irrationality of modern culture, raising the question of whether the kind of humanism proposed by postmodern thinkers should be regarded as ‘historical’ or rather as ‘hysterical’ Our friendship came probably in part from the fact that Parcto's question ~ why do people believe so casily in the unbelievable? — seemed to the two of us one of the most intriguing and challenging philosophical and social-scientific questions +). G. Merquion, Fawande (London: Foouna, 1985); Westem Marxism (London: Paidin, 1986); Pom Prague te Par: A Citiqu of Smactualt and Pustsouctualit Thought (London: Verso/NEB, 1986). in Quest of Medera Culure: Hysterical or Historical Humanism’, Crtial Review (1991) §: 399-420, (A Teenie delivered by Merquioe atthe Gould Center fer Humanistic Saadies, Claremont MeKenna College, Califomia, on 20 September 1938.) - 173 -Raymond Boudon In a nutshell, he made the point in his essay about humanism that modern culture, in the sense of the set of current intellectual productions treated as ‘new’, ‘important’, ‘path breaking’ in the fields of literary criticism, philosophy, the social sciences notably, are all characterized by two features: they (rightly) defend humanism; they (wrongly) claim that, to this effect, Protagoras’s formula ‘man is the measure of all things’ should be taken literally: all men, groups of men, ‘cultures’ and ‘subcultures’ not only are habilitated to have their own truth on all questions, but they can chim there is no trath of higher rank. Objectivity is a myth; the very notion of universality an illusion. That such a view can lead to endorse ‘hysteria’ is evident: in such circumstances, why not 2 Nazi or Stalinist erath? Foucault excellently illustrates this mixture of nihilism and culturalism, so characteristic of postmodernist thinking: the Kathedernihilismus? that he advocates brilliantly may explain his success: cach historical phase is 2 more or less coherent cultural whole: Structuralisme oblige. But as such, it is ‘arbitrary’ and unintel= ligible. Cultures cannot be ranked in value. Nor can historical eras. Cultures cannot be explained by one another. Nor can historical periods. Thus, the age of Representation, say, was to him, as the cra of History, a cultural whole, As such, it was unexplainable. Ie could only be explored as a whole in its structural coherence. Generalized and radicalized holism and nihilism go here tightly hand in hand. In this chapter, I will take some examples to illustrate this postmodern intellectual convergence towards nihilism and cultur- alism, Then, I will ask whether we need to believe in these ‘postinodern’ theories, in spite of their tremendous influence and of the fact that, in direct contradiction to their own conclusions, they are presented as the Aufiebung of — that is, as surpassing and destroying — all previous theories. Finally, I will explore the question of the sociological reasons for their audience. i iergior’ Font as randared int French under the le Fouad ou line - 174 - (On Postmnedera Scepticism The Postmodern Consensus Its general features ‘One of the most interesting features of the intellectual life of our time is effectively the broad consensus in many intellectual circles on a set of going-without-saying ‘truths’. For example, that value statements cannot possibly be objective; that they are always social illusions. More generally, that any theory, either normative or positive, is always ‘conventional’ in the broad sense of the word for the ‘convention’ is in most cases interpreted as the outcome of a mutation-selection process rather than of an explicit agreement, That all belie& should be explained by the context, never by their objective validity. Generally, thet any statement of type “K is true’, ‘Kis right’, ‘X is bad’, *X is wrong’, etc. should be considered as a shorthand version of ‘X is considered true (tight, bad, wrong) in context C’. Bar Hillel’s notion of indexicality* should be extended (o all statements. This conventionalist view is certainly relevant for some state- ments, sets of statements or rules. Thus, the rules of politeness in use in a given society are context-dependent, though they can serve the general purpose of facilitating social interactions. The difficulty is that, according to postmodern theorists, ‘convention- alism’ should be considered as explaining any type of attitudes, rules or beliefs: what we consider as good, true, beautiful or attractive would never be objectively good, true, attractive or beautiful, but merely perceived as such by the effect of local social ‘conventions’. This view contradicts our immediate experience: we tend to see cour value judgments as grounded in the objects to which we apply them. We think that we experience a moral action as good or a work of art as great because they are so. In contradiction with this experience, postmodern thinkers teach us that a work of att is never objectively great. The fact that a social actor at a given time in a given context believes X or Y should be exclusively explained by the features of his social context. A corollary from this postmodernist Vulgate is that the discipline Auguste Comte had placed at the top of his hicrarchy of sciences, + 'Y, Bar Hill, ‘Indexicl expresions’, Mind (1954) 63: 359-79. ans +Raymond Boudon that is, sociology (in modern parlance: ‘sociology’ plus ‘anthro- pology’) has ~ with biology ~ a vocation:* to become, not only the queen of all human sciences, and che postmodem science par excel. lence, but the only ‘real’ science. Epistemology, morals, aesthetics, philosophy, psychology and many other disciplines that were tradi tionally cultivated in the long premodern and modern eras, from. Plato to Foucault exclusively, say, are condemned by postmodernist thinkers, since they all start from the view that sometimes we believe that something is true or beautifil because it is so and that we can explain why it is so. ‘According to Feyerabend, epistemology is an_ illusion® Anthropology is the only’ discipline able to talk seriously about _ science. It looks at scientists exactly as it should: in the way anthro= pologists look at the Azande, that is, just trying to understand why what they do, think, or believe has a meaning for them, given their social context. No anthropologist would come to the idea of holding Azande beliefs as truc. By contrast, epistemologists come t0 scientists with the wrong a priori belief that truth and objectivity do exist. To Feyerabend, substituting anthropology for episte- mology has the effect of liquidating a modem illusion to the benefit of a postmodem truth. The most advanced and consequential postmodem theorists have even proposed annexing to sociology the natural sciences themselves, substituting the expresion ‘social natural sciences’ for ‘natural sciences’? For, if all statements of the form ‘X is right’, “X is good’, etc. are socially indexed, why would not physics or chemistry, say, be socially indexed? The special case of the hard sciences It may be harder, however, to endorse this relativism in the case of science than, say, of art. This explains why the socio-anthropology of science is a basic dimension of postmodemist thinking and probably its most active and spectacular branch: to postmodem nihilists, science was certainly the territory hardest to conquer. This intrinsic difficulty perhaps explains why the socio-anthropology of Science is definitely of higher intellectual quality than, say. the 2 As Rory tin nner oh Fe eon end on? March 90 «i Rpenant gn aed Qo NUD) 7 HL Boalon an'G. Raney, Di mga Zadar Ue Gen Duncker & Humbolt, 1991). i — 176 ~ ‘On Posimodern Scepticism postmodem sociology of art or law. ‘Showing’ that scientific truths are social illusions implics not only a familiarity with che hard sciences, but a definite sophistication in the argumentation. In this case, the audience has to be convinced, while in other cases, it is sufficient to grind the prayer-miill: it has always been considered by many people as going without saying, well before postmodernism developed, that moral beliefs, say, are social illusions. Pascal and before him Montaigne had already suggested that they are culturally indexed, To a Pascal, though, only particular types of moral rules ~ our ‘folkways’ — are conventional. Marx himself stressed the point that legal norms are determined externally to a limited extent. But postmodernist thinkers ignore Marx or Nietzsche and paraphrase rather the Nietaschean or Marxian Vulgate.* The only serious diffi= culty that postmodernism was confronted with, as far as moral or aesthetic values are concemed, was to put the old wine in new — postmodern — bottles Bringing the hard sciences to the common nihilistic fate was more challenging. But postmodern thinking could take benefit from the fact that the operation was already unwillingly started by Popper. There are no true scientific theories, taught Popper, only provisionally non-filse theories. So, with Popper, science had already Jost a part of its aura. But his ‘critical rationalism’ aimed at making rationalism stronger by making it critical. Popper tried to find a clear-cut demarcation line between science and the other cognitive activities. Metaphysics, he contends, is legitimate and meaningful, but it is, by its very estence, different from science: while scientific theories can be shown false, metaphysical theories cannot. But the main teaching of Popper that was retained i that, properly speaking, there can be no scientific truths. Kuhn? went one long step further: no discussion between paradigmas can be conclusive. The choice between alternative theories is always subjective, grounded in such criteria as elegance, etc. Progress is not less real in science than in art or philosophy, but it is noe more real either. For the necessary and sufficient condition for a feeling of progress to appear is that a given activity goes on for a while in a stable framework. Reciprocally, there can be no "ce Fenty and Renaut oa the influence ofthe Nictachean and Mersian Vulzates on postmodernism (L. Fery and A. Renaut, Le pesé 68 (Paris: Galimard, 1985). T. Kuhn, The Sinctn of Ssente Revolutions (Chicago Univenicy of Chicago Press, 1982) -177 -Raymond Boudon progress from one paradigm to another: they are incommensurable, Thus, not only science but, say, Aristotelian philosophy or baroque sculpture can give — and actually give ~ the impression of being capable of progress. By contrast, philosophy certainly cannot: for ‘philosophy’ is a polysemic notion covering heterogeneous activi« tics conducted in incommensurable frameworks. Briefly, the difference between science and art or philosophy does not derive from the fact that the former would be capable oF Progress, but from the fict that several styles or frameworks tend to coexist at the same time in art, the social sciences or philosophy, while a dominant paradigm tends to be present in science. Why is the situation monopolistic on one side, oligopolistic on the other? Don't ask, Feyerabend went still further,"° The very impression that the natural sciences are capable of progress would derive ftom an ‘epistemological illusion’. We perceive Aristotelian physics as inferior to Galilean: it is not. We have only the illusion that the latter is better because, under the effect of « mythical history of science, we have retained exclusively the questions successfully answered by _ Galilean. physics but not by Aristotelian physics, and occulted the questions answered by the latter and not by the former. Science, claims Feyerabend, is a system of beliefS ncither better nor more objective than, say, religious belief. The same topic was taken up _ by Habner.!! Myths offer explanations which cannot legitimately be considered less valid than those proposed by science. A French ‘anthropologist of science’, B. Lazour,"? went to what is possibly the end of this nihilistic path: not only can the same scien tific “ficts’ be explained in many incommensurable ways, but facts themselves should be considered as (meaningfal social) illusions: they are mere constructs treated ~ provisionally or more definitely 2s facts by scientists. In other words, scientific facts are nothing else than the artificially produced data that scientists consider as facts. Once this theory is accepted, the traditional problem as to why, say, the abstract and mathematized theories developed by physicists core. spond to the world is easily solved, since there is no reality ‘out there’ which would be different from the picture science produces of it, So, the coincidence between reality and science is necessarily 10 Agsiat Mathod 11K. Hiabnet, Die Walnet des Myo (Manic: Beck, 1985). "2 B. Latour, Siew in Acion(Mikon Keynes: Open Univeniy, 1987) - 178 - On Postmodern Scepticion it ion, Latour may be joking;!