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2/2
philosophy
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1971
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james
105
robert
126
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e.
m. rhodes
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a
journal
of political
ume
2/2
philosophy
winter
1971
page
79
james
105
robert
126
j.
e.
m. rhodes
f.
pleasure and reason: marcuse's
freedom
sasseen
parsons, jr.
on
la
as an end of politics
rochefoucauld:
preliminary
143
howard b.
martinus
reflections
macbeth and
white
the tyrannical man
nijhoff, the hague
edited at queens college of of new york
the
idea
city university
of
freedom
interpretation a
journal
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volume 2
2
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269
the
hague
netherlands.
79
PLEASURE AND REASON: MARCUSE'S IDEA OF FREEDOM James M. Rhodes
Herbert Marcuse
liberty
has been
often
the establishment
and
is ironic, for Marcuse and a foe of tyranny. its
sessments of
always
of
accused of
has imagined himself a
Conflicting
ideas
of
freedom
in American society
status
advocating the
abolition of
totalitarianism in the United States. This
are at
champion of
freedom
contradictory as issue in this disagree and
ment.1
Most
of
Marcuse's
erty in terms
beheve that that
impartial laws
men ought to
being
without
be
constituted
permitted to
persecuted or
fortunes competitively
they
popular will.
should
by
rule.
majority
define lib
They firmly also
They
allowed to make their material
and consume them as
The American democrats
feel
own opinions
assent to official orthodoxies.
be
in
political
They
their
and express
think that economic decisions
these rights and
all
form
forced to
think further that individuals
socialists,
who
they have learned to cherish. entitled to live under representative which
people are
stitutions and
American democrats
antagonists are
"rights"
of
they at
please, or, if
least
ought
consider men
they
are satisfied that their
why
people who accept
they
are
to reflect the
free if they enjoy
country tries to
assure
the
rights to everyone.
It is easy to Marcuse
see
defy duly freedom
of
also calls
for the
revision of
1
A
this creed
would charge that
tyranny. The man openly encourages the New Left to constituted laws and policies of the United States and to forbid
preaches
to persons who
speech
is "radically American institutions and
defend
violent subversion of
He
evil."
what
a
drastic
the nation's economic priorities "against the will and against
sympathetic
interpreter
to know
professes not
what
Marcuse
means
by
the
freedom. Robert W. Marks, The Meaning of Marcuse (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970), pp. 55-56. Nevertheless, Marcuse has an explicit idea of "weasel
word"
works: Reason and Revolution, Hegel Theory (1941, 1960); Eros and Civilization, A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (1955, 1962); One-Dimensional Man, Studies in the Ideology in Robert Paul of Advanced Industrial Society (1964); "Repressive Wolff et al., A Critique of Pure Tolerance (1965, 1969); An Essay on Liberation (1969); and Five Lectures, Psychoanalysis, Politics, and Utopia (1970). The latest
freedom
and
which
is developed in the following
the Rise of Social
Tolerance,"
paperback editions of second are published published
these books
by
in New York. The
respectively.
are cited
in this
paper
Beacon Press in Boston. The works are cited as
and,
these, all but the is a Vintage Book
of
exception
RR, EC, ODM, RT, EL,
and
FL
80
Interpretation
Moreover, he
people."
the prevaUing interests of the great majority of the dictatorship" urges the creation of an "educational
lutionary ic
(albeit
elite
has been
reluctantly).2There never
to respect majority rule, freedom of
refusal
managed
a revo
thought,
and
speech
by
a more emphat and
There never has been a clearer invitation the psychic development of human beings, either.
popular economic sovereignty.
dictators to control Marcuse seems bent on
to
people of their
depriving
not to speak of
rights,
help but
their souls, and thus his adversaries could not
judge him
would-
a
totalitarian.3
be
For his part, Marcuse admits readily that he would abridge existing despots to mold the human psyche. However, he re
rights and empower
jects his inference that this would put an end to hberty. He main tains in the first place that no one has any freedom to lose; the belief that the American rights are equivalent to freedom is a delusion. Granted, critics'
choice, but Marcuse
that: "The range
these rights do
guarantee
of choice open
to the individual is not the decisive factor in
human freedom, but the individual."4 Americans do
the degree
by are
what can
of
incapable
sidious and
of
doing
so
contends
be
freemen
not wUl what
because they
are the
determining
chosen and what
unwitting
would
is
chosen
wiU;
they
victims of an
in
effective slavery.
cruelly
impediments to truly free choice. The first psychological disorder which gravely impairs man's capacity to desire his proper happiness.5 Repressed individ uals are both aggressive and euphoric; they engage in destructive mass be
This slavery
consists of two
"repression,"
is
a
havior do
universal
them if
which would grieve
not seem to
they
nearly
be bothered
if they
intensely
would suffer
in their sorry
Their
state.
by
they
the
were
were sane.
madness
is
manipulation.
in America
who
benefit from
domination,"
2
pp. 3
RT,
Marcuse thinks
aggression
deftly
and pernicious academic
the rulers reach down to the
81, 88, 100, 109-110, 117; EL,
pp.
labor, from
they
which
They think themselves happy by the second element of manage
make certain that the masses remain repressed.
comforts, the media,
right minds and
of their
reinforced
"totalitarian"
the slavery,
in their
"alienation"
"very
pp.
Using
doctrines
that ruling elites human minds to
creature
modern
"instruments
as
instincts"
of men
17, 70; FL,
pp.
of
to make
86, 104; ODM,
16, 39-41. A typical democratic (though
"Herbert
Marcuse,"
typically democratic
Gerberding
not
American)
attack on
Marcuse is M. Cranston,
Encounter, XXXII (March, 1969), 38-50. An essays
directed
against
the New Left in
general
anthology
of
is William P.
Duane E. Smith, eds., The Radical Left, The Abuse of Discontent Mifflin, 1970).
and
(Boston: Houghton 4
ODM,
5
Marcuse insists that happiness is
p.
of subjective
actually is to
7.
feelings. EC,
p.
"surplus-repression"
"repression"
in this
essay.
an objective condition and not
94. The
but this
correct name
term
is too
for the
merely
a matter
psychological
disorder
awkward and
hence is
contracted
Pleasure
false pleasures,
them content with
in
co-operation sional,"
i.e. incapable
labor
to secure their
and their aggressive
oppression, and to make them "one-dimen perceiving the evils of their condition. The mas of
schemes of
ters also disguise their
81
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom
and
society to
control of
prevent
tain democratic rights and institutions as facades
they
rebellion;
help
which
main
to generate
one-dimensionality by creating an illusion of popular Marcuse hopes to substitute real self-determination for the illusion but self-government.6
he faces and call
ery is
an enormous
it freedom
an
are
intolerable
problem; people who dementedly love their slavery likely to resist their own liberation. Since their slav nevertheless, Marcuse
evil
jects
as
of
they
the 'good
shown
the American
against which
they
and sometimes as
are,
road'
they
are
democracy,
'see
to
ob
appear,'
they
must
He
search
be
advocates subversion
the universities, the media, and the economy
he
senses and
ought to
free,'
of."
in
the popular wiU in order to
nobody
Rousseau
concludes with
that contemporary men simply "must be 'forced to be
destroy
the
of manipulation
system
conceives educational
dictatorship
as a nec
essary therapy for minds which have been programmed to accept irration ality as happiness. When manipulative institutions have been done away with and when consciousness has been reformed true liberty wiU be at
hand; then the wUl measures
the people
of
discarded.
can
be
if
should not complain
dictatorial
respected once again and
Meanwhile, Marcuse revolutionaries
that his
suggests
opponents
temporarily employ despotic
me
thods to prepare society for true freedom; a benevolent despotism with this aim surely would be better than the present tyranney, which has made the Affluent
Society
an Auschwitz.7
Marcuse's
are scandalized and reject
ization
of
The American democrats, entire argument as a
of
shabby
course,
rational
dark designs, generally without paying sufficient attention to the Marcuse poses to the grounds of their beliefs.
challenge which
If
anyone wished to examine the merits of the
democratic positions, he he
would
that it pretends to
manipulates popular stock-in-trade
6
pp.
of
clear
the New Left
strenuously
whether
be,
that
consciousness.
by
the
EC, chaps, i-vii, especially 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 16, 80; RT,
quite
consider
have to look into Marcuse's
democracy
contested
have to
would
Marcuse
of culpable evil-doers or as
accusation
it is
controlled
Actually,
since
and
American
this
by
a
thesis
C. Wright MiUs
minority which has been the
and
it has been
"pluralists"
pp.
