Judith N. Shklar

Obligation, Loyalty, Exile:

This is a work in progress. Not even a respectable title. I began work on political obligation and loyalty with a view to getting away from my preoccupation with political evil, but I soon found out better. It began harmlessly enough as a project to figure out the differences between political obligation and political loyalty. I turned to exiles only thanks to a chance conversation, which made me recognize that exiles because their situation is so extreme constitute a perfect limiting case for illustrating the nuances and implications of all the notions related to both obligation and loyalty. That is how I got to the topic. To be sure, I have long been interested in betrayal, and exiles are often created by governments that betray their own citizens. Governments also frequently abuse residents under their jurisdiction by denying them membership in the polity and other rights, not as a matter of legal punishment but because they belong to a group that is thought to be inherently unfit for inclusion. These people are also exiles. In fact, the more one thinks about them, the more numerous the forms of exile turn out to be. Exile itself is but a part of a larger social category, ranging from the forcibly excluded to people who exile themselves without moving by escaping into themselves, as it were, because their world is so politically evil. I came to look all the way from coerced exiles to inner emigrants. In spite of the difficulties and scope of the topic, I remain certain that exiles not only offer us a concrete way of examining the meaning of obligation and

Redeeming American Political Theory

American political theory has been accused of being uniformly liberal; but its history is diverse and is worth studying to understand the development of political science and the institutions it reflects (representative government, federalism, judicial review, and slavery). While modern social science expresses a slow democratization of values, it has been compatible with many ideologies. This can be seen in Jeffersons anthropology, Madisons theory of collective rationality, and Hamiltons empirical political economy. Jacksonian democracy encouraged social history, while its opponents devised an elitist political sociology. Southern defenders of slavery were the earliest to develop a deterministic and authoritarian sociology, but after the Civil War Northern thinkers emulated them with Social Darwinism and quests for causal laws to grasp constant change in industrial society. Though social critics abounded, democratic empirical theory emerged in the universities only in the generation of Merriam and Dewey, who founded contemporary political science.

Bergson and the Politics of Intuition

Political theory is not an independent realm of thought. Ultimately it must always refer back to some metaphysical presuppositions of Weltanschauung that is not in itself political. This does not imply that every metaphysical position entails logically necessary political consequences. But it does mean that implicitly or explicitly political theories depend on more general religious, epistemological, and moral considerations. This condition of political thinking serves to explain much of the narrowness of contemporary political theory. For the dominant currents of philosophy neither can, nor wish, to provide a basis for political speculation, which is increasingly regarded as an undisciplined form of self-expression. On the other hand, the naive hope that political studies might fruitfully emulate the methods of the natural sciences, and so share their success, has all but evaporated. The result is that political theory is now concerned to insist on its own limitations, to be critical and even negative in character. This is not a new thing. The lack of philosophical inspiration combined with the decline of “scientific” aspirations has plagued politically sensitive minds at least since the very beginning of the present century. And, from the first, one of the responses to this frustration has been the effort to escape philosophical difficulties by grasping at intuitive short-cuts to truth. The most remarkable of these flights to intuition was political Bergsonism. Moreover, this is not an entirely closed chapter in the history of ideas. Even if Bergson no longer enjoys his earlier popularity, he is still widely read, especially in America. Again, the recent vogue of existentialist “politics” points to an analogous trend, while the penchant for “action,” which is inherent in intuitive politics, is as strong as ever among French intellectuals.