> or he may be eer ey ee Be, voyond dove, if it were true, it would bring to an end the paboert of knowl as developed by Plato, Descartes, Hume or Kant. Bet ae tena differences, postmodern thinkers all agree ‘on one point: that the only serious intellectual enterprise about science, once the ‘illusions’ developed by epistemology or the philosophy of knowledge have been dissipated, remains to describe scientists and their beliefs in the way Evans-Pritchard described the beliefs of the Azande. According to our postmodern Protagoras, the subculture represented by, say, such and such laboratory, scientific community or scientific network is the measure of all scientific “uth. a Needless to say, many philosophers of science have presented convincing criticisms against these views. But the intriguing sociolog- ical fact is that they did not succeed in receiving much attention. ‘Why is that so? I leave aside this question, the red thread of this chapter, for a moment and go on with my review: Most soft sciences ave affected by postmodern nihilism Postmodern radical scepticism has become the dominant style, not only of the sociology-anthropology of the hard sciences, itself a soft science, but of all soft sciences. It is not difficult to provide in this respect a long list of symptoms, all going in the same direction ‘Once upon a time, literary criticism started from the view that it was possible to argue objectively about the best interpretation of a text, Spinoza had fixed this programme when he claimed that, when two passages of the holy texts look contradictory, it is advis- able to introduce the postulate that it is possible to reconcile them. This classical principle has disappeared to the benefit of the postmodern conception according to which the meaning of any text would always be a creation on the part of its reader. Hence the duty of postmodern writers: be obscure, since the greater the obscurity of the writer, the greater the freedom of his readers. ‘Mes vers ont le sens qu’on leur préte’, P. Valéry once said. This principle has been generalized to all texts by postmodern literary 9 As Amsterdarnsta sogsests (O. Amsterdamska, ‘Sarcly You Are Joking, Monsieur Latour, Scone, Tedielegy and Haman Value (1990) 15 4): 195-504) - 179 -Raymond Bowdon critics, and notably by ‘deconstructiviss’: the notion that a text can. have an objective meaning is social ilhusion, Exit iterary criticism; enter the socio-anthropology of literature. a These postmodem ideas are a8 old as the world, however: Benda labelled them ‘byzantinism'™ and claimed rightly chat byzantinism, has been a permanent intellectual tradition, notably in France, Evidently, it is not true that literary texts have generally no objective meaning It can be shown, even in the case of the most esoteric poems,'* that one interpretation can, in principle at least, be considered as better than another. But, as in the case of the philos= ophy of science, these objections were not heard. Curiously enough, although postmodern sceptics, from Feyerabend to Rorty, tell us that socio-anthropology is the only credible source of knowledge, sociology itself is far from preserved from postmodem radical scepticism, This can be seen in the example of Lepenies.!” This German historian of the social sciences has an impressive factual knowledge of 2 number of European intellectual movements. Epistemologically, he is a ‘positivist’ in the | sense of the word current among historians: the only way of avoiding value judgments is to place all facts on an even level Lepenies’ ‘positivism’ seems rather to be taken from the Zeiteesy, however. For this reason, he represents in himself an interesting symptom. His writings on the history of classical sociology devote no attention whatsoever to the fact that Tocqueville, Weber or Durkheim discovered, if not final, a least solid and valid explana- tions of many phenomena: the religious exceptionalism of the USA, the uneven development of agriculture in eighteenth century Europe, the differential rates of suicide, etc. These classical theories, which are a$ ingenious and solid as naturalscientific theories, are simply ignored by Lepenies, probably because, to him, his ‘positivism’ notwithstanding, genuine explanations and theories should be treated at illusions, How otherwise may we explain that hhe retains essentially from Weber, Durkheim and the others, the 4 J Benda, La Fone Byzantine (Pasi: Gallimard, 198) 1; SR Fomni Mladen Bei ere ai SEDES, 190 1adem literary criciem ie represented not only by deconsrictvtm but alo by atc bnchn ee A Pom, anh ae gf pd po ops ot Roblot, 198), and Le Sw Raine de Rola Bar (Pars: SEDES, 1988); and eater, R Pre Naeem nal pte ate, 1568) i ponies, Benen Leute and. Saou: The Re 9 0 Cambs Univeity Pre, 198) rea peewny soar ope! ~ 180 - ‘On Postmadem Scepticism it much originality. topics on which they appear as rewording withou y. pics of the current ideological, social philosophical and emotional to these time? At any fate, he ignores their Cognitive achievements and opealy stresses the fact that their scientific ambitions should be considered as obsolete and even ridiculous. epenies is not only a symptom of the prereflexive radical scepti- cjsm of our time. He also brings it unwillingly eo an end, since, orth him, even the queen science ~ sociology — is treated as an illusion. So, like the hard sciences themselves, the social sciences should be treated as illusions as soon as they pretend to serve a cognitive function, They must be treated as meaningful beliefs, as cultural products, not different in their essence from mythical oF religions Pokefs Elowever, as in the case of the natural sciences, this scepti~ cism is contradictory with regard to the most evident hard facts {hat the social sciences can produce and have actually produced hard knowledge. So, to cite examples taken from my own immediate intellectual environment, a brilliant dissertation recently presented at the resolutely not postmodern Sorbonne proposes 2 Ponvincing theory of the religious exceptionalism of Quebec before the Révolution tranguille, Another one explains why Bolivia was politically more unstable than other Latin-American countries.18 ‘And these are only examples. I take them only to suggest that not just Tocqueville or Weber but doctoral students too continuously produce in some plices genuine contributions to knowledge, Another symptom worth noticing of the rampant radical scepti- cism that characterizes our time is that the classical and crucial distinction between opinions and ideas seems to have disappeared altogether. We remember the name of Hume ~ this is at least my {guess ~ because he offered important contributions to knowledge: for example, when he claimed the logical impossibility of induction. We recall Kant’s name because he brought a major contribution to the theory of knowledge when he contended that we approach reality through mental frameworks; or to the theory of moral feeling when he claimed that values cannot be reduced to interests. The two ideas have been indefinitely modulated and they have inspired a number not only of philosophers but psychologists (uch 18 M, Bhi, Natoalime et Calico au Canada fangs (Pars: Unive of Pas- seston 95a) Je. Lava L'hsaitePoleque de ?Antaigue Late, ec dea Bele (Pans: Harman, 1991) - 181 -Raymond Boudon as the Gestalt psychologists) and sociologists (such as Simmel and Weber). We remember Tocqueville's name because he has explained American exceptionalism or the differences between French and British societies at the end of the eighteenth century by theories which have never been invalidated. All have offered ideas (that is, statements with a real or potential objective validity) and not opinions (that is, statements interesting only to the extent that they are related to a given person or context) Although I do not want to elaborate on this point, the very notion of ‘classics’ refutes the historicist view according to which the value of a contribution ~ to art, science, etc. — would be relative to the values of the observer. My guess is that the ‘classics? are those who have brought an objectively valid contribution in their field of activity. Simmel made implicitly the same point, when he devised ways of ‘measuring’, almost in a L2zarsfeldian style, the importance of their contributions." Contradicting these observations, however, is that the history not only of sociology, but of all social and human sciences, including philosophy, tends to be written in the doxographic mode: as though Hume, Kant, Tocqueville, Durkheim or Weber had merely had opinions on the world.*° ‘The hard and soft sciences are not the only activities to be treated by postmodern sceptics as exclusively able to produce socially meaningful illusions. For sceptics of the first degree, legal norms should be considered as inspired exiusively by the ‘weight’ of custom; for sophisticated radical sceptics following a Marxist inspi- ration, they should be treated as a means more or less consciously used by the ‘dominant clas’ to consolidate its power. In this latter ‘case, scepticism uses in a radicalized fashion insights borrowed from the Enlightenment by Marx, as Nisbet rightly saw.2! But Marx was well aware of the autonomy of law, as of science.2? Social factors can explain their birth, he claimed: but once bom, they tend to become autonomous. While to modem sceptics, lw — as well as science or morals ~ should be held as a cultural product exdusively ' G. Simmel, The Problems of the Pulbsopiy of History (New York: The Free Pres 1970, 2 R. Boudon, ‘Comment erie Visor des sciences sociales’ Communiations (1992) 34: 299-317. 21 R. Nisbet, The Sodolagal Trulton (Glsneoe UL: The Free Press, 1966) % LK. Metton, Social Thory and Soda Sucre (Glencoe IL: The Free Press, 1964) = 182 - 1 Scepticism reflecting various anonymous forces emitted by each singular culture. The same sceptical mood can be easily detected in the field of aesthetics. As scientific beliefs, aesthetic values are treated as social illusions: they would have no objective correlates. A significant writer in this respect is H. Becker.** In a nutshell, the main idea of his renowned book is that aesthetic values should be analysed as the effects of the social influence of the networks building up what he calls the ‘art worlds To illustrate Becker’s theory by an example less esoteric than those he uses himself. in the USA after the Second World War, Mozart was considered as much less important than Beethoven. ‘This is not the case now. This spatio-temporal variability in the aesthetic judgments would ‘show’, following Becker, that they are not objective. Otherwise, aesthetic rankings would be irreversible. On the other hand, these rankings cannot be treated as subjective, that is, as depending on personal idiosyncrasies. Otherwise, they would not be treated by the art lover in the ‘going-without-saying’ mode, nor would it be meaningful to argue about these value hierarchies. So, the only theory that can take these various facts into account and bring them together is the theory that sees aesthetic rankings as grounded in social, intersubjective reasons. But who is going to influence these social evaluations? Becker's answer: the networks of experts and decision-makers belonging to the ‘art worlds’. So, the social networks should be held as the measure of all things. Becker does not satisfy himself, however, with saying that Leonard Bernstein or Sony have the power of influencing, say, the consumption of Mozart records: an acceptable statement. They would also fix the relative musical value of Mozart here and now. This value would be a social illusion: while it is merely a social secretion of the activity of the music worlds, itis perceived by the public as objective, that is, as an attribute of Mozart's. music itself. However, the causal influence of the networks postulated by the theory is often contradicted by data,* showing that the objective value of art works is also responsible for the preferences of the public. © HL 5, Becker, At World: (Berkeley: Univesity of California Pres, 1982) 3 DM. Menger, (Voreile spéculative, consommation et perception de la musique contemporaine’, Revie france de Sniolegie (1985) 27 (): 445-79. — 183 -Raymond Bowdon ‘As Feyerabend proposes to forget epistemolo, Te ere Aesunics| Cation hereag tee ie ee worlds’. As many radical sceptics, Becker sees his own contribution as a proposal (o treat aesthetic facts in a sober, genuinely scientific fashion wie sie eigentlich sind, as they really are, by contrast with the philosophers, who would approach them with heavy a prioris, and also with the public itself, who would naively think Mozart's value to bea propery of Moras wots a whole, Becker’s work illustrates in ical ioeintemridsenee ste sate ae « nihilism: values are fictions; « sociologism: values are socially produced: © culturalism/historicism: values are a secretion of the relevant social context, here and now; « anthropology: the queen of sciences; « traditional approaches (aesthetics, etc.): worthless and obsolete: «« the vocation of anthropology: demystifying illusions m In Spite of Postmodernism, Life Goes On This influence and audience reached by postmodernist radical scepticism is a puzaing social phenomenon. In spite of the ‘postmodernist’ reflection on science, science appears 25. ever growing and its rapid progress is in evidence. So, the dominant style of the reflection on science seems to have nothing to do with science. (This is not to say that scientiss are not occasionally attracted by this sceptical philosophy of science.) The ‘postmodemist’ reflection on art also contradicts many undebatable facts. Artistic values, we are told, are mere illusions, mere conventions between the members of the art worlds. The networks can undo tomorrow the glories that they fabricate today. ‘An alternative version of this radical scepticism about art can be summarized by a single word: snobbery. The works held to be great are those that the upper class considers and treats a5 symbols of distinction. Aesthetic values would be mere illusions. Veblen, Bell and others long ago elaborated on the ides that artisic ‘tastes’ can offen be explained by the latent function of = 184 = (On Postmodern Scepticism social identification which they fill. Thus, the uselessness of English gardens symbolizes the economic surplus that upper class members can afford to waste: gardens represent @ symbol of class- belongingness. But Veblen, and Bell and Simmel,2° who also develops the idea that ‘tastes’ can have a function of social identifi- oion, were very specific on one point: that snobbery can certainly Got explain aesthetic values themselves. Snobbery explains the ‘musical tastes of the snobs, says ‘Simmel, not of the connoisseur. So, Te Simmel, aesthetic valucs are objective. Otherwise, there would be no connoisseurs, nor any distinction between snobs and connoisseurs, which contradicts the most evident sociological observations. ‘This objectivity is as evident as the existence of scientific truths. ‘That Beethoven, Debussy, Messiaen and others have created a new language, new combinations of sounds, rhythms not heard before them, musical forms that had not been used previously, is a hard fact, able to satisfy the most ‘positivist’ historian. The fact that nobody had painted in the way Manct or Toulouse-Lautree did, or that, by so doing, they were able to express subjects that had not been expressed before them, is in the same way a hard fact. The fact that Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 111 or Messiaen’s Quartet Pour a fin du temps are lasting sources of emotion for those who are prepared to taste these works is also a hard fact. In his Le Nausée, Sartre legitimated the idea that going to a concert is motivated by snobbery. This can be the case. But it is difficult to see on what grounds the emotions people claim they experience could be freated by the observer 2 illusions. Unfortunately, this abuse is frequent. As Wittgenstein disliked the idea that primitive people could believe in ideas he himself considered to be stupid, he decided unilaterally that they did not believe what they chimed Guite explicitly they believed2? As the belief in magic are hard fhcts, so are aesthetic emotions, however. Treating them as arbitrary is illegitimate. ‘On the whole, postmodem theories of art fall at a stumbling block: they disregard evident facts, such as the lasting power of 25-7, Veblen, The Theory ofthe Leisure Clint (New York: Mentor, 1960); Q. Bell, On ‘Hwan iver? (Loran: Hogarth, 1976), 26-G. Simmel, The Philosophy of Money (Henley: Transaction Books, 1978). 