First,
that America is not the
and others.
sociological
pp.
The
de-
42, 90-95; ODM, intro., chaps, i-vi, especially 84, 97; EL, pp. 7, 11, 63; FL, p. 16. It is not
envisages
the
Marcusean
two issues seriously.
manipulation
result of an
impersonal
as
a
deliberate conspiracy both
system which entraps
Compare EC, pp. 33-34; ODM, xvi, pp. 14, 168; FL, p. 54. 6, 7, 16, 39-41, 80; RT, pp. 88, 100; EL, pp. 17, 65, 70. Marcuse educational dictatorship, arguing that all men would know the truth if only their minds were not "methodically arrested and
oppressor and oppressed. '
ODM,
pp.
once rejected
diverted."
automatically
EC,
p.
206.
82
Interpretation
bate has been inconclusive and it cannot be be pertinent, however. The
settled
how is essentially
power and
assembled
could not
be
construed
unaware
strangely
that the facts
precisely as
of
many
his
he
as
facts
which
weU
equally
times
says and at
opponents
have
pointed
his
out, it is
often
are required to
he does
are supposed to support
He
way.
other
some
demonstrations
that rigorous
are
exercises
not
proof that his claims are valid. He merely interprets data arbitrarUy, without showing why these data
empirical
supply any selectively
One
paper.
Marcuse himself does
and
empirical
in this
question of who
comment would
a
indicate
even
not
seems
establish
generalizations.
mystery that he
Thus,
expects
believe his power elite thesis. Marcuse's theory of repression presents the second issue which needs to be discussed; American democrats never would concede that people today are unfree due to some psychological incapacity to want real happiness. anyone to
This dispute, Marcuse
first, does not admit of empirical resolution. "metapsyexplicitly that he takes his theory from Freudian "symbolic" that parts of it are more important for their
unlike the
says
chology"
and
than their literal truth. His primary misguided and
an
as
is to
concern
liberty
of
establish
happiness;
true
nor
explanation
"ontological"
certain
of
true
neither
is intended
argument
terms
have
that men are
the rest of his
the causes of these
circumstances.8
Several
evils
philosophic
in
ques "true"
tions, therefore, are at the heart of the repression issue: What are freedom and happiness? Is the range of choice inherent in the American "real"
rights cusean end? "misery,"
logical"
which
know
achievement
freedom the of
this
of some Mar-
attainment
"happiness"
and
end
subjective
feelings? Have
aU else
man's
"onto
really led to a defective kind of human existence lacks "happiness"? What are these circumstances and how can one circumstances
what
It is ceeds
Is the
despite the individual's
from their
more
"true"
liberty? Or is
they
are?
Would it be justifiable
or even possible
to
save people
"misery"
by compelling them to choose the Marcusean good? immediately evident that Marcuse treats these problems any
not
rigorously than the empirical ones. Most scholars think that he pro cavalierly, that he merely asserts what he believes man's ontological
situation, true
freedom,
that: "He does what criteria of sertions."9
and real
not make
it
happiness are,
truth he is appealing
Difficulties
8
EC,
pp.
8
The
critic adds
also
and a commentator says
he accepts or to he invites us to accept his as have been pointed out in the very questions clear what
criteria of truth
when
6, 7, 11, 25, 54-56, 94, 96-99, 113-114. that: "Marcuse seldom, if ever,
gives us
any
reason
to believe
is writing is true. He offers incidental illustrations of his theses very often; he never offers evidence in a systematic way. Above all, there is entirely absent from his writing any attempt on his own part to suggest or consider the that what he
Pleasure
Marcuse
which
and
raises.
83
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom
The
are couched
questions
in idealistic language,
implying that there actually may be Forms of true freedom and happiness, and it is intimated that Marcuse persists in his idealism ignorantly, without realizing that
phUosophy has done much to discredit its assump idealism often is nothing more than a manner of expressing opinions about good and evil and Marcuse goes so far as to admit that all his work is informed by "value-judgments."11 But, it is asked, if this is the case, aren't the questions implied by Marcuse's arguments un tions.10
analytic
Furthermore,
"values,"
In fact, in planning to force his mere "subjective on his neighbors, isn't Marcuse committing the one unfor intellectual sin of baseless arrogance and proving himself a tyrant
answerable?
preferences,"
givable
bend, not to any truth, but to what necessarily be only his imperious wUl? Marcuse is confident that he is acting on the basis of something more than personal whims. He maintains against the analytic philosophers that
who would make others could
true freedom and happiness
knowledge that he does appeal to claims that
tions; he
says that
a truth
imposed
proved
to be the
that
he
can
ideal
are
realities and
of an objective good explicit criteria of
humanity's
upon man
by
need an
for
he
rejects positivistic
is impossible. He
arbitrary philosophical theory, but of man, his very Being that
it is
convincing
some sensitive
even produces an
inner
that
who admits
critics,
young
extremely
has done
also
students
of
curious spiritual effect
when
he
to say, 'You know more
voice seems
or
less
no sin of arro
Although the
in
of
his
one
of
Marcuse he has
reads
what
be
certain
job
a remarkable
the justice
not
can
reality."12
gance to revolutionize the present order undemocratically.
blind to his proofs, he
asser
he takes to be freedom "is
what
inherent aim demonstrate the truth, Marcuse holds
scholars seem
also thinks
truth to demonstrate his
cause.
his
mature
a problem:
he
of
He
means.
"An
Why
details?'
To which another voice replies, T haven't carping about the faintest idea what he means, but I have a strong feeling that he may "13 be Because of their revolutionary potential and their strange
be
so
right.'
to move
power
arguments
sensitive minds
should
not
without
be dismissed
out
any evident reason, Marcuse's hand. Rather, it would seem
of
necessary to learn what they are, to attempt to discover their grounds, "values" would have more or to try to determine why Marcuse's
and
less to
recommend them than the
difficulties that Alasdair
arise
Maclntyre,
American
for his positions, Herbert
and
alternatives.
hence
also no attempt
Marcuse, An Exposition
and
Viking Press, 1970), pp. 14, 44-45, 51, 59, 71, 84, 88. 10 Marks, loc. cit. Marks also attacks Marcuse for his loose words. See pp. 50, 79, 82. 11 RR, viii-ix; ODM, x-xi. 12
13
RR, pp. 98-99. Marks, op. cit.,
p.
56.
to
meet
them."
A Polemic (New York:
and
arbitrary
use of
84
Interpretation
II A summary of Marcuse's ideas his theory of human nature, Hegelian thought
and
that the human
which
is
and
happiness
is something
which arises out of
"under the pressure of external disturbing be excited after birth by stimuli which are
forces"
begins
logically
from Freudian
pieced together
with
Freud
inorganic
matter
ingenuity. Marcuse believes
with some
organism
liberty
of
with
and which continues
to
de inorganic
experienced as needs and "quiescence"
Because it originally comes from the of matter, the organism does not like to be disturbed and it strives for "re lief" from its "internal tension due to It can find relief in either sires.
stimuli."
by satisfying its desires or by returning to the inorganic The organism attempts to do both and, thus, for Marcuse, man is a dialectical unity of opposites. He is an organic whole with two basic, dia metrically opposed "instincts": Eros, which tries to ease tension through of
two ways,
state.
pleasure, thereby sustaining
instinct,
and which manifests
Freedom Whoever that
and
happiness
for
as aggressive
are not categories which pertain to
which
being
"the full
Thanatos
dead
and submit
matter.
himself to
of stimuli which
want,"
of
death
the tomb
is life; he must give is "essentiaUy the Liberty and happiness then become identical with the strives; Marcuse defines both concepts as "absence
bombardment
pleasure."
the
destructiveness.14
to Eros and participate in a
over
striving for goal
itself
wants these prizes must suppress
discomforting
himself
reproducing life, and Thanatos, from want in the ultimate peace of
and
which seeks refuge
being
which
needs,"
satisfaction
and
of
"integral
gratification,"
in short, as pleasure. This is not to say that Marcuse commits man to a titiUavulgar, hedonistic search for new and ever more attractive forms of
tion,
inevitably
a quest which
must
lead to boredom
contrary, to spend one's life in the pursuit exacerbate the condition
and
which
the
On
organism
the instincts
seeks
relief.
is
the
be to
Marcuse
"really unending eternally unsatisfying change, not a striving for what is endlessly higher unattained, but rather a balance, a stabilization and reproduction of
stresses time and again and
from
and nihUism.
of new excitements would
that
what
want
not
be gratified and new wants only ap In other words, the is also instincts want to propel the organism into a radically transfigured existence, "peace," into an eternal, "permanent which offers "attained and fulfillment," fulfillment," sustained "calm through "rest in conditions within which all needs can
if their
pear
possible."
pleasurable gratification
order"
fulfillment,"
and
a
"true
freedom"
mode
of
which
conquest, but its coming to cation of being."15
14
EC,
essay 15
as
pp.