Hegel's Phenomenology: The Moral Failures of Asocial Man

ed from the social whole are indeed expressions of personal interests and purposes, but looked at historically they are constituent elements in the development of a social whole. “The way of the world” embraces both the dreamer and the realist, each one of whom can see only his own part of the whole (Baillie, 1949: 411412 ; Hoffmeister, 1952: 282). In later years Hegel was often to express his contempt for political rhetoric and especially for the virtuous sort. Indeed, his later remarks on Schiller’s heroes tended to be even more ill-tempered than his reflections in the Phenomenology. Here he had, after all, still recognized that virtue, if it ceases to be an escape and joins history, usually hits upon something good: that is, i t achieves a virtuous end. Moreover, nothing here is said that would indicate that Hegel preferred Philip I1 to Posa. He failed to deal with the former altogether. which was perhaps dishonest, and certainly ambiguous, but it does not amount to a praise of tyranny. What Hegel seemed to be suggesting is that the liberation of the Netherlands could not be achieved by men such as the fine-phrased Marquis de Posa. but only by the notoriously silent Williani of Orange. I t is a point of some importance and one that should not be lost upon those who look to Hegel for the origins of “scientific,” un-utopian revolutionary doctrines. Eventually Hegel complained that Schiller’s Posa and Wallenstein set themselves universal ends that modern individuals cannot achieve. There is no rooni for epic heroes in the modern age, and their crime is to have undertaken tasks that cannot be accomplished. Both die miserable deaths. Wallenstein’s adoring army. which flattered him into over-confidence. deserts him for the true and historically valid state authority. the Austrian emperor. Wallenstein’s aim. to end the division of Ceriiiany. was noble, but no general, however able. can rebel successfully against the authority of‘ the modern state. Obedience and allegiance will always drift to the established legal order (Hegel. 1i.d.: I . ‘61-263; IV, 333-334). To be sure, some dramatists, those who grasp the truth. may present protesting heroes who d o win. .Vadiatr rhe Wise also spoke for universal values and Lessing was criticizing the prevailing ethos. Religious intolerance. however. was. Hegel thought. ”a blockish bigotry.” Such prejudice was historically on its way out. s o here protest is not rebellion against history. but rather a promotion of the inevitable. Lessiiig was thus not pitting his hero against “the course of the world.” though he may have thouglit so (Hegel. n.d.: IV. 266-207). Posterity was to side with him. and his Nathan was right in a way that Schiller’s heroes were not. On the whole, however, Hegel came t o [2741 POLITICAL THEORY I AUGUST 1973 think ali criticism of actuality a childish self-indulgence. Schiller might write feelingly about the wrongs of the world and, to be sure, there was injustice and wrongdoing. That, however, was merely “empirical” and insignificant. The wise man does not concentrate on these trivialities of actual suffering. He tries to keep only the rational and necessary positive aspects of history in mind. He disregards present wrongs and emphasizes the rational process by which humanity is gradually coming to the freedom of full historical self-knowledge. Necessity and historical limitations have been promoted from hard taskmasters to positive goods that should be worshipped. To criticize the actual is now always a peevish, self-serving, rhetorical vanity which refuses to recognize the real bearing of states and ruling powers. There may be grounds for discontent, but it is the height of superficiality to see badness everywhere and to neglect the genuine and positive aspects of actuality. It is above all a sign of immaturity. The old are more just than the young in this respect (Hoffmeister, 1955: 76-77). We are made to feel that Schiller’s laments, however well expressed, show a want of mature wisdom. It is worth asking what Schiller himself had in mind. For clearly Hegel, along with many others, mistook his intentions in some ways. Perhaps Schiller was simply overpowered by the characters he had created. I t is difficult not to idolize Posa. When Schiller discovered that this was what his audience was doing he wrote a most remarkable commentary on his own play. Posa was not meant to be the hero of Don Carlos. Years before the French Revolution. Schiller analyzed the moral pitfalls of civic virtue with a deadly accuracy. Posa is unscrupulous in pursiiit of his republican ends. Even his self-sacrificing death. as the Queen notes in the play. is part of his plan. For all private feelings and virtues are subordinated to his great political design. Inflamed by memories of Roman virtue, Schiller noted, Posa became inhuman. He rejected friendship. personal loyalty. and consideration i n pursuit of a suprdiuman end. The law of the heart is a surer guide and i t is the gentle and loving Don Carlos who is crushed by despot and republican alike who is ineatit to be the real victim-hero of the drama (Hegel. 1905: 16. 5 1-98). That is also young Piccolotiiini’s role in Wuflerisfeiri’s Death. He had worshipped Walleiistein as a 111ati and political hero a11 his life. but in the end he sees that the general has only been following the wild impulses of his own heart. Heroism is here clearly revealed as the higher selfishness and i t is again tliose who follow the law of the heart who alone emerge as natural arid good, though surely downed to destruction. That Schiller should choose the law ol’ tlic heart. private moral feeling. Shkler I HEGEL‘S PHENOMENOLOGY [275] over both civic virtue and political realism would certainly not have consoled Hegel. He wrote a review of Wallenstein’s Death eventually in which he could only express his horror at the meaninglessness of the whole drama. A hero who dies a futile death without any note of affirmation was intolerable. There is nothing but destruction here as winner and defeated are both engulfed by their incredible losses (Hegel, 1905: XX, 465-458). Schiller, of course, had no intention of celebrating the victory of necessity over goodness. For him it was not the triumph of right over wrong, or of history over individuality. One is left with the impression that the poet’s gloomy realism was too much for Hegel. The question of who was really capable of accepting actuality, however, remains in some doubt. Is the poet who’sees history as the victory of the strong over the weak really a deluded enthusiast? Is the champion of private morality really self-inflated because he sees no merit in various political designs to preserve or to reorder the world? Is the affirmative philosopher who discovers reason in the slaughterhouse and who sneers at Don Quixote the supreme realist? Why, after all, should “merely empirical” misery not be met with “merely empirical” outrage?’ ’ Schiller’s Wallenstein is a perfectly accurate account of political warfare. What intellectual or moral end would be served by pretending that the elder Piccolomini and his master the Emperor were superior in anything but military and political power? Hegel insisted that the drama must invest such events with some sort of positive meaning. It must reconcile us to every victory of the modern state over its deviant members. The necessity of this triumph must be revealed as something more than a merely material one. Why this must be shown is not clear, least of all in these pages of the Phenomenology devoted to the failures of utopian efforts. One is bound to conclude that Hegel thought it dangerous and painful for individuals to indulge in dreams doomed to failure. Defeat is after all dreadful. Hegel was right there. But it is surely a completely individualistic argument against individualism. He is, in fact, urging us to abandon subjectivity because it is an attitude that can do one no good. Having demonstrated that self-destruction and futility await individualists who in one way or another pit themselves against society, Hegel turned to another kind of subjectivity and one he found just as irrational and obnoxious. Now it is not a matter of treating the social order as an external obstacle that the self must conquer, but of turning wholly inward.“ This is the path of Fichte’s absolute ego. It recognizes nothing except itself. Awareness of self is our only certainty and it constitutes the entire content of human consciousness (Baillie. 1949: 414-416; Hoffmeister, 1952: 283-285). Everything we know is the creation of the ego’s I2761 POLITICAL THEORY / AUGUST 1973 own activity. In response t o its own expansive needs the ego invents the non-ego. Once the ego has posited the non-ego it yearns t o be again a t one with its own invention and a circular process of self-division and reintegration is set in motion. The activity of the ego in the first instance is thus one of creative imagination which projects an “external” world, or non-ego, t o which it reacts and upon which it acts.’ This solipsism was a desperate effort t o overcome the Kantian gap between mind and the objective natural order. As Hegel remarked, not unjustly, Fichte meant t o grasp certainty by giving up the very possibility of true knowledge (Haldane and Simpson, 1894: I l l , 485-486). Fichte was not the sole target o f Hegel’s critique. He had even more intense objections t o the romantic interpreters of Fichte’s theory of the creative ego, most notably t o Friedrich von Schlegel’s notion of an ironic ego, Here the ego is that of the artist who uses his imagination t o make and destroy illusions while he hovers ironically above his own material and h s audience. Self-expression in this romantic view is not just the sole possible work of the ego, bu t a show of its artistic power and glory. What had begun as a theory of knowledge was transformed into a public vaunting of artistic irresponsibility and of self-e