2 L. Wiugerstein, ‘Bemertungen Ober Frazer+ The Golder Boul’. Syaese (1967), 17: 238-53. — 185 -Raymond Boudon emotion contained in ‘great’ art works, or that some artists are considered as classics, Postmodern sociologists of art are unable to explain a simple sociological fact: why so many plays by Ibsen, Shakespeare and Moliere are permanently played around the world, ‘The same contradiction can be observed between moral feel as they are and postmodem thinking about morak. To some postmodern theorists of moral phenomena, morals, as legal norms, are in last instance a way used by the ‘networks’ or by the ‘dominant class’ to maintain their power, We live in a selfish world and morality has to be analysed as 2 social hypocnsy hiding egoistic interests. To other postmoder thinkers, morals would simply not exist any more: in the postmodern world, morality would be a purely private concern, ‘These views also stumble over hard facts. How are they compat- ‘ble with, say, the feeling of indignation normally experienced by any directly unconcerned observer who sees an old lady being robbed of her handbag? None of the current sceptical theories about moral feelings can explain this fact. Or take the present French political situation (in the spring and summer of 1992): surveys have shown that, for the sake of realism, many people normally accept a considerable amount of corruption among polite ical men. But people have little tolerance of cynicism: do take advantage of your political position to get a more comfortable way of life, but don’t pretend that you are innocent or above the common law. And is not a feeling of indignation normally experi- ‘enced, even by unconcerned people, when a crime remains unpun- ished? Does not courage still normally give birth to a positive evaluation, even from those who receive no ‘external’ benefit from ie? All these facts are not only hard facts, they are so trivial that one has to excuse oneself for mentioning them. Sometimes, postmodem theories about morals are indirectly sceptical, as when they see the positive evaluation of punishment either as a manifestation of a primitive instinct for revenge or, in the utilitarian fashion, as coming from an indirect concern of social subjects for their safety. Even if it were shown that panishment has no effect on the frequency of a type of crime, punishment would Still be required by the public. Classical sociology, notably through the voice of Durkheim, has seen clearly that the utilitarian as well as the ‘revenge’ theories contradict a number of easily observable data. In summary, current postmodem theories on a number of ~ 186 - (On Postmodern Scepticism subjects — art, science, morals, ete. — appear to contradict many ie Popperan criteria should fad @ ther sejetion - Bot - yas shown by Duhem and others, that even scientists m2 ee ctu ro Foe wp dieuies ieamly Conmaticted by data ie the absence of a better theory, they can always hope oe ae arrangements would increase the ae Pees eee 1d. But, to survive, the theory must ic es if it is extrinsically debatable, must be a acceptable. In other words, disregarding its ur with ee world, its statements should appear ae i erwise, Durkheim excuses cannot be evoked. Pie Oetnodem theosc are ot only very wealeextnvialy Gacompatible with obvious data), they are also intrinsically. very debatable. We Do Not Need to Believe in Postmodern Theories will now suggest ~ in a summary fashion, since I have dealt exten- ie with thi point elsewhere”* — that we do not need to believe the postmodern sceptics. Their theories are sometimes interesting, unsophistical for many of them, but ako unacceptable im the sense that the strength of their conclusions depends not only on their explicit arguments but also on implicit, unacceptable ones, { will fake some examples fiom the sociology of science, since, a Thave already mentioned, this discipline has produced theories that are generally of a far pie quality than, say, the postmodernist sociology of art, law or morality. (i) Hibner makes the point that mychs can be held as te as scientific theories Why? Because any scientific "ruth! depends on all kinds of principles that we cannot tet. Otherwise, they wou! not be principles and we would have to ground them on other principles, etc. Even the observation of hard facs depends on procedural rules that cannot be entirely legitimated (because they rest on ultimate postulates). Thus, a scientific truth depends on ! kinds of untestable and untested statements. Science is a particular language game. We play it. It is obviously interesting, But nothing tells us thar it can bring us closer to an eventual truth chan any % Bouton, ‘Comment écrc insite des knees sci 2 K. Hibner, Die Wale de Mythos ~ 187 -Raymond Bowdon other. The positivist model used by science is one explanatory model; mythical stories are another. As the ‘two rest upon undemonstrable principles, they are incommensurable, Hence, there would be no difference in validity between myths and scien- tific theories. We believe there is a difference because we live in a ‘disenchanted world’, to use Weber's (and Balzac’s) vocabulary. But ‘we must be aware that even technical success is in no way a sign that scientific theories picture the world as it is wally: my watch is mechanical though 1 think it is clectronic; this invalid theory does not prevent me from using it in a ‘technically’ correct fashion. All these arguments have always been known. The novelty is that they are used to defend a radically sceptical view. Popper, for instance, had stressed against the Vienna Circle that there are no genuine facts, All registered facts depend on some theory. But that a fact depends on a theory does not mean that it has no realty, that it is not objective. Actually, Hibner’s argument cests in large part upon the ambiguities of the expression ‘depends upon’ (hinge davon a¥). T ask you a question. Your answer ‘depends on’ my question in the sense that without the latter, you would not have answered it. But this certainly does not mean that the content of your answer ‘depends on’ my question. Has he commited a crime? Yes, he has The pronoun ‘he’ refers to the same person in the question and in the answer. In that sense, the answer ‘depends on’ the question. But the fact that you answered ‘yes’ rather than ‘no’ evidently does not depend on the question. The whole argument developed by Hibner rests finally on the implicit priori: ‘depends on’ = “is affected by’. Sophism? It is junnecesiaty to introduce this assumption, which is even unlikely. Few people would spend the cncrey mobilized by the writing of a 500 page book when they know they develop sophisms. A more appealing hypothesis is that Hibner has been a victim of the above linguistic equation: because it is often valid, he implicitly treated it 28 going-without-saying, Q) I mentioned carlicr the notion of “epistemological illusion’, as developed by Feyerabend:*° we have the feeling of a progress from Aristotelian to Galilean physics, say, because our collective memory has forgotten the problems solved within the Aristotelian but not within the Galilean fiamework. % P. Feyerabend, Asuins Method — 188 — On Postmoder Scepticiom argument shows that Feyerabend endorses a going-without- sm eae a, tes definition of the idea of Progress: thecry ‘Tr is better than T; if and only if oe eee ae represent concentric circles, the Seem eee fe Eicokecs byitoibeing oe in the larger (the circle representing the facts explained by 7). This definition is the simplest and probably move current one, But others are morc satisfactory in the sense that - ee correlates of the objective situations that normally, ‘provol a is sf progress. Science consists not only in explaining new ae Sse in clnfying concepts, creating new physical beings toch molecule), inventing new hperieey ae eatin ae Sear aln appear in the socal sciences: Whigensein’s ot LEV- Bruhls theones of magic are unsitsfictory not because ates contradict inrecusable data, but because they contain statements that 3 otier won bus ofthe rape cearal argmneats dexeloped.iy Feyerabend rests upon a very particular definition of the notion of progress, namely the strictly empirical one. If other definitions are snroduced, his conclusion is invaded. As in the previous case it is not necessary to aoa ee ee eos te atte e fact that besides statements, Aer clade lami anement that he endorsed without paying attention to them, because they seemed to him as going- out-saying. “o ‘The satin analyitcem Hedeweloped sit ua i Qneab his mot central arguments that when scientists ar in the process of choosing between concurrent theories, they consider not only abjecive criteria, such asthe ses of fics respectively explained by the theories, bu also subjective criteria suc a clegunce, simplicity, ete. Kuhn proves this conclusion with the help of imecuable historical data. Thus, given the ate of knowledge at that time, the seyuments used by Prissey for ~ and by Lavoisier gaint — the Phlogiston theory appear equally convincing, nd ss 2 mintare of subjective and objective angumens. And this seems to be tue of any discussion of the same type. This observation convine » Ibid ef 27, Kalb, Th Suc of Seni Revaatio = 189 -Raymond Boudon that, by contrast with the philosophy of science, the history of ‘cine wal eee ese eae ae In fact, the historical studies conducted by Kuhn were not indis pensable: as long as a discussion on a subject between two well informed people lasts, this means ~ by definition — that no objec tively valid arguments have yet been found to support one theory against the other. But often, such arguments will be found after a while and the discussion will stop: Kuhn fails to see that what is true in the short min can be file in the long run. That the arguments used by Lavoisier and Priestley were equally convincing at the time of the discussion does not mean that scientists make up their minds on the basis of subjective arguments. But only that this can be true in the short run, Here again, the whole argument is spoiled by implicit ‘going- withour-saying’ statements: wit is true in the short run is also mae: in the long run; the reasons developed by Priestley and Lavoisier are more ‘real’ than the reasons reconstructed by the philosophy of science, etc. In a word, we do not need to believe that science is unable to reach objective knowledge. The arguments developed by _ postmodem thinkers are often sound and grounded on valid data, but their conclusions are affected by implicit statements. Ie should also be noticed that these implicit arguments occasion- ally introduce ‘premodern’ assumptions, such as the empiricist definition of progress used by Feyerabend. Postmodern thinkers are all aware of the pitfalls of language. Rorty says?? that modern philosophy is a philosophy of language, whereas premodern philos- ophy was a philosophy of representation. All postmodernists revere the ‘second’ Wittgenstein, the author of Philosophical Investigations Still, in their analyses, they often fail to take into account the complexity of the relationship between the language and the world: in their discussion, neither Kuhn nor Feyerabend pay any attention to the fact that the notions of science, progress, etc. cannot be as easily defined as the notion of chair, for instance. Postmodern thinkers have actually ‘discovered’ an old thing: the daily history of science. They have promoted it to the status of History of science with a capital H, because, in a very premodem fashion, they are ultra-cmpiricists; what is real is what can be observed hic et nunc, Thus, the arguments exchanged by Lavoisier See note 5, = 190 = On Postmodern Scepticim and Priestley are observable. By contrast, the fact that most scientists believe (and are entitled to believe) that discussions can 1n principle be concluded on an objective basis cannot so easily be observed. Still, without this belief, it is hard to see how science could make sense to scientists ‘The same kind of analysis could be conducted on the theories produced by other postmodern theories. Thus, Becker's sociology of art abo appears as deeply affected by a particular metaphysical viewpoint: ultra-empiricism.