EC,
pp.
Of course, it
21-27, 114. It
interpreted
rest
by
should
is "not the incessant activity
in the transparent knowledge might
be inquired
be kept in
mind that
whether such a
Freud is
of
and gratifi miracu-
presented
in this
Marcuse.
17, 104, 105, 113, 203, 204; FL,
pp.
11, 41. Paul Eidelberg
says that
Pleasure
lous transformation this question, as
85
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom
and
being is possible; Marcuse tries to answer below. It also might be asked whether man
of organic
be
will
seen
really is Eros and Thanatos and how this could be proved, whether the striv ing for pleasure truly is all that is significant in human existence, and whether it is appropriate to define freedom and happiness as a miraculously
desires
all erotic
of
being
to true freedom as "the transparent
reference
represents a
pleasure, but
satisfied.
rigorously.16
these problems
Marcuse's
be
should
since many people think that not Marcuse does not appear to deal with
Eros, especially
permanent satisfaction of
futher definition
"a form
also
liberty is
the concept;
of
reason."
of
Falling
back
knowledge"
on
not
only
Left Hegelian to seek "mere
a
human nature, Marcuse argues that if man were instinctual he would not be distinct from the animal and his pleasure really would not be enjoyment. To be a truly enjoyable, human view of
gratification"
"mediated,"
or permeated with freedom, gratification must be Three typically Hegelian requirements have to be met: pleasure must be based on and consistent with rational human control of the world; the in
dividual,
through reason,
freedom. Marcuse the
that render freedom
cious
if they
possible."
pursued pleasure
to the vicissitudes
social
would
keep
foresight to establish
"a
of
relationships;
men
these results
escape
own
could
mindlessly
consciousness of
not achieve
and permitted
an unregulated
nature,
improvident
such
People
famines, depressions,
his
of
in
capri
economy, and
civil
strife, and the like
constant turmoU.
improvidence; it
"rest in fulfill themselves to be
Eros
must act with
must allow reason
to
gratification"
new
rationality
division
of
which anticipates and guards
of
against threats to tranquillity.
"its
fully
first requirement, "conscious and rational mastery of man, because he thinks that this is one of the "conditions
by
subject
needs and satisfactions auton
developed
sets the
world"
ment"
determine his
must
and man must attain to a
omously,
reason.17
Order
labor, its
arrangements"
which wiU
ordinated
Eros
will
Marcuse teaches "activistic
be necessary; and
have to
"carry
a
reason wiU create
"multitude
recognized and
have to obey this authority but
authority."
nizable
wUl
priorities,"
own
hedonism,''
of co
recog
the result wiU
making it look as if Marcuse's ideal
the life of the jet-set. See "The Temptation
of
Herbert
Marcuse,"
were
The Review of
Politics, XXXI (October, 1969), 451. This interpretation misses the point; it fails to give proper emphasis to the radical overcoming (Aufhebung) of Freudian existence that the Marcusean man craves. 16
out
Regarding
the hypothesis
that "almost
all
Reich in rejecting For Marcuse the may
not
RR,
be
it."
Although the
question
a sufficient
pp.
about
Thanatos, Maclntyre (op.
cit., p.
51)
points
those acquainted with the relevant empirical facts agree with
9, 99; FL,
is
basis for p.
criticism
"ontological"
35.
and, rejection of
seems
cogent, it may be inadequate.
hence, "the
the
relevant empirical
hypothesis.
facts"
86
Interpretation
be
not
loss
a
"rational."
from
of
It
be
wUl
an
accept the constraints
dispense
could
free
order
of
form
of some
of
morality; Marcuse
civUization"
with a
nature are
liberty by causing At times, therefore, the "genuine moral barriers to immediate satisfaction set by with
that
observes
amoral, "no free by distinction between good and evU. An
the instincts
though
even
and
gratification."
"sustain the
will
men
protecting ignorance and, as Eros also wUl have to
disorganization
of
be
wiU
at
of experts aimed
authority
unwanted consequences
such, it
unfreedom, because the authority
or
pleasure,
rein could wreck
Eros
amoral
among individuals. Eros would caU for
conflicts
gratification"
of
reason
(if
by Eros it
not
self).18
Marcuse's insistence termine their
Hegel's definition
the
on
own needs
requirement, that
second
and gratifications
to be
people must
de
free, flows directly from
of Spirit. unwilling to permit his Weltgeist to be dependent for its exis tence on any being in any way; this would amount to a lack of perfect autonomy and, without this, there could be no liberty. Hegel asserted: "I am free, on the contrary, when my existence depends upon
Hegel
liberty
of
as
existence"
the "self-contained
was
myself."19
Following Hegel, the young Karl Marx applied this maxim to man without shrinking from its glaring paradox. Denying that man was created by a God
arguing that nature should be considered a chaos out of which his own body through work, he concluded that: "Since
and
man could create
18
RR,
99; EC,
p.
distortion
pp.
205-208; FL,
81. It
p.
would
seem
to be
a
significant
Marcuse's thought to say that "morality and other forms of authority have been dispensed in his Utopia. Eidelberg arrives at this conclusion of
with"
will
by
attributing
merely not
Marcuse
to
attributes
"nihilist"
a
"beyond
good and
stinctual
amorality
part
evil,"
honestly in this; not that
disturbed authority
while antithetical
no
desires
also
and
are
that there
version of reason.
at all.
sentiment
makes
the
to
claim
that
of self-restraint.
freedom. Eidelberg does
grounds
of
Marcuse's
not
distort Marcuse dis
erotic
must
be
Finding
desires
are
some standard of
morality
his
morality
protagonist
noted and
to
'the
to satisfy any
canons of
morality
argue
He is
legitimate
and
intrinsically
"rational
unworthy
which
that Marcuse does not concede
This leads to the distortions and
which
wants
pseudo-morality.
willingness
this would be consistent with
conclusion that
demands for authority
this does
as
erroneous
latter
the
which
himself only insofar
morality, but that he hass a
whenever
carelessly jumps to the
cuse's
any form
by Marcuse's identification of the "rationality"; he does not like
gratification
instincts
Eidelberg
with
He thinks that there
Marcuse's
accepts
rather, he is confusing two issues. What he actually
Marcuse has
and all erotic ity."
in
he
He apparently attempts by citing Marcuse's description of the instincts as neglecting to mention that Marcuse thinks this in
who rejects
to support this claim
anarchistic
absolutely
and which
sacrificing rationality.
mean
Marcuse is
is
an
to Schiller
of
transcends
this, Eidelberg
recognizes no
limits
on
the
forces Eidelberg to treat Mar
as stupid aberrations.
