Liberalism in Dark Times: The Liberal Ethos in the Twentieth Century by Joshua L. Cherniss

 

2021 publication

Every once in a while we stumble into a book that seems tailor-made for the occasion. Over the Christmas holiday, I bought this book, having recently read a favorable review of it. (I don't recall where, alas.) And given that my reading list remains backed up for years (and I fear well beyond any reasonable hope of clearing in my lifetime), I could have chosen to start any number of worthy books. But  I chose this one. Why? I can't say for sure, but in looking back, I believe that the invasion of Ukraine by the Putin regime, along with the continuing threat of Trump and his ilk, played a role. But by whatever prompt, I'm very pleased that I selected and read this book. It is, as I referenced above, tailor-made for the times. 

I also selected this book because I recognized the names of those whose thought it explores: Max Weber, Albert Camus, Raymond Aron, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Isaiah Berlin, along with many other figures discussed or cited in this book.  I sometimes rue that education--my education-- was wasted on my callow youth, but--take heart teachers--sometimes planting a seed, even if it takes decades to fully bloom, brings about the desired blossom. Professor and instructors in the departments of History and Political Science introduced me to all of these thinkers, if not by direct assignment, then by reference. Indeed, the subtitle of this book refers to “dark times,” a term deployed by one of their peers, Hannah Arendt, which, along with the idea of a “time of troubles” were introduced to me as a student. When I think back, the 70s were not an easy time. American politics had to deal with the social and political turmoil of the 60s and the continuing competition between the liberal democratic regimes and the Marxist camps. Also, we experienced Watergate, the Vietnam War, and continuing forms of political unrest through much of the world. And the totalitarian threat remained real. Stalin had only died the year of my birth, while Mao still ruled in China. Thus, the thinker-actors considered in this book were all still quite topical in the 1970s. 

In addition to a thorough and considered examination of the legacy of these thinkers, Cherniss deploys a vocabulary that resonated deeply with me. Ethos, ethics, stance, posture, dirty hands, ruthlessness, and other such terms were prominent in the final political theory course I took as an undergraduate. (Hat tip to Professor (then Instructor) John S. Nelson for this class.) From where I am now, and in accord with Cherniss's argument, I find that these terms, these concerns, this mode of addressing the world of politics, goes to the very heart of the political enterprise. Not that laws, institutions, policies, and such don't count. They do. However, politics is a very human endeavor marked by speech and thus persuasion. Violence, the negation of politics, always lurks in the background, and one must understand that war (violence) isn't the continuation of politics by other means, but the cessation of politics, which comes about when politics fails. Thus, political leaders must contend not only with the plurality of views and words, but they must deal with violence or the threat of violence. There are, of course, political leaders, who, like Mao, believe political power emanates from the barrel of a gun. And some who wield the power of government believe that the utopian ends often justify ruthless means. This “realism” led to some of the greatest atrocities known to humankind. Terms like “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” seem too sterile when addressing the horror perpetrated by individuals and regimes in the twentieth century, but we must start somewhere. 

In brief, all of these individuals opposed ruthless individuals and regimes and those who claimed to be only “realistic” and were excessively “Machiavellian.” (Poor Niccolò, I think, gets a bum rap with this usage, but the usage remains as if written in stone into our political vocabulary.). Cherniss provides detailed expositions of the thought of Camus, Aron, Niebuhr, and Berlin. (The consideration of Weber is less detailed, and Cherniss includes Gyorgy Lukacs as a foil to Weber's outlook.) Cherniss dubs these five thinkers, and others of their perspective, as “tempered liberals.” (With some hesitation expressed about Weber's bona fides as a liberal.) That is, these thinkers attempt to walk the tightrope between naïveté and excessive “realism” and “Machiavellianism.” They do so by attention to persons and situations, and they recognize the reality of competing values and goods. They tend to particular observations and appraisals, and they shy away from systems of thought and purely logical conclusions. They tend to write essays instead of tomes. They work to avoid suffering while recognizing that sacrifices often prove necessary. As one reads about each of these figures, one can see from our current position that they didn't always get things right (to the extent that we can identify what's right). But overall, they provided markers against which political actions could be appropriately judged. 

I should note that Weber's distinction between the “ethic of ultimate ends” and the “ethics of responsibility” is an insight and a guide that has been with me for a long time. And I never seem to go very long without thinking about the hard decisions political officials must make, such as whether to take half a loaf or none in regard to some legislation. Or whether to rest with some evil for the sake of peace or decide that some good merits the sacrifice of lives. So also with the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, perhaps the thinker amongst these five of whom I've read the most and the deepest. Like Weber and the others, Niebuhr walks a tightrope between realism (which include a theological position grounded in original sin) and the need for justice. And while Weber and Niebuhr have provided the greatest influence on my thinking from amongst these five, Cherniss's work prompts me to want to explore Camus, Aron, and Berlin in more depth. I realize that as much as I appreciate and admire Cherniss's summary and exploration of their work, his exposition points to the depth of what he's exploring. He allows me to see that there's much more in each of these thinkers than what he can share in a chapter. 