* It is true that Mozart appears sometimes as ranked lower than Beethoven and sometimes higher. This does not mean that aesthetic values can be reduced to the supposedly volatile opinions of art worlds. But only that two composers — or two painters, etc. — can be compared on a variety of dimensions (type of emotions produced, innovativeness with regard to rhythm, orchestration, etc.). Now, 2 careful analysis of musical criticism would probably show that, on each dimension, the rankings appear as fairly stable, while the overall comparison necessarily includes a weighting of the dimensions, which can be variable, In the 1950s, the extension of the musical ‘language’ (dodecaphonic, conerete music, etc.) was perceived as a main crite rion of musical creativity. Many composers had been impressed by the innovations of Schoenberg and Berg and thought that the only way open to them was to go ‘still further’. This ‘intellectual conjuncture’ Jed naturally co the placement of Beethoven as an emblematic figure. Today, the notion of ‘avant-garde’ has lost its attraction for a number of reasons (frequent esoterism of and lack of interest in the music produced by the most visible post= Schocnbergians; interest aroused by the neoclassical style of the later Stravinsky or by the ‘post-romantic’ style of Shostakovich, etc.). This new conjuncture led naturally to a more open weighting of the various dimensions on which the composers of the past can be compared. But again, on each dimension, the rankings are probably highly stable: because they are objective ‘This discussion leads me to the same remark as in the case of science: postmodem sceptical argumentation often rests on premodem metaphysics. Because of his ultta-empiricism, Becker does not see that the apparently erratic variability of aesthetic judgments results from a combination of objective value rankings M6 HLS, Becker, drt Wold Bekeley: Univenity of Califorsia Pres, 1982) - 191 -‘Raymond Boudon and of weightings depending on conjunctural effects. Here again, more attention paid to the analysis of language would help: see for example the ambiguity of ‘grster than’ in the stement ‘In the us = the 1950s, Beethoven was considered as “greater than” Kuhn recognized that his theory of science was unable to explain why science is more effective than magic. And nobody believes seriously chat Aristotelian physics is beter than Newtonian physics, Still, Kuhn's or Feyerabend's relativism on the chapter of science, Becker's relativism on the chapter of art, are often considered ag going-without-saying, final, irreversible traths, How Can We Believe in the Unbelievable? How can we explain that the representation of science, morals, lav art proposed by postmodem thinkers appears so offen as incompat. ible with the most easly observable facts, or unable to explin obvious facts? Some intuitions from the great classical sociologisis in their writings on the ‘sociology of knowledge’ can be usefully i ized to answer this question. I will develop them in a sketchy ion, Cogn effects I come back first to an important model: Simmel made the point thar any argument includes implicit as well as explicit statements and suggested that this can lead the social subject to a false consciousness about his own thinking. Pareto suggested in the same Way that some arguments appear as convincing to the social subject, because he takes for granted for instance that the same word is used with the same meaning throughout the argument.3> De Gré has suggested that illusions often come from the fact that the subject complements what he sees with reasonable conjectures.) By codifying these hints, one gets a powerfull model essential to the explanation of illusions. 8 V, Pareto, Mind and Socety: A Treatise on Gove we ty: A Treatise on Gove Soielegy (New York: Dover, 28 G. De Gre, The Soil Compson of Hess: Toveed a Sole i eee ae mpusion of rd a Svclgial Analysi of Knowledge - 192 - On Postinodens Sceptciom ‘This model is of the utmost importance. It shows that illusions ‘can often be explained in a rational fashion: the social subject intro- ‘duces implicit arguments which he normally considers as going- ‘without-saying, In most cases, they have no ‘secondary effects’; but in others they Iead to hyperbolic or file conclusions. As the Conclusions will appear to the social subject as grounded on a valid argument, they will be perceived by him as solid, however. 1 do not come back to the applications of this model I have evoked above: Hitbner’s ‘proof’ that myth is as valid as science requires the implicit linguistic equation ‘depends on = is affected by; Feyerabend's proof that Galilean is not better than Aristotelian physics requires a particular — empiricist ~ definition of the notion of ‘progress'.*7 Communication efets Pareto wrote that the history of science is the history of all these false ideas that most people have believed because they were presented as true by ‘experts’ According to Tocqueville, we can ourselves check only a very small number of the many questions on ‘which we need to have an opinion. So we have to be confident in the statements produced by a host of experts on all kinds of topics. But which experts are habilitated to select the experts? ‘That these ‘communication effects’ play a role in our problem is clear. In the scientific community, the works of Kuhn or Feyerabend, say, have been abundantly criticized.‘° However, these criticisms were hardly perceived, in spite of their often undcbatable character, They remained enclosed in the tiny community of the philosophess-sociologists of science. They contributed litle if at all to the erosion of the general postmodern sceptical view of science, truth and objectivity, 7 Y, Parezo, Mind and Sony, G. Simmel, The Poblens of he Phibsply of Hiery, G. De Ged, The Sodal Conpulion of Ideas “8 V, Pareto, Mind ad Soy » R. Boudon, The Aralyss of leolog (London: Poliy/Backwel, 1959) 4© Sse, for example, J. Pasmore, Scene and its Cntic (New Brunswick: Rutger, 1978); F. haber, ‘Un “programme for en sociologic de la science”, Rene Frage fe Soria (1985) 26 (3): 485-508: W. W. Barley, Evolutionary Epitonsogy, Rationality and the Sodolegy of Knowledge (Pers: Open Cour, 1986), G. Randnitaky, ‘La sSvolution hrunnienne ex-alle une fause revolution’, Axtives de Phfowplie (1990) $9 2): 199212; M. Bunge, ‘A eitical examination of the new sociology of sience’, Pilaoply of the Sool Scwes (1991) 24 (4) 524-60. = 193 =Raymond Bowdon ‘We may introduce the hypothesis that, to usc Piaget's vocabu- lary, a ‘centration’ effect is at work here: once I have come to a given opinion, I do not pay attention any more to the objections that arc raised against it or to the facts that appear as incompatible with it.4! As is well known, Lazarsfeld rediscovered repeatedly the same kind of process in his studies on communication and voting: people tend to expose themselves to the messages compatible with their choices and opinions. This ‘centration effect’ probably explains to some extent the weak effect of criticisms produced against postmodem theories. But another effect should be taken into account. The chains of communication of our modern societies do not directly relate the ‘experts’ to the final social actors. The common man does not get’ his information on physics or economics, say, dircctly from the physicists or economists, but ftom the media.*? In many cases, little distortion will be produced in the course of the mediation process. In others, strong distortions will commonly be produced. Suppose, for instance, two contradictory theories T; and T; are supported by some members of a ‘scientific community’, If the mediators perceive the supporters of T; as more ‘modem’, ‘new’ than the supporters of To, they will tend to diffuse T;. We have here a trivie alized current version of what can be called a Lysenko effect.#? The influence of Lysenko derived from the fict that a number of scien- tists were pereived as experts in genetics, whereas they were special- ists in sectors of the biological sciences that actually had litele to do with genetics proper.** Geneticist: were all convinced that Lysenko’s theories were ungrounded, but these other ‘experts’, though incompetent in genetics, were perceived as competent by the general public. The trick used by the Soviet authorities was to gather congresses of biologists where the geneticists were in a minority. So, while Lysenkoism was imposed by a deliberate manipulation, it used natural social mechanisms: notably, it took benefit from the fact that we must have recourse t0 experts or s0- called experts on a number of subjects. Now, whereas in technical * B, Moesinger, La théorie du choix ratnael critique d'une explication’, lafirmaton ses Sines Secale (1992) 1-92 # Bowdon (1990). R. Bowdon, “Ler inedlccmicls ct le second march’, Ree aropfenne des Scones Sociales (1999) 28 (87) 89-103. ®°RBoadon, The Analy of Henley. J. Medvedev, Gunde et Chat de Lyserko (Paris: Galina, 1971), — 194 - On Pestmoders Scepicivon ‘kinds of mechanisms regulate the relationships between ahs Ratan ease and ensure the validity of the message received by the final ‘consumer’, the situation is much more complicated in the case of the soft subjects. Here, the media tors would normally introduce their own principles of selection in 1c diffusion process. De Mhese distortions, commonly produced in many subjects by mediation processes, probably explain to some extent the general~ jaation of intellectual fids and the diffusion of theories considered as fagile within the scientific community. A media man will normally see that, from Kuhn to Feyerabend and their followers, the ‘discoveries’ of the best known philosophers of science all deliver, in a more and more radical fishion, the same message: no truth, no objectivity, or rather a unique Archimedean truth: that belief all rest upon social illusions. He will normally endorse this scepticism and contribute to its diffusion. As to the objections raised against the message, he will treat them ~ if he perceives them at all ~ as of secondary importance, and of interest only to acade- mics. This type of process probably explains why the criticisms addressed agsinst a theory can have a very limited effect. Aniological factors Cognitive factors explain why social actors can with good reason believe in false or ungrounded ideas. Communication effects explain how and why the criticisms opposed to a fragile o false theory can be ignored and confined to narrow circles, so that the theory can remain on the market and even keep a dominant position. The position of monopoly is then reinforced because the impression will be created that the theory represents an irreversible ‘progress’. Pi tremain to ak, however, why postmodern theories in all elds fiom the theory of art and literature to the theory of science, all advocate radical scepticism. Why has radical scepticism become the dominant philosophy of our time? AA first hypothesis would be a diffusionist one, of the type used by anthropologists: because sceptical theorics gained attention in the case of the sociology of morals, say, try them in other fields. I do not believe in this theory, however, for it rests on a heavy assumption, namely that ‘imitation’, to use Tarde’s vocabulary, = 195 -Raymond Bowdon would be a basic behavioural principle. Another theory — more credible, it seems to me — is the following: people want their beliefs. to be minimally coherent with one another; to reach this coher= ence, they rank them in importance, so that the ‘secondary’ beliefs, tend to be selected in such a fashion as to be as coherent as possible (given the state of the market of theories and ideas) with the ‘primary’ ones. These assumptions are familiar in social psychology. They have also been proposed by classical sociologists such as Tocqueville and Pareto, and by philosophers and logicians. Pareto’s theory of ‘derivations’ makes the point that the real cause of illusions is generally to be found in ‘feelings’: derivations themselves are essentially ‘rationalization’, An interesting reformu= lation of Pareto's theory has recently been propesed:** derivations would be filtered as a function of their degree of congruence with basic belief, notably axiological beliefs. Tocqueville had already suggested a theory of the same type: theories tend to be accepted, hhe says, when they are congruent with basic values, the ‘passions générales et dominantes’. Thus, in a ‘democratic’ society (in Tocqueville's sense), equality is a basic value. Consequently, all theories leading to the conclusion, say, that all opinions should be respected, treated on an equal basis, and even considered as equally valid, tend to be the object of a selective attention and to be positively created. This model plausibly explains to a large extent why sceptical theories are easily advertised by many mediators and welcomed by concerned actors. As these theories claim that all values are ‘local’, that there are only contextual tcuths, they appear as more easily compatible with the basic egalitarianism of democratic societies than alternative theories: if there are only ‘ethnotruths’, if method- ology is always ‘ethnomethodology’, the values and views held by any culture, subculture and in the limit by any individual can be held as valid. Tocqueville had already suggested that scepticism is the only philosophy capable of reconciling the empirical fact that opinions often appear as contradicting in many subjects the ‘dominant’ valuation of the idea of equality in a ‘democratic’ society. This model may explain many success stories: why a Foucault could present as a path-breaking scientific novelty the old 4 N. Rescher, Pans Rent (Amserdam: Van Gotcum, 1976) * A. Bouvier, ‘La persuasion philowphique’ (Diserntion. Univesity of Pari Serbonve, 1992), ar as On Postmodern Scepticism romantic idea that truth can speak through the mouth of the crazy, or that each historical era has its idiosyneratic truth. As Pareto said, theories can be true without being ‘useful’ and useful without being true. Unbelievable as they often are, postmodern theories are ‘useful’ in the sense that they provide world visions compatible with the basic value system of ‘democratic’ societies. It is easily understandable, in the Weberian sense, that to many people, and notably to the intellectuals who traditionally consider themselves as in charge of supporting the ‘right’ values, inequalities between groups and between nations, or the various handicaps suffered by minorities, are perceived as the most visible axiological problems raised by the modem world. It was recently contended that history has come to its end, in the sense that the hot discus- sions of the past as to the best political regime, or whether private property should be abolished, or the most efficient organization of the economic system, seem to be over once and for all. Maybe. But history is certainly not finished in the sense that the group, nation or culture an individual is bom into retains a heavy influence on his future: this ‘inequality of opportunities’, this influence of asaiption, is normally perceived as unfair and deeply contradictory with the basic values of democracy. This ‘feeling’ of unfaimess explains the attraction exerted, say, by dependency theory at the time when Marxism was considered as a plausible theory.