See
Eidelberg,
op.
cit., pp. 448-454. 19 G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy Publications, 1956), p. 17.
of
History,
trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover
Pleasure for
socialist man
of
...
the entire so-called world
through human labor
of man
his self-creation, his
maxim to man
can escape being."
he has
...
formation
own
is only the creation incontrovertible proof
history
evident and
Marcuse
process."20
too and thus he is unwilling to call any
from "alien
87
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom
and
necessity"
and
"reason its
applies the
being free
unless
own potentialities
it
into
He seems to accept Marx's view of nature as a chaos out of which form himself physically and he goes beyond Marx by adding a dimension to the chaos; he says that the instincts, Eros and Thana
man can psychic
tos,
are
"mutable."
being which create a
can
his
from no
gate
of
and man can
he
interfere
to cultivate in his
wants
fulfillment,
peace and
his
life,
or
which
and secure a commitment
Since autonomy is desirable, his rational choices in the Marcuse argues "no tribunal can justly arro that order; vehemently to itself the right to decide which needs should be developed and others not to
be
one would
new
substratum
desires
reason
any way for himself simply by determining his has to do to create himself is to decide rationally
and pleasures
ones will constitute
"malleable,"
"plastic,"
a
nature"
each person
desires
which
are
shaped almost
"second
new,
instincts. All
be
They
with
choices.
interfere
permitted to
with
satisfied."21
The establishment of each man fulfillment does not imply that the based
on
"a
compromise
law, between fare."
general
Marcuse
slaved.
freedom
wUl
be
a
his
liberal
own order
between competitors, or between freedom individual interest, common and private
and
and wel
with Marx that a society which is "shot through interests" and which em every hand among individual
agrees
with a conflict at
institutions to
ploys pohtical
as the autonomous creator of realm of
Self-interest,
the
ensure
common
good
and compromise are
competition,
is thoroughly
irrational; they
en
place
unnecessary limits on man which could be eliminated by co-operation. Laws which ensure the common interest are slavish because they usurp the function of willing what men really want, thereby setting up society "as an abstraction opposed
from
rational
individual."
to the
which
authority,
only
In this, they differ fundamentally from unintended blun
saves people
ders. Liberal individualism, interest group pohtics, and law as an expression of the common good therefore must be transcended before human beings
be
can
autonomous.
which men est of
the
Liberty
spontaneously
will
is "woven into the individual
"capable
of
coUective elan can
20
a
anarchy in because "the inter
political
common welfare
being
not
a selfish
existence of
god
unto
himself but
If it be inquired how
a
others."
free
the
with
be instilled in
Karl Marx, "Economic
be
Mar
each."
whole"
cuse's autonomous person wUl man
be found only in
for the
act
and
a
being
who seeks pleasure
Philosophic Manuscripts
1844,"
of
a
himself,
Writings of
and Kurt H. Society, Philosophy Guddat (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1967), pp. 293-295, 312-314. 21 RR, p. 9; EC, pp. 7, 12; ODM, pp. 5, 6, 18; EEL, pp. 5, 10, 11; FL, p. 7n.
the
Young
Marx
on
and
trans. Loyd D. Easton
for
Interpretation
88 Marcuse
Eros is love; ties,"
it does
answers that
to
make
mately bound individuals
of
"one
be instiUed; it is already there. into ever larger uni to "unite men in an increasingly inti
not need to
it aims to "combine
organic substances
many,"
out of
sexuality it leads to the formation of pairs in each and, as a more general
mass."
As
genital
other"
"libidinally
satisfied
ized libido, it disposes people weU towards those who participate with them in the activity of gratifying the major needs of life. Collective and "highly therefore are guaranteed if Eros is free to do civUized human relations"
its
work.22
If
men
collectively
calls
the highest form
final
on what
they
have
will
of subject and object
freedom, then, they
they have done
appreciate
doing."
will
be
be
a
of"
Being
will appear
"transparent unity himself
its
To
meet
fulfiU
the third
only to reflect When this is done,
wUl need
meaning.
his
world possess
that the entire
himself,
be nothing but
to
Marcuse
sustained
and .
and relations of
conditions
objectivity independent
no essential
his "own
and
that "the
.
.
and
rational,
achieved what
reason, namely, "attained
of
condition of rational
man will realize
man; it
the satisfied,
becoming
their world,
ment, the transparent unity and
in
succeed
autonomous masters of
an
world
extension
is of
object"
in the
of subject and
it. It
be
sense that
reflecting pool man of symbol whom as a Marcuse invokes like happiness, and, Narcissus, wiU look into that pool, see himself, and love the being that he sees. Unlike man wUl
able to see
Narcissus, however, he himself
will
himself in the
recognize
will
a
pool
and,
substance of
his pleasure and loving from tension forever.23 As with Marcuse's definition
with
of
liberty
and
happiness
as
pleasure,
critical questions arise about these assertions to the effect that "reason."
To subject nature, economies, and the to rational foresight as Marcuse proposes would technology. Is
of social co-operation and
Moreover,
economic and
than disorganization and
human
perversity.
preaching
social
relationships require a
seem
sometimes
they
could not
morality, not even
be
to
wouldn't mankind's occasional penchant
vision of
rationality law as a
authority"
as a sort of
22
RR,
pp.
Utopian?
guardian of
the
law among
283-284; RT,
pp.
causes
other
overcome
merely by dictator
for
much
success.
evU make
This
Marcuse's
Wouldn't it be impossible to dis only "rational And isn't it simply a facUe trick
common
angels?
86-87; ODM,
effort
effort?
are products of sheer
ship; preaching has been tried for centuries, without
hopelessly
this
are men
under an educational
being so,
pense with
they
Herculean
have
some
between
mankind capable of
breakdowns
ignorance;
Man's perversity
a new rational
knowing
his happiness, he wiU be content self-consciousness until death releases him
the source and
as
all through
p.
good,
42; FL,
leaving
pp.
18-20; EC,
pp.
38-39,
187. 23
RR, ix,
eventually
pp.
will
95, 110, 113; EC,
be
overcome
by
a
pp.
105-106,
technological
chap. vii.
Marcuse hopes that death
breakthrough.
Pleasure
to say that Eros is love and that liberated collective
moral,
89
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom
and
spontaneously?
society Marcuse's Hegelian demands for
erotic men would
Further,
construct a
is the meaning of "transparent knowl
what
"autonomy"
and a
edge"
being
of
can reason sion of own
his
as
his "own
will
in
"unity
a
of
subject
potentialities
a metaphorical
destiny, impose
a
better
from "alien
his pleasures,
his
order on
necessity,"
create
or make
and make
being
an exten
sense; he can make decisions affecting his
arrange and rearrange the things which escape
being"
into
Man undoubtedly
object"?
and
economic and
he finds in himself
life,
But he
and
cannot
working or by choosing literally. Anybody
by
the entire world his "own
social
existence.
doing"
is endowed with a nature for which he is not responsible he does not change in any essential way merely by cultivating desires which first arise from the nature itself. Likewise, anybody
can see that man
and which selected
that
can see
being
has
another source
than man (even if that
source
is
not
God),
that existing things have their own structures and laws from that source, that man cannot use existing things profitably irrespective of their a
structures
laws,
and
the conditions
metaphorical or the
if
and
literal? If the
man could remake
use
of
dressing
suspect
therefore that he cannot
which affect him.24
himself
and the world
commonplaces
Marcuse
up
in his
as riddles?
Finally,
of megalomania?
rational control of the world,
master
absolutely
all
What, then, is Marcuse's meaning, the former, what is gained by speaking as
autonomy,
ject would make man happy? Could if he could, should he?
man
be
image? What is the couldn't one
assurance
is there that
what
and
own
If the latter, the unity
of subject and ob
a contented
Narcissus? Even
Marcuse does not appear to see the difficulties inherent in his hopes for autonomy and the unity of subject and object; neither does he present proof that rational freedom would be conducive to happiness or otherwise desirable. However, he is sensitive to charges that he is Utopian in his dreams of moral, communistic men rationaUy controlling the world and fulfillment." He responds to the charges by channeling achieving "rest in discussion in two directions. is
pleasure
"common make a
based
First, he says that the vision of perpetual by the painful reality of work and the
made to seem Utopian sense"
knowledge that
living. He does
not
man wUl
look into
have to toil
other arguments
all
his days to
which
could
be
themselves, by Plato's comparison of the intemperate life to an effort to keep a leaky jar fiUed.25 He probably would answer such objections by saying that the
24
on
the nature
Kirilov had to
of the appetites
commit suicide
because he
saw
clearly that
man's
life is
not of
Dostoyevsky, The Devils, trans. David Magarshack (Bal timore: Penguin Books, 1962), pp. 612-615. 25 493d-494a, trans. W. D. Woodhead, The Collected Dialogues Plato, the Letters, ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (New Plato, Including of York: Bollingen Foundation and Pantheon Books, 1961). his
own choosing.
