Gerhart Niemeyer

Collective Security: The Validity of an Ideal

Collective security is a term that has been applied to a variety of different arrangements. Originally and traditionally, it denoted the League of Nations type of security system. Lately, it has been used to describe the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with its inter-governmental machinery, as well as other regional or non-regional defense pacts

Freedom and Rights: What Is to Be Done?

Not all politics is of one kind. To be sure, all politics centers on the state, the most comprehensive order of human existence. Practically as well as theoretically, however, one must distinguish between (1) the politics of justice, and (2) the politics of existence. In some political science departments these two are called “government” and “international relations.” Nor are these the only kinds of politics. One can further distinguish (3) the politics of foundation and (4) the politics of revolution, both of which, however, can be set aside in the present context.

What Price "Natural Law"?

“Natural” and “law” form a particular symbol pertaining to one mode of discovering the order of goodness, this mode invented by the classical Greek philosophers. They relied on a number of basic experiences and symbolic concepts: (a) the nous (mind, reason); something divine in man participating in the mind of divinity; (b) the distinction between “being” as the immanent order of “things” and “being” as the divine transcendence; (c) the realization that man, possessing language and moral discernment, has an order not merely as a “thing” but also as a participating partner of the transcendence. In modern times these concepts and underlying experiences have been lost. “Mind” and “rationality” to us mean the opposite of what they meant to the Greek philosophers. We have no longer a concept of “man” resembling theirs; the concept of “soul” Gerhart Niemeyer

On Authority and Alienation: A Meditation

In a mental experiment that divested man of all institutions of order, Thomas Hobbes called the resulting imaginary situation “the state of nature,” and described it as “war of all against all.” In other words, he established an assumption that aggression is the original quality of human nature, an assumption he supported with correct observations. I submit that, if such a mental experiment made sense, it would be more to the point to call this imaginary nonsocial man “confused,” and I am ready to support this assumption with correct observation. I have found myself in a country whose language I could not speak, whose writing I could not read, and whose habits I did not know. The native person accompanying me as an interpreter was separated from me by crowds. Here I was, all alone. I did not know the name of my street, the look of my house, or even the direction of the compass, since the day was clouded. The confusion that befell me was general, all-encompassing, basic, and utterly frightening. While I was completely free to go in any direction I wanted, all these possibilities were the same to me, like to Buridans ass, so that I could not move for simple lack of discernment. I can easily conceive an imaginary nonsocial man being in the same mental condition, much more easily than a warrior engaged in a big enterprise such as a “war against all.” This is the assumption underlying the following investigations on authority and alienation.

Lenin and the Total Critique of Society A Study in Ideological Activism

Modern Totalitarianism has often been grouped with various forms of authoritarianism in a genus characterized by excessive discipline. Is it not true, though, that the typical totalitarian motivation of our times can be described as revolutionary rather than authoritarian? Is it not a spirit that sees in revolution a vocation, an end in itself, a way of life? A faith in the creativeness of total destruction can be found in Bakunin, Goebbels, and Lenin. Their will to revolution stems not from an identification with the grievances of a suffering class, but from an ideological rejection of everything that exists.

KELSEN, HANS. Recent Trends in the Law of the United Nations. (A Supplement to The Law of the United Nations). Pp. 909-994 (continuous numbering). New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1951.

ceeded in furnishing a consistent explanation of international law without having grossly to distort the relevant facts. The same is true of the closely related concept of a society of nations which in many of these theoretical systems figures as an explicit or implicit premise. The practices of governments can hardly be reconciled with the assumption of a world society. Furthermore, the concept of such a society stands in direct contradiction to the notion of the sovereignty of its &dquo;subjects.&dquo; Nor can we infer the existence of this society from the functioning of international organizations, since the latter are really but associations for specific purposes rather than manifesta.tions of an over-all system. The idea of a society of nations is also constantly refuted when legal &dquo;obligations&dquo; of states to that alleged society receive second billing behind national statutes in courts which

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The historical backgrounds of all these minority groups and the salient facts which illumine their present condition are sketched. An analysis and interpretation of their intra-group and extra-group relations, of their group aspirations, antagonisms, frustrations, and dominant trends are set forth from the perspectives of the twelve speakers. Throughout the volume occur suggestions and insights looking toward the solution of the varied and pressing problems involved. But the thinking of the several contributors tends to converge upon certain agreements. That the problem of minorities, racial, religious, cultural, and political, is fraught with social peril and requires more thorough study than has yet been given i t no one can question. The problems arising from such groups have been a long time in the making and will require long-time solutions. There is, of course, no single over-all formula or solution; each minority has its unique history, its special stream of tradition and leaders, its peculiar in-group and out-group relations, and what will work in one context will not in another. However, Professor R. M. MacIver thinks that the crux of the problem of all minorities lies in human social attitudes. “Our attitudes make the problem and only by changing our attitudes can we solve the problem” (p. 220). The most effective and hopeful forces counteracting group prejudice, discrimination, and conflict are the spirit of universal religion and the spirit of democracy. Both of these, however, are more formal than substantial as expressed and practised among us. This is a readable, interesting, and informing introduction to a special cluster of dynamitical social problems. I t points out and explodes many fallacies in our thinking about groups, fallacies that have been thoroughly exposed by history yet which continually recur to mislead and confound us. It breaks ground in exploring more ethical and scientific ways of dealing with conflicts between minority and dominant groups than the familiar traditional ways of war, imperialism, trial and error, and forced coalescence. This volume is not so much a contribution to our factual knowledge as a utilization of such knowledge together with fresh social perspectives and insights in order to promote social understanding in this area of mounting tensions.