*7 Today, Marxism itself, because of its evident failure, cannot constitute 2 source of inspiration any more. Still, the idea remains that any theory legiti~ mating in a direct or indirect fashion the notion of the superiority of one culture or group or another is in itself undesirable and illegitimate. Reciprocally, any theory contributing to the erosion of the idea of the superiority of any group, culture, ete. tends to be perceived as both ‘true’ and ‘useful’, even thongh it is often only ‘usefil’. The ‘Political Correctness’ movement in the USA may well be rightly considered, to use Merquior’s vocabulary, as “hyster- ical It represents a very interesting symptom, however, which would probably not have surprised Tocqueville, since it is grounded on the idea that the true lover of equality cannot accept the idea of ranking cultural systems with respect to one another. Theories showing that scientific theories cannot be considered objectively as © R Bowdon, The Analysts of Hes. © RC Kimball, Tanued Radicals (New York: Harper, 1990): Dinesh D’Soura, Iie Baucaton (New York: The Free Pres, 1992) = 197 =Raymond Boudor better explanations than myths are welcome to egalitarians, since they put on the same level the so-called ‘primitive’ and modern, societies and by consequence, any society whatsoever. In the same ‘way, the statement that aesthetic values should be analysed as context-bound rather than objective has the beneficial consequence of making Shakespeare or Molire local products. The sociological explanation of the PC ‘hysteria’ can be extracted from Tocqueville, ‘The eminence conferred today on anthropology by postmodern, thinkers can abo be easily explained with the help of the Tocquevillian model. According to the basic paradigm on which modem anthropology is grounded, cultures and subcultures should. be analysed as closed totalities. As these wholes are incommensu- rable, they cannot be ranked relatively to one another. As I said earlier, the audience met by Foucault's Les Mots et les Chores plausibly derives to some extent from the fact that he extended the anthropological paradigm to historical conjunctures, treating them. in the anthropological fashion as Leibnizian monads, with the consequence that the old idea of progress was made empty. (As we sev, the idea that progress is a premodern illusion appears repeat~ edly in most postmodern theories) By contrast with anthropology, disciplines such as epistemology, aesthetics and ethics sare fiom the postulate of the objectivity and universality of the values they deal with. If there are only ‘ethnotruths’ and ‘ethnovalues', these disciplines should be described as illusions. For centuries, the history of science and of art had coexisted peacefully with the philosophy of science and of art. Everybody recognized that they represented two valid and legiti- mate ‘viewpoints’. Postmodernism wants to convince us that only cone of the viewpoints is true and that the other is a mere illusion. Do we have to welcome this reduction? Beside these “Tocquevillian’ hypotheses, others should still be taken into account. Sketchily: the masification of universities around the world has a mechanical effect: that hosts of demi-habiles in Pascal’s sense are now entitled to teach in the most prestigious institutions. From an individual viewpoint, the idea that knowledge is an illusion and that ‘anything goes’ has a definite functional value in such a system. Ha On Postmedern Scepticism Shall We Have Postmodernism for Ever? While 10 postmodernists progress is an obsolete topic, they claim for postmodernism itself the status of representing, so to say. the end of the intellectual history of mankind.” Now, while many social forces, and notably the social forces desctibed by Tocqueville, play in favour of the radical scepticism Advocated by postmodernism, the weaknesses of postmodern theories play strongly agzinst them. On the other hand, if radical scepticism is individually functional, it is evidently collectively dysfunctional. yore EN prediction, 1 would say that postmodernism will probably very soon belong to the past, and postmodern theories will become an episode in the history of ideas ~ more accurately of intellectual movements ~ but not in the history of knowledge. For what did they really teach us? © See, forexample, W. Welch, Acsthtishes Donkos Sautgare: Reclam, 1990) 449941 — The Futures of Latin America: Conservative or Liberal-Democrati CESAR CANSINO AND ViCTOR ALARCON ‘We are the other West: condemned to mediate between the. North and the South; geoculrurally and economically our fate is not to resist modernity. [eis simply 20 modulate it José G. Merquioe! History and politics are constructed with events, with institutions, with men and women who seek to see their desires fulfilled. With ambitions sustained by Being and Remaining, which are part of 2 fate adhered to utopia, but also to contingency.? This chapter outlines some impressions regarding the most relevant ideas originally put forth by José Guilherme Merquior in order to situate the experience of Latin America as one of the paradigms of culcural identification which, in their own right, have offered important contributions for defining the political and social course of modernity in the West. ‘What are the ideological underpinnings that have allowed a Latin American identity to be formed? What considerations allow is. historical development to be situated? What answers can be offered to define a possible political horizon that will keep viable its project as a part of the world? These and other questions were continually raised throughout Merquior’s writings, whether in his essays on the " Jost G. Merguion, ‘El oto Orcidene. (Un poco de flosofa de Ia hinore dene Lasacaména', Cutdmas Amercans | (13), 1989, p. 9. Mexico. 2 Agnes Heller, Phlophyof Hist in Pagmons (Oxf Bs Backwell, 1983). = 201 -(César Cansing and Vicor Alancin philosophy of history and on political science, or in his ground breaking contributions to the field of the sociology of culture. In all of these, Latin America always remained a logical recipient that continued to demand tribute in order to try to solve its limitations and find the meaning of its existence — that is, its historical-political legitimacy. A Legitimacy Always on Trial If legitimacy is viewed in this way — that is, as a factual-ideological validation of norms, values and processes ~ then it forces us to, accept the idea that all societies are far from being characterized ag homogeneous unites. On the contrary, their structures imply definitions ~ always incomplete and particular ~ of meanings and. contents that instead place chem within a territory of complexity. In this sense, Merquior always attempted to contrast the Rousicauian idea of legitimacy as an act of general will — as histori- cist exercise — with the Weberian vision that interprets it as a conscious process of rationalization which leads to the consolida~ tion of an institutional order that authenticates all human action.> Nevertheless, each society tries to communicate and extend its ideas. That is, it deaws ftom and moves in culture, es well as the knowledge provided by culture for interpreting our horizon of reality.* It requires constructing foundations that, even if they are not entirely accepted by all, will allow a first movement towards an opportunity for encounter. Yet this, at the deepest level, implies a struggle among identities that, if successful, will allow for the creation of an entity more solid and better able to undertake more ambitious projects. In this respect, we can resort to a ‘metahistory’, which is shaped through the presence of ‘great narratives’ > Nevertheless, Latin America has also been immersed in the pseudo-intellectual groundswell that has decreed an atmosphere of nihilism against any attempt to pave the way for the notions of Pool" Mateaer, Recon ond Wau? Te. See aay af Pgh (Cexidon: Roukedg & Kegan Pal, 1980) re ee 6 Mee ie (Goat ot) Nien Calera er Hebel Higcnaion Cita Rec 9), 191, pp 399-420. Sips G. Merauior,‘Phiesopy of Hisors: Though ona Posie Revival’ Hisar of the Ban Sere (0), 988 fp 22-31 ~ 202 - ‘The Futures of Latin America: Conservative or Liberal-Demecratic? progress, and against Homo economicus.® Thus it would appear that in Latin America's particular ‘great narrative’, only the classic images af indolence, conformism and passivity make up what is prominent and tragically insurmountable in this region, whose dependency, Conservatism and populism have been the successive ~ and at times combined — enemies of achieving solid regional development. ‘Although Latin America has on several occasions been called upon to initiate a stage of integral modernization-cum-democracy, this process has only materialized in mutual images and deceits. Merquior Yatalized two recourses that attempt to conceal or deny this histor- ical failure of ‘societies that attempt to Be and Remain’: the veil and the mask” For our purposes, these recourses are extremely illustrative for interpreting the path taken by Latin America in its now-long road to obtain historical-political legitimacy. The Veil and the Mask ‘The veil allows only a part of what is tangible to be seen. Bur in no event does it provide any certainty of what remains concealed. The challenge is to leave it in place, or remove it at the risk of discov- ering something entirely different from what we wish. But, in the final analysis, its use implies a half-truth, a truncated feeling of something that could be shown fally in the future if we decide to ‘overcome our present fears and limitations In contrast, the mask is an image that conceals something completely distinct from what is before our eyes. It is an open call for us to become accomplices of a lie, to try to be something without being it — and what is worse, to even maintain that behav- iour knowing that we will never be able to reach the other side, no ‘matter how many attempts we make to get beyond the obstacles. Hence the mask is the prison of an identity that will never see the light of day if nothing is done to make the inside adjust to the image. Many of our societies wear veils and masks. Very few are able to live showing their real face, are fit to ‘live in truth’, as Vaclav Havel has so correctly expressed it. Both metaphors place us © A devsting citicim of this “tate of the at’ in socal theowy can be found! ia Mexquorsatcle Death to Home Exon, Cited Rev, 8 (3), 1991, pp. 353-78 7'See Jos G, Menquioe, Tie Vel and the Mask: Essays an Cultre and Tedogy (London: Routledge & Kegas Paul, 1979) — 203 -(César Cansino and Victor Alarcén exactly within the political coordinates in which Merquior situates Latin America, insofar as he defines it as an entity many of whose protagonists have exchanged veils and masks, but where very few appear able to live within a world without appearances. ‘Thus modemity continues to be a promise and a utopia, so that history — in a meaning recovered from Giambattista Vico, an author for whom Merquior felt particular affection ~ will offer a ‘new: ‘opening’ through which to pursue the ideal. That is, as occurs with Cliocide — the murder of history ~ which attempts to makes us sce things as if they had never happened, we commit Logecide, since we deny any possibility of survival and of the transmission of knowl| edge. And this is a drama nor only of Latin America, but of the very. idea of the West and of civilization.® Historical-political legitimacy and the meaning of what is ‘Latin American’ appear, then, to rest on a process that has only partially been able to take root, and that has been secularly minimized by: many of the interest groups who have attempted to lead this region. to a modern cultural status that in theory implies attaining a democ= icy of freedoms and rights through the achievement of equitable welfare. Hence, as a central criticism of this problem, Merquior glimpsed the need for a rebirth of liberalism in Latin America? —not as a part or an echo of a fashion that has irradiated as an ideological sign in this last stretch of the twentieth century, but rather as one that must locate as a fincamental challenge the ‘decentralization’ of all assumptions, all myths sustained in the veil or in the mask, in order to encourage the renewal of structures and values through social action ivelf, Consequently, Merquior felt that liberalism in Latin America should assume the task of making historical-political legitimacy strongly and collectively accepted, so that this type of legitimacy ‘would provide greater institutional coherence, and allow the contin- uation of the proceses in which until now the development of culture and social identities in the centre of the region itself have left tunconcluded.1° * Jo G. Merquior. ‘El logocitio occidenca!, Vue 149, April 1989, pp. 7-11 Mesizo, ® José G. Merquior, "Una panorimica del enacimiento de ls liberalsmos’, Ciencia Pali, 12 (3), 1988, p. 22-33, Bogors. "For » more ditect reading cf Merquior’s pestions 26 a thinker and interpreter of liberalsm ~ an objectie that is beyond the scope ofthis chapter ~ hie lst book i manda- tory reading: Liberaim: OU and Now (Boston: Twayne Publishes, 1991), = 204 - ‘The Futures of Latin America: Conservative or Liberal-Deniccratic? Latin America, despite its historical misfortunes, has resisted living among veils SERS ror tis reson, a6 identity, though it has always been in transit, in many ways proves capable of chiming itself to be an heir of and a participant in a Wester culture, precisely because it enriches this culture with traits from its indigenous past and its multiple migrations, thus allowing the creation of the concept Merquior visualizes as the ‘decentralization’ from the West’s values ~and from its vicissitudes as well. The ‘Other West’ Based on this circumstance, Merquior coined one of the most felic~ itous expressions that have arisen to describe Latin America: the ‘Other West’. This concept implies that the region is the projection or extension of something, but that at the same time it continues 10 bbe something with characteristics completely particular to itself"! In this manner, Merquior placed us Latin Americans in the nucleus of our tense transition, where our myths and conventions languish out of exhaustion, by opening our eyes not only to the ‘unveiling’ of our false cultural masks: he also assumed the intellec- ‘ual endeavour of ‘revealing’ our own political mythology ~a tradi~ tion which has remained based on the action of the populist state, which is present in the practice of what we could call ‘nationless nationalisms’, which, in tum, conjure up an idyllic past sustained on inviable subjects and goals. Thus, Merquior exhorted us Latin Americans to recognize our own statute of modernity, based on the criticism of the extension of a model of ‘criolle contractualism’ that has particularized and identi- fied only one part of our societies, precisely through the