Fyodor
arguments epitomized
'"Gorgias,"
90
Interpretation
jar
be kept fUled
could
by
adjusting the
influx to the
rate of
rate
of
that the only significant question then would be how much draining work would be necessary to keep the two rates equal. Secondly, Marcuse and
doubt
sees no reason at all to sight
if they
that people could subject
but he does
wished
admit
to rationality and communism. As lem as that of man's
a
the world to
fore
that human wickedness is a barrier
Freudian, he
"aggressiveness"
conceives of this prob
he knows that Freud
and
considered
This led Freud
nature."
"indestructible feature of human the ideal of a moral, collective existence in
aggressiveness an
to attack
which
"ill-wiU
and
disappear among as an "untenable iUusion."26 Mar cuse, naturally, does not agree. He maintains that neither aggressiveness nor the necessity of work are insurmountable obstacles to freedom. He
hostUity
men"
would
thinks that both problems have been appear
the genuine possibility
In
The world
cation and people
ments made
have
in the
work
means
has
that
they only
not awakened yet
to
the problem of work originated in the fact
history,
was too poor
had to
principle and
sense"
reality.27
of anew
earlier periods of
of scarcity.
in
solved
insoluble today because "common
to
support an order of universal gratifi
hard merely to stay
alive.
Dramatic improve
the past few centuries
during
of production
this; it is not necessary for man to suffer from scarcity anymore or to permit it to dictate how he wUl spend his time. Labor re mains a problem, however. Far from freeing man from toil, the industrial changed all
revolution chained
regimented
the
life,
him to the machine, forced him to work
and
system of mass production which
Labor is
"alienated"
ated
form
man
is doomed for
of work
by being
his
robbed
keeps the
coupled with
work of
creativity,
the harder for subsistence in
all
specter of
scarcity
at
bay.
these evils and it is this alien
to which the modern, common-sense thinker believes
time. Marcuse sees another alternative. He argues
all
that recent advances in
technology have
made
possible
a
"reversal
of
time."
the relation between free time and working Man always wUl have to work but automation has created a "possibility of working time be
coming marginal, that the
and
free time
marginal work
becoming
both
creation"
of
escape
guided
from labor
as
working time itself into a
Moreover, Marcuse
by
from
imagination
and reason.
a painful realm of
realm of
freedom can
realization of
not accept the
material superabundance
28
also
is
conceivable wiU
be
"play"
thinks that this
Marx that the historical
technology but he does
It
be necessary no longer "It might be turned into
and
"process
time."
which still wUl
"enervating."
"stupefying"
full
is liberty's
necessity
within
be done
the
a
man can
and transform
realm of necessity.
now.
freedom depends Marxist
Thus,
and
He on
agrees
with
progress
in
proposition that absolute
sine qua non.
The technological base
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, college edition, trans. James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1961), pp. 59-61. 27 EC, pp. 3-5, 32-33, 74, 125-126, 140, 206; EL, pp. 3-4, 21; FL, pp. 62-63.
Pleasure
and
freedom is already
of
ductivity
present and, at the expense of a
the standard
and
and seize their
The
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom
of
liberty today,
living,
early days
diately,
of
if only they is
it
whenever
satisfaction
Any
historical
a
"repression"
of
one which
Marcuse
in human life.
for Eros to be
was not possible
wished.
pro
labor
would.28
the development
scarcity, it
decrease in
people could abolish alienated
problem of aggressiveness also
connects with
91
In the
imme for nothing but instant world which had not been gratified
person who strove
rapidly found himself destroyed
by
a
sufficiently to support universal pleasure. For the sake of con tinued existence, man had to learn to give up dangerous, immediate satis factions and to accept in their stead a mixture of pain (work) and "de 'assured' In Freudian terminology, Eros layed, restrained, but "repressed," had to be or compelled to stop living by the "Pleasure Prin mastered
pleasure."
ciple"
bow to the
and to
developed divisions
of
useful
labor,
the
together,
diverting
ego
and
harmful, society
the
and authoritative
ban the
practice and to out of
To this end, the ego (reason) the id as an organic function capable of probing reality
out of
discover the
to
Principle."
"Reality
harmful,
and the superego
introject social utility into
to
created
sexual
institutions to translate the
(conscience)
taboos,
useful
into
developed
the psyche as morality.
Working
ego, superego, and society succeeded in repressing Eros and in its energy into the transformation of reality through labor. Then,
reahty changed, reality principles and conceptions of social utUity (mo changed. In our time, Eros is made to bow to the "Performance Prin
as
rality)
ciple,"
erotic energy is diverted into alienated labor and "stratified is society according to the competitive economic performances of its The result is increasing productivity and, for this reason, under which
members."
people
dementedly
good, just
because they political
made
tions to necessity.
fatal dialectic to the release
which
can
freedom. measures
slavery
good
repression, work,
and
since
doorway
history began and, furthermore,
into his
affairs.
It has been "the
that "the very progress of civilization leads
increasingly can
i-iv,
and
be
be
forces."29
understood
readUy if it be
mistaken
for
because he is
a relativist
rationality varying between historical
however, is
calls
destructive
recalled that
32-33, 41-43, 78, 95, 137-143, 203-204; EL, pp. 19-21; FL, p. 4. especially pp. 11-16, 27-29, 32-34, 41-42, 49, 57, 81-82. In this
be discovered
He
his freedom
dialectic"
has morality
a true relativist,
structures
only insofar as they were rational reac actually have been a heavy price to pay for progress.
aggression's
argument, Marcuse could who
However,
of
civilization"
vii-viii, pp. chaps,
political
were good
of
of
This "fatal
EC, EC,
They
and
thought their schemes
economic progress.
sacrifice
has been
progress
28
for
authority really
Man has had to
29
think repression, alienation,
as all previous peoples
whether
by
earlier
man.
he
rejects
the possibility
This Marcuse does
historical
periods
moral
not
and
a
periods.
"historicist"
The test
of a summum
do;
his highest
rational
only
of
bonum good
when
is he
them against their capabilities and he condemns them when he compares
92
Interpretation
is
man
a
opposites, Eros
of
unity
and
Thanatos. These instincts
are not
in conflict, and the "fate of human friendly They freedom and happiness is fought out and decided in the struggle of the Eros gains the upper instincts literally a struggle of life and to one
are
another.
death."
-
hand in the
struggle and
progress; the
vice of
for
a
time it
superego and
harnesses Thanatos to the ser on man's fear of Thanatos
even
society rely
to assure his obedience to socially useful norms
Thanatos
and
also provides
[and] for the sake of (and, periodically, also However, Eros is being repressed aU the whUe it
the destructive energy man uses in
"attacking,
splitting, changing, men)"
pulverizing things
and animals
economic advancement.
Thanatos in this
controls
weaken
ultimately
they
which
were
Thanatos then
manner
the life instincts
'called
those of
bounds
oversteps the
for it
structive rampage which threatens civilization.
dency
over
the Performance
of
era
in
stabilized
repress
seems
Eros in favor
hopelessly
of
"second
the
form. Freud's
The newly invigorated and goes on a de
also
"strives
to
gain ascen
that, in the itself is
whereas
man
of
the possibUity of
the moment. Because
the Performance
aggressive,
nature"
pessimism about
justified, for
to be
by It
against
Eros
and accomplishes this to the extent
Principle,
an aggressive
freedom thus to be
instincts"
the life
the very forces
destruction."
set
Eros
perpetual restrictions on
and release
up'
-
"the
and
Principle,
liberty
they must today appear
people
the fuU
requires
flowering
of
be saved, however, because there is no reason why the Performance Principle should be any more permanent a fixture in life than work. Marcuse asserts that "technical progress has reached a Eros
as
stage
love. Freedom
in
which
of
reality
longer
no
be defined
need
by
the
advancement"
for
competition
can
social
survival
and
debUitating
that the tenure
and
the Performance Principle in the superego therefore could be
immediately. This
would
bring
a
about
"in
change
the
individual,"
'biology'
"in the very nature, the for Eros would be liberated from repression Thanatos again. Man then would be "no longer man,"
aggressiveness, brutality, and ugliness would be ready for freedom.30
them
with
the idea of freedom.