Finally, I asked myself: “Is this a work of history or of political theory?” The answer, I suggest, is that it's both. And that is as it should be. All political thought of lasting interest arises from the politics of the age in which it is produced. To understand concerns with ethos, ethics, dirty hands, stances, and the like is to be of a time. As throughout the parade of human life, we live in a world that is at once unique in the fleeting now and yet that follows paths laid down by generations before us. History provides a rough guide, but only a rough guide, a map of the terrain without the details. Thus, history provides a path to self-knowledge, both collectively and individually, but it doesn't provide a running commentary. We have to explore the sites on our own. And while history doesn't repeat itself, it does rhyme. (I know this is an old chestnut, a cliché, but it harbors too much truth to ignore.) Thus, while we are not repeating the 1930s, we can certainly discern its echoes as a land hungry dictator marches his armies without justification into a neighboring nation in Eastern Europe. And in the wider world, democracy and liberalism have been under attack and have seemed to wane. Even in the U.S., where fascist-style populism and authoritarianism threatened but was turned aside during the Great Depression, has recently experienced fascist-style populism allowed demagogue and wanna-be authoritarian to gain the presidency. And even as I write this little man (intellectually, morally) leads polls for the presidency despite the continuing revelation of his overtly criminal activities. So, yes, “tempered liberalism” is needed once again. We can't simply repeat the thoughts of these exemplars, but we can gain a great deal of wisdom and insight from their work, and we can hope that Joshua Cherniss continues to guide us in our quest. 

N.B. This book receives the highest ratings from me on Goodreads and Amazon (and anywhere else I could say so.) 

Thoughts for the Day: Monday 15 February 2021

 

The Master and His Emissary

Iain McGilchrist

The French Revolution and the American Revolution are two of the most important and enduring legacies of the Enlightenment. As [Isaiah] Berlin says, they have almost nothing to do with Romanticism:

…the principles in the name of which the French Revolution was fought were principles of universal reason, of order, of justice, not at all connected with the sense of uniqueness, the profound emotional introspection, the sense of the differences of things, dissimilarities rather than similarities, with which the Romantic movement is usually associated.

(However, as I hope to show later, there is a track that leads direct from the Enlightenment to Romanticism – another case of there being a smooth transition from one hemisphere's agenda to the (in reality quite opposed) agenda of the other hemisphere, which I have argued for in the case of the Reformation.)

Conservatism

Edmund Fawcett

After the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the first conservatives asked themselves whether the turmoil, suffering, and criminal excess had been due to liberty or to its perversion. Burke mildly and Maistre savagely had blamed modern liberty, that is, liberty understood in the wrong way.

The Idea of History

R. G. Collingwood

In order that there should be chronicle, there must first be history: for chronicle is the body of history from which the spirit has gone; the corpse of history.

The Price of Peace

Zachary D. Carter

By 1969, the year Johnson left office, the poverty rate was down to 12.1 percent—a reduction of more than 12 million people and more than one-third of the impoverished population at the time Johnson had taken office.

Pebbles of Perception

Laurence Endersen

Start by considering the end. Visualise both the road to personal fulfilment and the destination. Consider what  behaviour  would thwart that fulfilment and do the opposite. Thinking about the route to avoid helps reveal the more rewarding road.

Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince, translated by Tim Parks

I first encountered The Prince in the spring of 1972, a time when we might say an archetypical Machiavellian figure occupied the White House. I read it as an assignment in my introduction to political theory course. I don't remember a great deal about the book (although I do remember the "C" I took in the course!) Anyway, the topic of political theory took with me anyway, and I've returned to Machiavelli again by assignment and of my own volition. Why? He is (perhaps along with Thucydides) the supreme political realist. As James Burnham made clear in The Machiavellians, a keen understanding of how politics really works, as opposed to how we would like it to work, provides us with a knowledge that we can ignore only at our peril. Not that we shouldn't think or work for a better political system, but that we had better understand how it really is working.

For a paper for a course in Renaissance history, I wrote about the mirror of princes literature that preceded Machiavelli. These were medieval tracts that advised rulers to act according to the Church and Aristotelian standards. In other words, to act like goody-two-shoes. Then comes Machiavelli like a Tammany Hall ward captain at Girls State, pulling the would-be leader aside and telling her, "Hey, kid, listen up. If you wanna get ahead here, here's whatcha' gotta' do". The intuitive ruler always knew these things, or at least some of them, but never before had anyone of any notoriety ever stated the real practices so blatantly. (And, by the way, while Machiavelli didn't offer his advice to young ladies, he did write The Prince to try to woo the Medici family into retaining his services. It didn't work.)
  
I'd seen that #JLF speaker Tim Parks had recently completed a translation of The Prince and that Jared Diamond (who looks quite mellow) had given The Prince a shout out in an interview asking what he'd recommend to the president to read, so I took up Parks's translation. Parks, a Brit who lives and writes in Italy, and whose book Teach Us to Sit Still I greatly enjoyed, has performed a great service and provided us with a very useful translation. I don't have any expertise on translations, but Parks explains his intent in the introduction--to give a sense of the "handbook" style that Machiavelli wanted to use to convey his practical wisdom--and it works very well. For instance, Machiavelli's famous description of fortune (Fortuna) as a woman was not written--nay, was intentionally not written--to be politically correct. Parks recognizes this and translates the passage with the machismo that Machiavelli no doubt intended to convey. This everyday, contemporary English gives this translation a feel that matches its practical usefulness for today.

I was going to go on to discuss Machiavelli, who still intrigues and puzzles me. However, such an undertaking isn't easy, as he has perplexed and challenged thinkers since he published The Prince. But good luck rode to the rescue, and I happened upon this piece by Isaiah Berlin, the British political philosopher and historian of ideas, in which he thoroughly reviews the literature on Machiavelli and arrives at his own assessment. I can't do better and won't try, except to say that the "evil Machiavel" is worth the read to challenge and inform you. Here's a teaser snippet from Berlin's article that I'll close with: 

But the question that his writings have dramatized, if not for himself, then for others in the centuries that followed, is this: what reason have we for supposing that justice and mercy, humility and virtù, happiness and knowledge, glory and liberty, magnificence and sanctity will always coincide, or indeed be compatible at all? Poetic justice is, after all, so called not because it does, but because it does not, as a rule, occur in the prose of ordinary life, where, ex hypothesi, a very different kind of justice operates.