creation of new veils and masks that continue to promise to allow us to attain modemity without paying any cost (the logic of populism), and which claim that maintaining the failed past intact ~ making it pass for our present — is the best way for us to protect ourselves from the strangers who ‘do not know our history’ (which is a particular trait of passive, conservative nationalisms). Nevertheless, the rulers of this ‘America of Ours’, with very few exceptions, have fallen very short of knowing and understanding, 1 Joab G, Merquior, "El cero Occidente’ = 205 ~(Cisar Cansino and Victor Alanon ‘our mations’ historical pulse, which for Merquior is the construc~ tion of an efficacious legitimacy under an active institutional order, which is always shifting and looks in all possible directions, without intervening idyllic constraints: Today, in Latin America, the break with the weight of the past means overcoming a complex constraint. the patrimonial sate, periph ‘ral capitalism and subsidiary moderaizations In this sense, Merquior also vindicated two social abilities that Latin America has ‘revealed’ as part of the true traits of its political identity: (1) Its sense of Revolution, of recovering ~ when necessary ~ the political power and popular savereignty usurped by the oligarchies and elites that wantonly use the nation’s resources as prebends (here, once again, the figure of Rousseau appears). (2) Its ironclad populist and liberal vocation as an understanding of and rational response (Weber) to — present in the true moments of crisis regarding its future identity — what it means to develop democ- racy in a collective sense of integration, which for Merquior means, in summary, the dignification of standards of living (1o be part of the economy-world) and the fall recognition of the citizenry as quality and identity in every individual who is a member of political society. Moreover, the ‘Other West’ has assimilated and enriched languages, clothing, religions. Hence the ‘Old West’ must feel proud, although it paradoxically continues to obstruct the former's full entry into the stable democracy and economy Westen countries in fict have. Although this is completely true, for Merquior it is not possible to forget ‘the other face of History’, which, as Karl Popper has pointed out, expresses itself precisely in one’s own mistakes ~ in the paths that have led us now and again to dead ends." This idea has rarely been fully understood, because we are always looking for culprits or ‘sacrificial lambs’ in others, never among, ourselves. For this reason, during the darkest stages of the bureau- cratic-millitary authoritarianism of the 1960s and 1980s, some of Merquior's positions were seen in Latin America as apologies for 22 hid, p 19 ' Kall R. Popper, fu Seand of ¢ Beter Wovd: Lenwes anf Esays fom Tuiny Yeers (London: Routledge & Keyan Paul, 1992), especialy chapters 2 (On Knowledge and Ignorance’) and 10 (Emancipation through Knowledge). — 206 = The Fue: of Latin America: Conservative or Libral-Demowatic? the status quo, when, in fact, they undoubtedly advocated just the opposite, because Merquior never grew tized of calling for recon ‘iliation or of seeing, politics as reason and dialogue in which all parties must recognize their responsibility for failure. Many of his positions were ako criticized because of their boundless optimism fegarding what is universal, since the differences between nations and individuals in Latin America persist in following the path of a terrible fragmentary provincialism, For this reason, although he was educated in and assumed a broad spectrum of liberalism, Merquior never hesitated to place himself in the uncomfortable position of seeking t reconcile the mercantile utilitarianist extreme and ‘old liberalism’s’ defence of privacy with its premodem traits, with social rights that make essential and feasible a just, equitable development in terms of providing equal, vital opportunities to all citizens, a principle Merquior understood as the axis of ‘new democratic liberalism’ with aspiracions to attaining a high degree of modernism." A ‘New Democratic Liberalism’ New democratic liberalism is the foundation on which Merquior thought it was possible to reform the ancien régime of the economic, political and culkural contractualism that has prevailed since Latin ‘America’s nineteenth century origins, though without losing the notion that the existence of the contract is necessary. True revolu- tions are produced not only as simple violent events; rather, their implications and results allow the maintenance of a continuity that guides the movement of our societies towards collective identities, ‘without intervening mythological romanticisms." In order to attain this goal, we Latin Americans have to produce an effective, rational, ideological transformation of our structures Hence Merquior saw the simultaneous reform of the state and socicty as an unpostponable task: he viewed both reforms not only as a mere broadening of spaces, but also as the redefinition of tasks in which political power contributes to the improvement ~ rather 1 Jos6-G. Menquion, Libri Old and New "9 For a closer examination of ‘Revobidon-Ev José G. Merquior, Reinterpretndo bh Revolucién 6-7, Mexico. nd ‘Revelution-Movement, se (Chasems Ameriaines, 16, 1982, pp. = 207 =César Cansino and Vicor Alain than to the oppression ~ of mankind. In this respect, with the support of Max Weber's ideas, Merquior foresaw that a new polite ical historicity for Latin America should begin by reforming the models of ‘statification’, which means saying No to centralism, to autocracy, to state paternalism, ** Essentially, this also implies saying No to the state that acts as a parasite, as well as carrying out a civic, political secularization, which, although it succeeded in marking the limits between religion and politics, did little to plot the effective boundaries between a modem civil society and the old concept that tums. politics into a mere courtesan mechanism, wiich continues to pay homage both to caciques and to distorted presidential systems which, in Latin America, survive as living proof of a not-yct-cradicated colonial heritage, and which worship the all-powerfil state Leviathan. Here we can sce a more appropriately developed re-expression of a thesis Merquior defended fervently, beginning with an article he wrote in 1984 — and which has been somewhat forgotten in Latin America ~ referring to the recovery (in democracy, and from. the standpoint of freedom) of the real state. That is, the qualitative idea of an efficient, strong state does not mean the same as a maximalist or minimalist state. Finding the state's real, optimum size means promoting its true symmetry with the constitutional figures that give coherence to contractual legitimacy. This is an important point, since in real events the political history of Latin America shows that liberalism has been used only as the mask that conceals the fice of the minimalist state's militarist authoritarianism and the maximalist state's populism, the impact of which has been extremely heavy millstones preventing us from ‘overcoming ancestral backwardness,” For this reason, it is also appropriate to place Merquior within the political positions chat hold a republican concept as the founda tion and ideological support of democracy. And this implies that democratic liberalism, when correctly understood, defends the separation of and balance among powers, Hence Merquior saw that % ‘This idea is expressed in the lst aticle Merguior published in Mexico before his departure to France as Brazil’s representative to Unesco, in 1989. Jost G. Merguion, “Latinoamérica: Créinica del Estado", Examen I (5), October 1989, pp. 5-7 "José G. Merquior, ‘Power ard Identity: Police and Ideology in Latin America’, Government and Opposition 19 (2), 1984, pp. 239-49, = 208 - ‘The Futures of Latin America: Consenaive or Liberal-Democratc? the problem of governability in Latin America (though in reality the backdrop of this consideration was the particular circumstances in Brazil — tapped, like other countries in the region, by its economic reforms and the transition to democracy) does not lie fundamentally in determining if presidential regimes are better than parliamentary ones, but in locating the historic context and the needs in which either one of these can better serve the purposes of the political development of nations. Gera efi eerie pisaleitoyespacie ed acaay opens regarding the possibility that Latin American societies have to put into practice everything on which they theoretically agree: the respect for guarantees and the rule of law. ‘These elements, which strangely enough are the best positive clements of those gathered fom our historical mestizo relationship ‘with Western political philosophy, are paradoxically those that have least been able to be defended from the false populisms, which propose a total break with and isolation ftom advanced capitalism. Moreover, Merquior felt that this criticism was equally valid for authoritarianism that sce monoproductive links as merely & means of overcoming internal economic criss, but which do not set out in earnest to thoroughly transform the social structure, or that attempt to redistribute income, but which maintain a logic of predatory corruption through the patrimonialist enslavement of the state machinery. Regarding the Future of Latin America ‘What then may we expect from Latin America in light of its recent history? Merquior might reiterate his always unrestrained liking for all transregional attempts to continue the tradition of thinkers such as Bolivar, Haya de la Torre, Vasconcelos and Marti, whose vision of a strong political and cultural community is the best expression. of what can be expected from a history that arose ‘from within’ rather than being borrowed ‘from without’ In many ways, Merquior’s political idea is being confirmed through the incipient development and trade interaction of new economic agreements throughout the continent, as well as by the adoption of a civic philosophy that more and more actively advocates the idea that a strong state does not have to survive — 209 —(Cisar Cansino and Vitor Alerein through forms of providentialism or clientelism which lock individ~ uals and civil society in narrow ideological cages. The state is a necessary actor, albeit not the only actor, in carrying out tasks to reconcile the challenges of internal growth economic opening towards new markets. Nor is the monopolisti forum for promoting the existence of mechanisms that extend the development of democratic procedures as a norm of coexistene and legitimate decision. This is the essence of the historical cult undertaking that Merquior conceived as necessary for promoting the building of a new public moral based on freedom and trans~ parency with neither veils nor masks. ‘There is still a long way to go. Spectres such as the foreign debt_ and the failure to consolidate democracy in several nations of the region persist as harrowing examples of what Isaiah Berlin (another | author whom Merquior respected enormously) has correctly called the ‘crooked trunk’ from which human wood comes." Hence, for generations such as ours ~ premature disciples of a friend who should still be among us ~ all that is left for us to do is to continue practising with modesty the noble profesion of thinking about — and acting to achieve ~ a Latin American legiti~ macy rooted in a democratic modernity with the full enjoyment of freedoms. But, especially, a Latin America where justice ~ in whatever way it expresses itself ~ offers an opportunity for a digni~ fied life for all Infused with the particular breath of the Aronian ‘engaged observer’ - of which Merquior was a concrete example — we would like to conclude this essay with che optimism and certainty that José Guilherme will not be forgotten by the future political history of our Latin American ‘Other West. 5 Laiah Bodin, The Cooked Tintber of Hemanity: Chapters ithe Hitory of Hess (Now ‘York: Vintage Books, 1991), 4010 — PART III On Merquior’s Life and WorkJosé G. Merquior, 1941-1991 CELSO LAFER, ‘Saying Good-bye to Hannah (1907~1975)' is the title of short essay by the American writer Mary McCarthy. Because of its tone, it comes to mind and inspires me as I write about José Guilherme Merquior. Indeed, in that essay, Mary McCarthy said goodbye to her close friend Hannah Arendt in a text that she did not vish to have the solemnity of ‘funeral prayers’. A very balanced essay, it mixed both the public dimension of the loss of a great intellectual figure and the private dimension of the always painful loss that is present when a friend, as well as a generational companion, leaves, swallowed by fatality. José Guilherme and I were both bom in 1941, but his initial circumstance as Carisca intellectual and later on a diplomat, and mine as a Paulista who later pursued postgraduate studies in the United States, meant thar we did not meet personally as adoles- cents, but rather, when we were approaching thirty years of age. The person who brought us together, very aware of our potential affinities, was Marcilio Marques Moreira, on the occasion of a trip José Guilherme and Hilda made to Sao Paulo when he had left his initial diplomatic post in Paris and was serving in Bonn, Our encouater confirmed the prediction of Dinah Flusser, who was a junior-high-school companion of mine in Sao Paulo and a ‘companion of José Guilherme’s at the Instituto Rio Branco, in Rio de Janeiro. Dinah said, in the mid-1960s, that above and beyond the obvious convergences of intellectual interests, which we ~ 213 -Celeo Lefer realized from our reciprocal reading, something more profound united us: the manifest destiny of a vocation for friendship. Friendship, Aristotle taught us, is a privileged relationship between two persons, based on trust and on the equality of common esteem. For that reason, a loyal friend is ~ like the wisdom gathered from ecclesiastical writing — a vital balm. With José Guilherme, the fraternal, vital balm of a friendship, based from the beginning on Aristotelian principles, was established, and it consolidated over time. In this contributed the sympathy for the original acceptance of the inclination that unites two persons. In ‘our case it flowed from the pleasure of mutual coexistence; it was nourished by the