Marx's doctrine "consciousness
is
of
conditioned
believes that the somehow will
inevitably
322, 30
of this
previous versions of
This is
what
and compare
argument
existence"
social
determination
free himself
it
It is true that Marcuse is
of
could
He
"historicist."
a a
theory
is slavery
will and
EC, pp. 3, 40-41, 47-49, 76, 79, 140; ODM, 6-8, 45, 56.
have clear
of
that
does
used their
not
p.
man
lead
the stage for their
seen
18; EL,
how
doctrines
below. See RR, pp. Eidelberg (op. cit., p. 448). be
Like
However, he
and
"Historicism"
new order.
the one truth in order to
Marcuse himself does, as Maclntyre (op. cit., p. 15)
the
life."
of
throughout history.
"historicists"
subjugate
tolerating
way
contains
consciousness
bane in the
to relativism. On the contrary, most
to discredit own.
social
by
and
capable of
of the established
historical materialism, his
the
of
a rebellion
of
ended
infrastructure
pp.
5, 21; FL,
312-
pp.
4,
Pleasure It
and
should not escape notice
of work
fact,
and aggression
is
that Marcuse's treatment a rebellion
envisages
in the
of
the problems
nature
of man.
In
Marcuse is announcing a fundamental rev being. His argument, in effect, is that up until now there have
even more
olution of
involved;
"ontological"
been three
i.e.,
realities,
towards freedom
man
93
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom
a principle of goodness which
happiness (Eros),
and
a principle
of evil
draws which
leads him towards misery and the void (Thanatos), and a niggardly uni verse which has made labor necessary. Labor has obstructed the good principle and helped the bad throughout history, thus inflicting evil on man
lending
and
pian.
credence to the accusation that visions of
Now, however,
being finally
can
be
work
has
be
ceased to
Mankind's
set aright.
happiness
are Uto
an ontological
problems
necessity and have been solved truly
the most profound level possible.
at
To be sure, this raises a question. Men still are unfree. Even though all difficulties have been surmounted, human life lags behind its potentialities. Why? Since ontological necessity no longer is involved, the ontological
Marcuse finds conceivable is that some arbitrary is to blame; the perpetuation of slavery must be the product of "a specific historical organization of human The culprit is "domination," social control "exercised by a particular group or indi vidual in order to enhance itself in a privileged With an eye only
explanation which
social practice
existence."
position."
Freud's
on
the "primal
myth of
social organization under the
consequence,
Marcuse is in
and
domination probably
speculates that
no
horde"
Reality
however, for
certain
that those
our age continue
to enforce
always
Marxist sociology, Marcuse gone hand-in-hand with
has
Principle. Whether it has
the question is
who
it.
or not
is
of
it does today and benefit from the Performance Principle
Using the
whether
subtle
instruments
of manipula
tion mentioned earlier, today's rulers freeze the Performance Principle in
the
the masses. Then
superego of
they
exploit
result and reward their subjects with the of wasteful gadgets and the
also unleash
the prodigious labors
false
"entertainment"
pleasures offered
purveyed
by
which
by
television.
tons
They
the aggressiveness of their slaves on racial minorities at home
Thus, they deny true happiness to all man This is the most heinous crime against humanity in a history which is nothing but a record of crime against humanity, for surely it is more evil to make people unhappy when felicity is within their and whole populations abroad.
kind for their
grasp than as
own profit.
when
long as Eros
from Hell kind
a
The crime threatens to grow in magnitude, too; repressed, Thanatos goes about like a devil released the Millennium, making the nuclear incineration of man it is
not.
remains
after
distinct, terrifying
urgency
of
ures which
the
Marcuse
recommends.31
31
1
The enormity of these evils and the justify the drastic revolutionary meas
possibility.
situation are what
EC, pp. 4, 33-34, 54-55, 81-85, 91-92, 215-216; ODM, ix-x, 1, 23-24, 40, 49; FL, pp. 44ff .
xvii, pp.
3, 5, 9,
94
Interpretation "domination"
By
singling out misery, Marcuse returns to
the only remaining cause
as
the
one of
of
human
links in his argument; it
weakest
previously that he does not even attempt to prove empiricaUy exists. It is clear now why he does not feel obliged to be empirically rigorous; his belief that the order of being no longer makes unhappiness necessary drives him inexorably to the conclusion that some
was stated
that domination
thing
must
be wrong
Marcuse's
of
with society.
that people are
osition
However,
in
persuasion and
those
Rather than requiring proof, the prop
who are
seem
would
manipulated
self-evident
to anyone
only a few Ulustrations at most. Marcuse's ideas about being would
need of
sceptical
of
feel the same logical compulsions as he and would prefer an inde pendent demonstration of his power elite thesis. Indeed, if no such dem onstration were possible, the ontological arguments themselves could be not
into
caUed
One
question.
described the
legitimately being and its
order of
could wonder whether
historical
be found
system of manipulation could
and
existing
Marcuse had
accurately if no did not dis
changes
evUs stiU
appear.
There
What
for
are additional grounds
real evidence
reduced as to make
doubting Marcuse's
is there that the necessity possible a transition from
ontology, of
of work ever
the
course.
could
to the Pleasure Principle? Marcuse attempts to prove that this and
other
"trends,"
by appealing
"possibilities"
historical
and
so
"ten vaguely to which he sees and, in doing so, he are to be iden He never says how
happen
wonderful things could dencies,"
be
Performance Principle
"trends"
in proving nothing. tified and he never tells why they can or necessarUy must be carried through to their logical In holding that work can be eliminat
succeeds
conclusions.32
ed
automation, he
by
do
machines to
done. On the whole, his
not
accept
has of
Marcuse's
not
been
human
that
demonstrate that
could
be
of
the two
unsupported
instincts
Eros
by
of
also
labor may
are vulnerable to
Work may have nothing whether
man,
other
as
amount
the
ob
an ontological revolution would
factors,
assurances and
in
Thanatos
less has any
that
and no one
evidence
is
fundamental
been
is de
obliged to
Further, it
the matter.
are the
significant
situation
stiU
elements
adduced to show
far,
the
arbitrary and mythical as a Manichean the same ideological functions as a Mani
seems as
also performs
inasmuch
of good and evil and
it interprets
history
outcome of the ontological
pp.
power of
the roles which Marcuse attributes to them. Thus
demonology. It
EC,
or
existence and much
chean myth
33
abolished.
situation
Thanatos
proved that
they play
story
and
They
thinking.
to do with the ontological
by Eros
faith in the
a naive
predictions about the abolition of
wishful
jection that they do occur even if labor fined
displaying
the jobs which society ever would want or need to have
all
to no more than
may be
also
being as
a struggle
as a salvific process struggle assures
5, 99, 126, 220; ODM,
xi, p.
the
in
between
principles
which
the miraculous
ultimate
redemption of
17, 219-221; EL,
pp.
3-4.
Pleasure man.
and
This brings up
American
95
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom final
a crucial
democracy totally
question.
evU and abhorrent
Marcuse apparently finds primarily because it does
lend itself to the erotic, rational redemption envisaged by his myth, much as if a fanatical Christian were to despise a political order because it was not the BeatificVision.lt follows that he would not be justified in judg not
ing
the American order
that his
myth
evil unless there were an adequate
identifies
Marcuse know that he
evU
and
possible
goods
understands good and evU?
truth to which he alludes and which have been
of
basis for saying How does
correctly.
What
long
so
are
the
criteria
in forthcoming?