Books in Review : UTOPIAN THOUGHT IN THE WESTERN WORLD by Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979, Pp. vi, 896.

to consider seriously any aspect of the utopian tradition will have to begin with the Manuels’ monumental volume. Not every reader will agree with each one of their interpretations, but no one will be able to ignore them. Beginners will be well advised to start here, in order to avoid elementary mistakes, while accomplished scholars will profit from arguing with the Manuels and measuring their own efforts against the standards set by this book. They are very high ones. First of all the scholarship is mature and exceptionally wide-ranging. But what gives the Manuels’ work its special distinction is not just the immense number of writers whom they discuss, but their single-minded, uncompromising approach to the subject. The Manuels are resolutely psychological in their analysis of utopias and their authors. In every instance utopia is treated as the expression of a predisposition, of a psychic urge that in its energy can produce an enormous variety of word pictures, maps, plans, and fantasies. Whatever the final artifact, we are here always led back to the individuality of the author and his personal experiences. This is a consistently biographical history, held together by the core of the subject matter itself. For the Manuels are faithful followers of Lovejoy’s way of writing intellectual history, which has the merit of illuminating the enduring identity of complex structures of ideas throughout their often long histories and numerous changes in form and content. Utopia is an ideal subject for this historiography, and this book is a perfect match between method and matter. It is, finally, easy to read and full of

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exist in the same degree. In the past, political parties needed a great deal of room to qaneuver, because of the need t o compromise. With a nonclass-divided Bociety, this need ‘‘would not be of the same order of magnitude” (p. 114). How classes are to be eliminated, or even moderated, remains obscure. This problem seems to be especially serious for Macpherson because of his belief that it is social and economic institutions that shape man and his political institutions. In short, the treatment of Phase Four is unconvincing, even selfcontradictory, in theory, and almost wholly lacking is practical detail. This is certainly not to deny that the book is thought-provoking and that the “models” provide convenient and useful capsulizations of leading typ& of democratic political theory. Perhaps no more should be asked of such an unpretentious volume. Possibly n o more was intended.

The Political Works of James Harringtonedited with an Introduction by PocockJ.G.A.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Pp. xviii, 859.

We are so used to revolutions that we accept them as normal occurrences. It is therefore difficult to remember what an immense shock the French Revolution was, not only to those who were immediately affected, but to those Europeans who merely observed its course from a distance. No writer can remind us more forcefully than Hegel of how shaking an impact these events had. Fifteen years after its outbreak Hegel saw nothing less than the end and fulfillment of the European spirit in the French Revolution. If there was to be a future, his own age, an “age of transition”, could not know it.1 Politically it was a vacuum. Europe was in an indefinable condition about which nothing could be said. Its only immediate achievement, German philosophy, had explicated the moral implication of the Revolution. As such it was a spiritual completion, and Hegel found it wanting in many respects. It was purely a triumph of intellectual fulfillment, not a sign of new possibilities. The real philosophical reward for having seen the disintegration of Europe’s religious and secular spirit was to understand its meaning. It was the historical equivalent of being at the end of time.