convergent multiplicity of our interests; and its horizon was the partnership of insight brought about by common sensibilities, which identifies a generation Ortega y Gasset said, along this line, that the variations of vital sensitivity, which are decisive in history, appear in the form of a generation, and he added that a generation is a human variety. For each generation, living is a two-dimensional task, the first of which. consists of receiving what has been lived by the previous genera~ tion, and the second of allowing one’s own spontancity to flow. During our fraternal friendship, Ortega’s topic regarding genera- tions brought about much analysis and, on countless occasions, José Guilherme and I conversed on what explained the identity of ours, ‘We thought about how, having agreed on the life of ideas during the presidency of Juscelino, we drew from that experience a confi- dence in the countless possibilities of our country. We had in mind, as well, that we had studied in an era in which debate in the Brazilian university and on the national stage wes very lively and that this had marked us, from the viewpoint of our range of inter~ ests. We felt that we — along with many of our generational companions ~ had had the opportunity to conduct postgraduate studies abroad, and thus to acquire not only a broader vision of things, but also the intellectual rigour and discipline that, as a general rule, the universities in the great centres offer those who have access to them. We concluded, from these conversations, that our generation had enjoyed more intellectual opportunities than had the one that preceded it, and that it had not faced, as was the case of the next generation, the difficult experience of being formed during the years of the military regime. In sum, we found that with a certain good will and, yes, favoured by circumstances, = 24 = Joré G. Merquior, 1941-1991 we made up one of the our country’s best-equipped generations, which, emblematically, had the mission of broadening the contro! of Brazilian society over its own destiny and contributing to freedom in its multiple dimensions. i In this — our — generation, which had all these opportunities, José Guilherme was the most complete talent, and the dense path Of his life, so prematurely interrupted, was a paradigm of freedom, asa great adventure of the spirit. I believe, along this line, in freedom as the individual's self-fulfil- ment, which, along with freedom as absence from arbitrary oppres- sion (negative freedom) and freedom as autonomy and participation in the ‘public body’ (positive freedom), constitutes the study of the types of freedom undertaken by José Guilherme in his Liberalism Old and New. In this excellent book, José Guilherme emphasizes the importance of the development of the human potential inherent in each individual. He points out that this meaning of ficedom is linked to the ideal of Bildung and that it is an aspect of the Goethian contribution made by von Humboldt, who expressed the humanistic concem with the construction of personality and with the progress of each person's individual ‘being.’ José Guilherme’s life and work are a Bildung chat reveals, in his. Kantian process of ‘auto-telia’, the construction and the awakening, progress of a great personality who strove to enlighten ideas in multiple ways. Those multiple ways, through either the diversity of interests or through methodological experimentation, are the fruit of a common generational manner of feeling and understanding life. In this common manner, what distinguishes José Guilherme and ‘makes him stand ont, making him project himself from the begin- nning of his path, are the answers he offers to the questions put on the agenda by the generational sensitivity of his contemporaries. Indeed, the answers given by José Guilherme to the themes of our generation express, firstly, and at the level of vital reason, the concerns of an intellectual from the family of the great carnivores whose ‘mind-set’ did not obey the vocations of the ruminants. In their multiplicity, these answers do not have a unity given by an explicit methodological consistency ~ since, as he himself said, ‘my ideological path was passibly erratic until it flowed, in the 1980s, into the fortyish prose of a neo-illuminist liberal’. What gives his path unity is the presence of certain recurring topics, such as the = 215 -Celso Lafer| oppositions: formalism/anti-formalism, reason/irrationalism, tradi- tion/modemity. In dealing with these recurring topics, and in the affirmation of anti-formalism, he gives reason to modemity; in the realms of literary criticism, he gives aesthetics, he gives analysis of culture, and he gives political theory. No one had an intelligence as comprehensive, as well-served by an encyclopedic erudition, continually broadened and nourished by 2 rigorous intellectual discipline and spurred by a limitless intellectual curiosity, as did José Guilherme. That led to a vast work that is heuristic in its whole- ness, and whose circumference is the field of human sciences in their entirety. All that José Guilherme wrote ~ on poetry, fiction, history and literary theory, on legitimacy in politics, liberalism, ‘Western Marxism, structuralism, individualism, diplomacy and Brazil's role in the world — is pertinent to the intellectual debate of our times. In this debate, the liberalism that characterized the world-view of the mature José Guilherme corresponded to the permanent concerns of his intellectual personality, since the somewhat centrifugal pluralism of liberal doctrine adjusted to the multiplicity of his interests, giving consistency to his path, by turning the various José Guilhermes into a single José Guilherme. ‘E pluribus unum facere’, to recall St Augustine's phrase. It should also be pointed out that, for the contemporary intellec~ tual debate, he contributed both with the firm moral courage of his convictions and with his healthy concern regarding the future — which makes one watch and fight ~ of which Tocqueville spoke in a text that pleased Raymond Aron. I mention this because, for José Guilherme — one of whose Paradigms was Aron ~ the liberal position does not mean indiffer- ‘ence or indulgence, meanings that can be negatively attributed to the value of tolerance, which makes up the axiological constellation of liberal doctrine. This translated into the public use of reason itself, 2s the objective of freedom of thought and of opinion, through discussion, a means of testing ~ at times ~ along with others, the partial truths he gradually laid down along the way. For this reason, José Guilherme’s prose is the stylistic expression of the vivacity of his combative and fighting intelligence. It is always ‘on this side of jargon’ and ‘on that side of vulgarity’, revealing the scope of knowledge, the acuity of perception and intuition of what = 216 = José G. Merguior, 1941-1991 is relevant — whether in the broader measure of the books of encouragement and of the essays of great breadth and ambition, or in the lesser measure of the articles of circumstance, of polemics, or of occasional interviews. His death robs Brazil of one ofits great cadres, and impoverishes the intellectual stage because of the large amount of things he had yet to achieve. It is, to end on a personal note, a tragedy for those of his friends who had found, in the pleasure of his seductive, insti- gating and civilized coexistence — usually in a context fall of life and of concrete intelligence that Hilda, with her gifts, knows how to create — a constant and irreplaceable stimulus. What Cicero said in De Amitiia can do no more than console us: ‘Thanks to friend~ ship, what is difficult to say: the dead live; they live in honour, in memory, in the sorrow of fiiends.” = 217 -iG Annotated Bibliography of José G. Merquior CESAR CANSINO AND VICTOR ALARCON Brief Biographical Outline José G. Merquior was born in Rio de Janeiro on 22 April 1941. He died at 49 years of age in January 1991. Ho studied philosophy, law and diplomacy in Brazil. He received a doctorate in Latin American studies in Paris, and another in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. During the course of his diplomatic career, he held various pests in Europe and Latin America. At the time of his death he was Brazil's ambassador to Unesco in Paris.? His intellectual production began when he was 18 years old, with the publication of various articles on aestheric problems. His first book, Raza do poema, was published in 1965, and constituted Merquior’s entry into the intellectual world of Brazil. This book would be followed by some twenty titles in the most varied fields: aesthetics, political and moral philosophy, the history of ideas, and calcural anthropology, among others His most influential teachers were Claude Lévi-Strauss, Ernest Gellner and Raymond Aron. Although a large number of his work: "The biognphical and bibliographical daa given inthe following pages were obwained from: Miguel Reale, ‘As licoes de Merquior’ in © Estads de Sto Pao, 6 February 1991 Jexé Mario Percirs, © pensemento do nove imortal, in Ultima hora, 13 November 1991, ‘Antonio Medina“ Rodogues, “Merquio: O eaiia ¢ sia obra’, in Revisa USR, March-May 1991, pp. 128-32 = 219 =Cisar Cansino and Vitor Alarcin have been translated into more than six languages, he has been’ particularly appreciated by the English-reading public. In England, he published some of his most farnous works, including: The Veil and the Mask (1979), Rousseau and Weber (1980), Foucault (1985), Western Marxism (1986), and From Prague to Paris (1986). His last book, Liberalism Old end New, was published posthumously in mid= 1991. It constitutes 2 majestic fresco of three centuries of liberal thought, from Locke to Bobbio. Notwithstanding the vast range of topics and fields covered by Merquior during his intellectual career, we can recognize some fundamental directions in which his lucid rationalism developed, Firstly, we should note his opposition to any philosophical fashion, especially fashions of a Parisian origin. He refused to be seduced by the vagaries of psychoanalysis, the triumphalism of Marxism, or the idolaters of irrationalism, all the while acknowledging the value Freud, Marx and Heidegger each had for contemporary thought. Secondly, he maintained a critical position vis-i-vis structuralisms and post-siructuralisms in philosophy. His criticisms of Foucault and Derrida stemmed from his fear of what he called ‘Western logocide’, or the murder of reason by acolyte thinkers who, in abdicating from rational analyses to concentrate on a false aestheti= cism or an artficialization of language, fell into 2 narcissistic relativism or the empire of myth. Thirdly, based on his ‘concrete rationalism’, he severely criticized aesthetic formalism, while ascutely pointing out the contradictions between Croce’s formal ‘lyricism’ and his historicism. Hence, he was determined to correlate — unitarily and exentially ~ form, content and historical circumstantiality, as he opposed the current of unilateral interpretations that subordinate the value of art and the role of the actist to one clement or another, abstractly linked to the global structure of the imaginal process Finally, regarding his position in political philosophy, he defended 2 neoliberalism that, according to Merquior himself, is nothing other than ‘social-liberalism’; in so doing he defended existential values, which he invoked not because of ‘humanity’ as a pure abstraction, but rather as a function of man in his irrenun- ciable individuality and subjectivity. This set of proposals and orientations present in Merquior’s work has been at the cenire of important debates and discussions, as it will surely continue to be in coming years. For this reason, — 220 - Annotated Bibliggraphy of José G. Merquior Merquior’s death constitutes an irreplceable loss for the conte porary intellectual world ‘Merquior’s Topics In order to give an overview of the topics covered by Merquior during his prolific production, I will look at some of his most important books: Formalismo e tradiglo moderna (0 problema da arte na crise da cultura) (1974) is part of Merquior’s extensive production in the field of literary and artistic criticism in general. In response to ‘concrete rationalism’, Merquior undertakes in this and in similar works a penetrating criticism of aesthetic criticism, inasmuch as he subordi~ nates the values of art and the role of the artist to clements abstractly separate from the global structure of the creative proces. From Merquior’s perspective, form, content and historical circum= stance must correlate unitarily on the aesthetic plane. The Veil and the Mask: Essays on Culture and Ideology (1979), which Merquior first published in England, is a collection of different essays that focus on the problem of legitimacy, written from a perspective that Merquior liked to call ‘the sacialogy of culture’ Hence, for example, in the title essay, Merquior examines legiti- macy Grom three essential perspectives: political legitimacy; the role and change of the models of legitimacy within culture taken as @ whole; and the cognitive validity of legitimacy. Rousseau and Weber: Tivo Studies in the Theory of Legitimacy (1980), which Merquior himself called his most rigorous and claborate work, constructs and attempts to shed light on the concept of democratic legitimacy, adopting Rousseau's perspective in order to criticize Weber, without underestimating the latter's immense contribution to the social sciences. With this intention, Merquior arrives at conclusions that, although controversial, have a great value within the innumerable and often distorting interpretations of the German sociologist In As Ideas e as Formas (1981) we can see another recurrent position = 221 =(César Cansine and Victor Alain in the work of Merquior, whose attraction to the philosophical dimension of literature overcomes the dissolution of his linguistic dimension, through the defence of the primacy of Idea over Form = though the latter is neither indifferent or alien to him: ‘we try to surprise ideas over forms and ako the form of ideas’. The linguistic variation of the formalist paradigm is severely criticized for being. reductionist, insofar as it concentrates on sheer expression rather than on content, by which ideas are usurped by form. In A natureza do proceso (1982) and O argumento liberal (1983) some of Merquior’s most suggestive political essays are brought together, In all these essays, Mecquior rejects closed systems in principle and defends a kind of liberal ethics based on the acceptance of a valua~ tional pluralism and an exigent yer tolerant dialogue. Since ‘Merquior chose to be a ‘neo-illuminist liberal’, he discussed, among, other topics, che implicit dangers in a Hayek-type ‘neoliberalism’ or in a ‘liberal-conservative utopia’. Merquior preferred to look towards ‘social-liberalism’, in clear allusion to Raymond Aron, for ‘whom social democracy was ‘the dominant ideology of our times’. In the controversial Foucault (1985), which has been translated into several languages, Merquior outlines his position in defence of rationalism and against all types of trendy philosophical currents, stich as Foucault's or Dernda’s post-structuralism. The criticism Merquior levels against Foucault and influenced by him is based on. his fear of what he called "Western logocide’, or the death of reason at the hands of nihilis celativism or the empire of myth From Prague to Paris: A Critique of Siructuraist and Post.Stucturalist ‘Though (1986) brings together most of Merquior’s philosophical tenets. This is a strong criticism of formalist chought resumed in the abstract formula of ‘structuralism’, which influences the linguistics of Roman Jakobson, the anthropology of Lévi-Strauss, the ‘anti- realism’ of Roland Barthes, the incomprehensible’ psychoanalysis of Lacan, or the supposed deconstructionism of Derrida. In Western Marcism (1986), which is as controversial as many of his ‘other works mentioned here, Merquior analyses various problems and contradictions present in one of his more recurrent interlocu- tors: Western Marxism. At one time, this book caused a wide range ~ 222 = Annotated Bibliography of José G. Merquior of polemics. For example, the well known Marxist theoretician John Gray wrote that "Western Marcism is a model of 2 strange genre — an essay of intellectual history conducted as an extensive exercise in irony’. Critica, 1964-1989: Ensaios sobre arte ¢ literatura (1990) is a compila~ tion of essays that constitutes a true retrospective look at Merquior’s career in the field of art criticism, The common link between these articles is the controversial treatment of the pairs formalism/antifor- mmalism, romanticism/modemism and modernism postmodernism. In addition, a second aspect that unifies the various essays in this collection is the method of reflection used ~ a form of refined thetoric that underlines the theoretical dispute as an instrument of control of its own premise: which, for the same reason, can be accepted or rejected. Finally, Liberalim Old and New (1991), which was published posthumously, constitutes perhaps his most complete and funda- mental work. This impressive fresco portrays three hundred years of liberal ideas from Locke to Nozick including, along the way, Kelsen, Aron and Bobbio, among many other authors. Through reconstructing liberal thought and outlining the main tensions between its distinct ideological offshoots, Merquior argues for his choice in favour of a social-liberal position, midway between more extreme positions. As such, social-liberalism does not mean statism from any perspective, least of all the economic one; nor does it mean ‘statephobia’, characteristic of more conservative neoliberal positions that do not have a proper idea of what the historical role of the state has been in the modern world. Thus Merquior’s work contains many highly diverse elements for discussion, whence we believe that encouraging serious debate on his thought can have great value for contemporary philosophy. Without exaggeration, Merquicr will be remembered 2s a twentieth century Plato, not only for his erudition, but also and especially for his vocation for reason and doubt as ways of living.Cisar Cansino and Victor Alarcin Books Written by Merquior 1981 As Ideas e as Formas (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Froatcirs). 1965 Razio do poema (ensaivs de tia ¢ esiétia) (Rio de Janeiro: Civilizago Brasileira). 1969 1982 ‘A natureza do proceso (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira). 1983 Arte e sodedade em Marcuse, Adorno ¢ Benjamin (ensaio critico sobre a © Argumento liberal (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira). escola neo-hegeliana de Frankfurt) (Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro). 1985 Fowault (London: Fontana). 1972 A astivia da mimese (ensaios sobre Urica) (Rio de Janeiro: José 1986 Olympio). Fiom Prague to Paris; A Critique of Structunalist and Post-Stracuralist Saudades do Cernaval (introdugdo & crise da cultura) (Rio de Janeiro: Forense) 1974 Fonnalismo ¢ tradigio moderna (0 problema da arte na arise da cult) (Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitiria / Universidade de Sto Paulo) 1975 estrucuralismo dos pobres ¢ outras questoes (Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro). Verso Universo em Drummond (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio). 197 De Anchieta a Budides: Breve histria da literatura brasileira (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio). LiEsthétique de Lévi-Strauss (Paris: Presse Universitaire Frangaise) 1979 The Veil and the Mask: Essays on Culture and Heolegy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). 1980 © fantasma romantico ¢ outres ensaios (Petxpotis: Vozes). Rousseau and Weber: Two Studies in the Theory of Legitimacy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). ‘Thought (London and New York: Verso / New Left Books Ltd). Westera Marzism (London: Paladin). 1990 Critica, 1964-1989. Ensaios sobre arte ¢ literatura (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira). 1991 Liberalism Old and New (Boston: Twayne). A Selection of Merquior’s Most Important Essays 1979 ‘Cultural Values, Science, and ‘Technology: A Glance at ‘Contemporary Theorizing’, Cultures 4: 24-39. 1980 ‘Mort a Phomo ceconomicus?, Archives europeins de socologie 21 372-94. “Modemisme et aprés-moderisme dans la literacure brésilienc’, in Jacques Leenharde (ed.), Literature lutinoanericane d/aujourd bi: ‘Coloque de Cerisy (Paris: Union Generale d’Eds). Do = 225 -César Cansino and Vicor Alarcin 1981 “The Politics of Transition: On the Work of Ernest Gellner, Government and Opposition 16: 230-43. q 1982 ‘More Order than Progress? The Politics of Brazilian Positivism’, Government and Opposition 17: 454-68. aq ‘Lessai brésilien depuis le modemisme’, Europe: Revue itteras mensuclle 60: 141-8. 1983 “Defense of Vico Against Some of His Admirers’, in G. Tagliacozzo (ed), Vico and Mare: Affinities and Contrasts (Atlantic Highlands - NJ: Humanities Press), pp. 401-26. j ‘Discurso de recepedo de J. G. Merquior na Academia Brasileira de Letras e resposta de josué Montello’ (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira) ‘Radical Reformism in the Pampas: The Case of Battlsmo’, Government and Opposition 18: 120-4. 1984 “Power and Identity: Politics and Ideology in Latin America’, Government and Opposition 19: 239-49, “A Hedonist Apostasy: The Later Barthes’, Portuguese Studies 1: 182-92, 1985 “Fighting the Nietzschean Demon’, Government and Opposition 20: 550-5. 1986 “Patterns of State-Building in Brazil and Argentina’, in John A. Hall (ed.), States in History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell), pp. 264-88 “Virtue and Progress: The Radicalism of George Sorel (1847-1922), in John A. Hall (ed.), Rediscoveries (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp. 123-38. 1987 “Georges Sorel and Max Weber’, in Wolfgang J. Mommsen and Jergen Osterhammel (eds), Max Weber and His Contemporaries ~ 226 - (London: German Historical Institute), pp. 159-69. ‘Sobre a doxa literiria’, Coléquio/Leiras. 100 (November- ‘December: 7-18 (Lisbon). Brazil's New Republic: The Social-Liberal Path’, Bulletin of Latin “America Research 6: 269-77. “The Renaisance of French Political Theory’, Government and Opposition 22: 101-14. ‘Glasnost, Please, in Marxology Too’, Government and Opposition 22: 302-14. ‘Patten and Process in Brazilian Literature: Notes on the Evolution of Genre’, Portuguese Studies 3: 171-85. 1988 ‘Raymond Aron desde América del Sur. Un liberalismo diferente’, Vuelta 138 (May): 61-4 (Mexico) “Defensa de Bobbio’, Nevos 11 (130) (October): 31-44 (Mexico). ‘Vico, Joyce y la ideologia del alto modernismo’, Cusdernos “Americanos 4 (10) (new series) (july-August): 9-23 (Mexico). “From Marcionism to Marxism’, Critical Review 2 (4) (Fall): 101-13 “Heidegger: mis alli del nazismo’, Vuelta 142 (September): 58-61 (Mexico) -Pilosopby of History: Thoughts on a Possible Revival’, History of Human Sciences 1 (1) (May): 22-31. “Umi panorimica del renacimiento de los liberalismos’, Ciencia Politica. Revista Trimesiral para América Latina y Espata 12 (3) 23-33. 1989 “El logocidio occidental’, Vuelta 149 (April): 7-11 (Mexico). “EI Otro Oecidente (un poco de filosofia de 1s histona desde Latinoamérica)’, Cuadernos Americanes 3 (13) January-February): 9-23 (Mexico). “Back to the Context: Harry Levin, an Appreciation’, Journal of the History of Ideas 50: 667-78. ‘Spider and Bee; Towards a Critique of the Postmodern Ideology’, in Lisa Appignanesi (ed.), Postmodernism: ICA [Institute of Contemporary Arts] Documents (London: Free Association Books). ‘Reinterpretando Ia Revolucién’, Cuadernos Americanos 16 (aew series) (July-August): 11-31 (Mexico) - 227 -(Clsar Cansino and Vitor Alarcon ‘Latinoamérica: Crénica del Estado’, Feamen 1 (8) (October): 6-7 (Mexico). 1990 ‘For the Sake of the Whole’, Critical Review (Summer): 301-25, 1991 ‘In Quest of Modem Culture: Hysterical or Historical Humanism’, Critical Review 5: 399-420. (A lecture delivered by Merquior at the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, Claremont McKenna College, California, on 20 September 1988). ‘A. propésito del liberalismo’ (Entrevista a Joxé G. Merquior realizada por César Cansino y Victor Alarcén}, La Jornada ‘Semanal 126 (November): 19-23 (Mexico) INDEX [Nte: Contributions 0 this volume are shown in bold type Adorno, T. W. 57 and political action 162-4 ‘Octavio Paz’, Breviario Politico 7/8: 10-11 (Mexico). ‘AITEGEE YF oe Cation el 4 purpose of modemity 39 ‘El sentido de 1990’, La Jornada Semanal 126 (November): 24-5 see Wane ‘Aylwin Azécar, P. 32 ene, Althusius, J. 25 Bagehot, W. 26, 35 1992 Anerson, P.73 Bandeira, M. 76 Andride, A.C. de 27 Bur Hillel, ¥_ 175 ‘Attention Mongers’, Reason Papers 17. anthropology, postmodern view of Barbosa, R27 175-7, 180, 184, 198 Barthes, R222 1993, ancidemocratism 9-10 Battle, J. 15-16 j svcsttim 11-13, Becker, H. 183-4, 191-2 ‘© problema da legitimidade em politica intemacional’, in José Aquinas, Saint Thomas 90 Beethoven, L. van 183, 185, 191, 192 Guilherme Merquior, Diplomaia, 48-76 (Brasilia: Fundagio ‘Azendt, H. 50, 164, 213, Bel, D. 44,58, 69, 1865 Alexandre Gusmao-Funag / Instituto de Pesquisa de Relacoes Acgentina 27,71 an aa sae 116 Internacionais), (Tese apresentada no | aristocracy 113-14, 11 end, do Instituto Renee 1978.) ST area, Ani Daren eee ce 7" Aron, R, 18, 22, 30, 85 Berg, A. 191. ‘inspiration 23, 216, 219, 222 Berlin. 91, 35, 73, 210 Merguioe admired by 32, 74 ‘on postive nd negative liberty Merquior’s waitings on 7, 18, 20, 71-2, 84-5 32-3, 35, 73 Beveridge, W. and Beveridge Report Arrow, K. 150-2 13,30 ae Bobbio, N. 7, 85-6 and monty 134 28 neoconttzcatian 20, 32,34, 35 Sind postmodernism 183-4, 185-6, on neoliberaism 10, 11, 13, 18-19 191-2 Politics and Morality ‘12343 Aastalia 70 Bodin, J. 142 authoritarianism 13, 115-16 Boesche, R. 103 in Latin Ametica 20, 31-2, 206-7, Bolivia 71 208-9 Botana, N. 27 autonomy Boucoa, R., On ‘Postmodern’ and democracy 153-5 Scepticism 173-99 — 228 - — 229 -Brazil 27, 33, 70, 71, 73, 96 and Merquior 12, 20, 21-2, 74-5, 209 Brittan, S. 10, 17, 19, 20 Burckharck, J. 124 Burke, E. 17,26, 72 Dbyzantinisin 174 Campos, R. 21 ‘Merquior the Liberalist 65-76 Camus, A. 30, 35, 73, Canetti, E. 136 Cansino, C, and Alareéa, V, Annotated Bibliography of Joss G. Merquior 219-28 ‘The Fatures of Latin America; Conservative or Liberal- Democratic 201-10 capitalism, and democracy 13, 68-9 Castoriadis, C. 17 centralization and decentralization 106, 110-11, 113, Chartier, E. 30 Chateaubriand, Chile 24,71 ‘China 70-1, 98 civil society Ferguson on 119-31 and separation of military fimction 121-4, 126, 128-9 survival of 127-31 classical liberalism 25-6, 35, 72 Clemenceau, G. 50 dicntelism 70 Coleridge, S. T. 90-1 collectivism 66-8 Collor de Mello, President F. 36 ‘common will and deliberation 152-3 shaped by political process 148-55 communism 33, 66, 68, 69 Communist Menfeste| 67-8 ‘communitarian republicanism 146, 147, 159-60, 165 ‘communicarianism 101, 116 Comte, A. 175, Condorcet, Marquis de 168 Connolly, W. 162 oR. 26 Index on the common good 149, 150-60 postmodern 175-84 conservative liberalism 26-9, 35, 72 Constant, B, 8,26, 29, 86, 88-90 constitationalisms 84-5, 92-3, 113 ‘consumerism 3, 4 contracts, in private or public life 137-8 in Latin America 205 se also neocontractualism; social contract conventionalism 175 ‘cooperation 106, 116-17 comuption 96 Groce, B. 28, 35, 72, 75, 200, Cuba 71, 93 culturalism 43, 174 Dahrendorf, R. 8, 22, 23, 73-4 4 sociological liberal 32-3, 35-6, B Dalberg, J. 26 Danton, G.J. 26 De Gré, G. 192 Debussy, C. 185 Dedaration of Independence 67 deconsteuctivism 18) deliberative theory of democricy 152-71 concepe of values in 156-9 and construction of common will 148-55 integrative and aggregative 160, 168, 170 and nature of ideology 155-6 and plurality of interests 159-60, 166 and political institutions 165-9 ‘democracy 13-20, 41-4, 81-4, 85-7, 145-71 and capitalism 13, 68-9 cgalitarias 41-2, 79, 87 and indvidial autonomy 153-5, 10-4 and liberalism 70, 85~7, 207-9 and ncoliberalism 13-20 230 — Participatory 414, 106, 111, 145-55, 166-9. aspolitics 16971 representative B14, 145-7 social 43-4, 70 sce ls deliberative theory of ‘democracy; Lberal democracy; parseipatory democracy democratic institutions 16-9 democratic liberalism, Latin America 207-9 Demosthenes 121-2 Dernda, J. 47, 53, 57, 58 riticiam of 48, 220, 222 despotism 8 ‘enlightened 25 and equality 103-4, 108 in France 108-13 Dewey, J. 31, 35, 148 Dias, P. 27 Dieey, A. 29 Diez del Corral, L, 80

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