To this and aU the other questions and doubts which have been accumu lating in the analysis Marcuse makes but one answer. He says that: "Dia lectical thought starts with the experience that the world is unfree; that is to say, man and nature exist in conditions of alienation, exist as 'other than
Any mode of thought which excludes this contradiction from faulty logic."33 At first sight, this statement appears to substanti
are.'
they
its logic is
a
ate the charges of arrogance which are brought against Marcuse; he seems to be proclaiming arbitrarily that anybody who disagrees with him is wrong. After the first anger fades, it stUl is difficult to see that he has made any
epistemological
advance; he seems to be
"value-judgments"
his
simply
veals
demanding
that
others
accept
faith. Closer examination, however, re genuine epistemological proposition. He is
on
that Marcuse has made a
saying that the evU of the existing world is known to man through expe rience. Universal alienation is not something which can be demonstrated or deduced from incontestable first premises; incontestable first premise which is grasped directly through participation in being. Merely to exist under present conditions
with
empirical evidence
rather, it is itself
an
is to feel unfree. Once recognized for what it is, this experiential knowledge leads to an act of wiU, to a "Great Refusal to accept the rules of a game in which the dice are It also becomes the basis for aU further "negative" thought. Thought becomes and deliberately is "used as a tool It for analyzing the world of facts in terms of its internal loaded."
inadequacy."
condemns
will's
the
world rather
yearning to
chology,
tuously
escape
or social science
as a
"logic
of
describing it
than merely
and
it
expresses
the
it condemns. If any philosophy, psy faUs to do this, Marcuse dismisses it contemp
from
what
domination."34
The primary experience of alienation also points the way infallibly to humanity's final cause, for it is plain to Marcuse that happiness would be to get away from the slavery which man now experiences and to attain to
some good which
form
of
is
"absent."
the absent good, erotic,
activities of
the mind,
Phantasy
This
much
rational
and
being
granted, the
freedom then is
revealed
specific
by two
Reason. The former, Marcuse says,
RR, ix. RR, vii-x, xiii, pp. 27, 98, 112-113, 123, 131, 321; EC, ODM, pp. 63, 70, 127, 137-140. 33 34
pp.
5, 101-102, 114;
96
is
Interpretation
the
"remains free from the rule of
pleasure
Principle; Marcuse
states
process, phantasy has
its
experience of
own
reality.
Imagination
whole,
of
desire
a
truth
"As
commitment
its own,
value of
the
envisions
realization,
removed
into
which
Utopia
happiness
by
to
mental
corresponds
to an
human
of the antagonistic
reconcUiation of
of
committed
to the Pleasure
fundamental, independent
a
namely, the surmounting
-
with
has been
that:
"stays
life, it
a person's
Truth is found in this
principle."
harmony
which
principle."
the reality
the
activity of man Throughout
one mental
the individual with the
with
reason.
the established
While this principle,
reality
phantasy insists that it must and can become real, that behind the Ulusion knowledge." lies In other words, happiness is the pleasurable, rational life about which man daydreams and man knows that he would be happy if he could experience this hfe in reality because he does experience it happy.35 vicariously in his daydreams and in these dreams he is Reason takes a different tack; it discovers the Reasonable, or that
ought to
be
therefore is most
and which
which
truly Real, simply by pondering
existing irrationality. In every stupid, wrong situation (or phUosophy) there is a potential for rationality and justice. Reason can grasp this potential by testing experiences and ideas to see what there is in them that produces intensely alienated feelings and to see what changes would allay the feelings. For example, if Reason competition,
in
world created such
things
leads to the
Real. The
things are
Freedom
or
image
than man's, and ideas which defend
other
thought
obvious conclusion
is,
the louder
mount,
simple
that the opposites
means-
of these
"untrue,"
blatantly
more
amorality,
work, aggressiveness, alien necessity, a
cause a sense of alienation to
typically
ends analysis
existence
some
ignorance, disorganization,
observes that
institutions,
political
or
it
shouts
enslaving, a mode
of
to Reason what Truth and
Real self-evident, or as Karl "[The fact] that the reasonable is real is demonstrated precisely in the contradiction of un reasonable reality, which in all corners is the opposite of that which it expresses and the opposite of which expresses what it is."36 It is not an inconsistency in this theory that very few people ever have Marx
would
once
perceived what
torically historical
be. The irrational
said
in
is
a
fit
of
supposed
makes the
Hegelian
abstruseness:
to be so obvious.
Reason, for Marcuse, is his
conditioned; its recognition of the necessity
has
of previous
forms
of
it from condemning them and rising to the Real. Since history is dynamic, however, Reason is dynamic. History has altered the character of necessity and Reason no longer is fettered. It
existence
now can see
not caught
prevented
the good easily and it
in the
snares
would
of modern
if the
minds of
the masses were
domination. It is domination
35
which
RR, ix-x; EC, pp. 14, 18, 130, 135. RR, viii-x, pp. 11, 153; ODM, pp. 123, 127, 133, 135, 137, 138; Marx, "Kritik Friihe Schriften, I, ed. Hans-Joachim Lieber and Peter des Hegelschen 36
Staatsrechts,"
Furth (Stuttgart: Cotta
Verlag, 1962),
p.
339.
Pleasure explains
why only
stand what
a
Reason
and
few "critical
temporary be
could
educational
They
why Marcuse is mass
there actuaUy
and
today. On the
dictatorship; if
from the
uprooted
self-evident good.
here
spirits"
should understand
present potential also explains a
97
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom
so
intrigued
with the
idea
of
the Performance Principle only people
psyche,
would see
rapidly
the Real as
knowing
could not avoid
under
hand, Reason's
other
they
the
gazed
existing unrealities. Action to realize the Real probably would not long in foUowing; Marx pointed out that theory becomes a force when
upon
be it
Marcuse may be relying more in thinking that his Utopian dreams
grips the masses. else
anything
that the strength
of wiU of people who understood
freedom would be
a powerful guarantee of
this
on
than
expectation
can come
true. He feels
their slavery and craved
revolution.37
Marcuse's interpreters can be forgiven for having overlooked his episte mology of ontological experience; it is not exactly an orthodox epistemolo gy and the eye often misses what it is not expecting to see. Now that Mar cuse's criteria of truth are clear, it might be surmised that his critics stiU would not be prepared to give up the fight. There are at least four diffi culties in his epistemology. First, if it be conceded that man learns of alienation and freedom through experience, it is not evident that the myth of
Eros and Thanatos could follow from the experience. Indeed, a person feel the two instincts stirring and struggling within his soul. Beyond
might
this, however, the history and evolution of the instincts would not be mat ters of direct experience. These things could be found out only by reason, if at aU, and Marcuse has yet to demonstrate the validity of his reasoning. if
Secondly, wanted
very
people
knew freedom
much to obtain
they could, especiaUy if To
alization. a
establish
wiU, there's a
abolition of
doxical tological
ahenation
lead to knowledge
to
say:
of re
"Where there's
rational communism and
The
same
is true
of
his
the
para
are
to alienation
of
freedom, Marcuse does
An equally
by
seeking
and that man
not show
possible alternative
is that
in self-deceiving de be happy even after
refuge
really would not "rationality." his dreams or instituting Dreams, only Ulusions and Marcuse's Reason is only speculation on if
sures could turn out on reefs
necessarily.
objects of
what might result
der
appear unfounded.
happens
mechanisms
aU,
intrinsically impossible enough
for autonomy, the unity of subject and object, and an on Third, although it is plausible that the experience of
could what
possessing the after
possibUity, it is not
Marcuse's hopes for
stiU
mind would react
fense
their dreams were
revolution.
that this is
the
slavery experientially and if they stiU would be no certainty that
there
way."
labor
wishes
and
freedom,
in the
certain steps were
taken.
Conceivably, Ulusory
plea
to be unsatisfying realities and Reason could foun
new order which
it does
not see now.
FinaUy, it
prob-
37 RR, vii-ix, pp. 6-7, 25, 27, 99, 121, 125, 231, 316-319; EC, pp. 101, 129, 144, 206; ODM, chaps, v-vii: Marx: "Toward the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law, Writings of the Young Marx, p. 257. Introduction,"
98
Interpretation
ably is
for
not possible
that experience is
to
man
one
thing
experience unfreedom.
It
must
the description which is
and
another. A person experiences whatever it is that he comes
does
later
comes
description
experience the
not
as the man attempts to
grasp
admitted
it
to
but he
across
experience; the
that
of
be
attached
description
has happened to him. It
what
foUows that Marcuse does not experience alienation, but something which he chooses to call alienation. He experiences something in his own exis tence and this
makes
for
adequate reason
him
doing
One possibility which simply because life does
call
this?
his
existence unfree.
What reasons
could
But does he have
feels
to mind is that Marcuse
springs
"integral
not offer
an
there be? alienated
He may think
gratificatio
not provide full satisfaction every time If this is the case, it would appear that Marcuse's epistemology of ontological experience is not an affair of the inteUect at all but, rather, one of the will. He would be attempting to validate his existence unfree
he desires
because it does
something.
condemnation
the existing
of
order
standard of good and evil which
ground that existence wUl
the measure
If this is a
of aU
not
the mind
frustrates him. He being.
on
basis of any objective discover but on the sole
the
could
be trying to
would
his
make
own
Marcuse is doing, all his intellectual constructs coUapse in as the truth is concerned, they would not seem to be worth
what
heap. As far
a moment's notice. never appears
It
would
rigorous
and
"I haven't the faintest idea
be
understandable
that one
of
his
that Marcuse's reasoning admit:
sympathizers could
means,"
for the primary referents of his arguments would be found only in his wiU. But there is one nagging doubt which forbids that Marcuse be cast aside. How could his sympathiz "
er add:
.
.
.but
I have
there in Marcuse that
finger work
on
had
ciencies of
mistake
a
strong
intellectual
his
been
feeling
that he may be
feeling
right"?
What is
that he may have his
anybody of anything if his Is he right, despite the apparent defi Is his epistemology really so faulty or has some
could
he
convince
substance?
epistemology?
made
he
produces the ambiguous
the truth? How no
what
in evaluating it?
IH
Actually, it to
would
be impossible to
sensitive minds with
demand
understand
the analytic techniques used
Marcuse so
and
far. An
his
appeal
unwarranted
in the analysis, namely, that Marcuse was expected to in terms of realities extrinsic to his soul and his fundamental experience of being. Although Marcuse's own pretensions are was made
demonstrate his
"values"
responsible
for the error, it
cal
pertain
myths
also was
demanded wrongly that his
to realities other than
his
experience
and
ontologi
that
their
This has been to misconceive the nature of his thought and, perhaps, to lack insight into the phenomenon "values" and his basic of irrationalism on the New Left, for Marcuse's truth be measured against
other standards.
Pleasure
doctrines
they
"objective"
drawn rationaUy from efforts to describe his primary groping
are
are not
desperate Marcuse
speculations about man's
past and
at all.
reality
itself
experience
future
Rather,
and
relationships
wild, to it.
attempts to make the content of the experience clear with anal
is
ogies and symbols and whatever else objective"
useful
truths and then he simply guesses at
has for
perience
or
persuasive,
man's
place
"objective"
in
"non-
in communicating
the
meaning which the His arguments
reality.
ex
are
least cause feelings of uneasiness, because what they famUiar chord in every human soul. This can be seen by
at
strikes a
convey
99
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom
and
retracing the path of the Marcusean spirit. To repeat what was said earlier, what Marcuse experiences is something in his own being. In the first instance, personal existence presents itself to him
it does to
as
body
all
men,
as
a seat of consciousness within
and as various
on-going activity which most attracts his attention is that of deed always are striving to possess their objects, riods of
forting
keep body
and which
gratification,
tension when
appetites,
in
a
conscious which
in
brief
pe
during
except
and soul
constant, discom
Marcuse describes this
are not satisfied.
they
the
an animate
The
activities of consciousness.
univer
sally known experience of the appetites much as anybody would. However, he notices something about it which others do not seem to see. In defining human existence as the striving for pleasure, Marcuse is saying that he experiences
the
He feels the
appetites to
They
erotic appetites as
be
the
are so much at
the strongest element of consciousness.
so powerful as
to dominate the
appear to make consciousness what
a
rank, to
a position which reason
sents no obstacle to
his interrogators
Marcuse, however,
and
soul absolutely.
and
they
alone
it essentiaUy is and, therefore, human
life essentiaUy what it is. It could be objected here that this is to high
they
center of consciousness that
elevate
the appetites to too
actuaUy holds. The objection pre for now he can turn the tables on
demand that they
produce
What
their evidence.
does introspection really show? Reason does seem to be directing aU hu man activity but isn't it doing so at the behest of the appetites? The fact appears to be that even when reason represses Eros it is acting in the en lightened ahead
self-interest of the appetites.
own terms. repression of
Marcuse is
sure of
this and,
to the new order, he says that then: "Eros redefines
Eros,
Reasonable is
what sustains
becomes unnecessary,
be the
which wiU
the
looking
reason
in its
When
gratification."
order of
reason will
be nothing but the the
undisputed sovereign of
soul.
servant
Having
estab
lished the fact, Marcuse takes another step; he says that Eros rightfully is sovereign. What positive good does reason offer in defense of its claims to
rule?
What does
obstruct
it? What
reason
would
repression and what good
is higher
and nobler
"transcends"
which
why is
pleasure
base,
know how to do
the rule
than
is there in
Eros,
repression?
other
Is it
to
help
Eros
or
than permanent
argued
that
reason
that it orients the soul towards something
"base"
the and what
other than
of reason mean
pleasures?
is
there
Then why is reason higher, soul or beyond it which is
in the
100
Interpretation
better than
The very idea
satisfaction?
erotic
of transcendence perplexes
Marcuse. It makes no sense to him, for he simply cannot see that there is anything beyond pleasure to talk about. As far as he can teU, philoso "transcendence"
phies which make end which
empty
is "free
phUosophies are crude
in the
aid
the final
happiness."
He
of
fabrications
the
of
cause of man
superego which were
Eros back in the days
repression of
give man
only that
can conclude
an
such
designed to
when repression was neces
sary.38
Presumably, every human Marcuse's
begins to
soul
questions when challenged
for
cast about
answers to
like this. It is then that the
sensitive
begins to feel that Marcuse is right, for the soul suddenly discovers that Marcuse's arguments seem to ring true to its own experience. In some thing of a panic, the soul sees that it cannot be sure that Eros isn't truly in command. Moreover, it finds itself unsure that it knows any real trans person
cendent good
justify
the
stractions of
figuring
time
to which
reason could claim
Religion
reason's sovereignty. superego
to be the guide and which would
phUosophy really may be ab reason does seem to spend its
and
and, meanwhile,
gratifying the
It is hard to
appetites.
see
why it shouldn't; pleasure does to be thing Thus, Marcuse wins. The man who accepts the challenge to inspect his own soul and who finds that he cannot say honestly that Marcuse is wrong about spiritual experience concedes Marcuse's case. The capitulation is painful but the convert, by an effort of wiU, succeeds in interpreting his out ways of
such a
not seem
hang-up"
"bourgeois
pain as
a
perego.
By degrees, he
to the
over
This
enthusiastic service of
prepares
has
do
enthroned
then leads
soul's
make
will which
heart
has been the
conspiracy.
of
not
38
what
Thus,
and
it is to
pp.
to know the
will
The
soul which
the measure
the Marcusean must
be
should
raped
soul resolves
99-102, 113-114, 192, 205; FL,
in
and
victim
suffering of
being this
is wul, demand essence
an ontological
to revolutionize existence. which
man's wUl.
pp.
that
Indeed,
being being Why shouldn't wiU
be the
a new creation
by
insists
mocked
experience
but
of all
if it is itself the man
soul
being
The
the human essence.
against
victim of an atrocity.
being
pain of
experience alienation.
external supports are governed
EC,
dissatisfaction. The
demand for justice. The
fair that
It decides that there
its
breaking
to a
the human
being? It is
and
is
to stop the crime
to be the measure of
pain of
a matter of
our age.
(the striving for pleasure) is an enormous selfabsurdly denies the human essence its natural rewards.
immediately
restructured
is to
It is
essence
one's own existence
be
next advance.
the appetites suffers a broken heart to see this. It begins
existence
To feel the in
himself
Eros.
in the
frequently writhe
to think that man's mockery;
and gives
for Marcuse's
ground
su
as yet unregenerate
an
"guUt-feelings"
his
that Eros is frustrated more often than not in
experience appetites
the
by
supported suppresses
to want.
terrible
30-32.
the human essence
Only by becoming
his
Pleasure own
God
and
happy; this is
remaking
according to his
being
But
prise; how
carry it
can man
honesty
pain and
possible enterprise.
be
wishes to
idea
can man
become
stiU a paradoxical enter
off?
He does
his
to
victim
He
crumbles.
own
can succeed
demand to be
not
that he at
defense
know
wants to
that he
frustration,
certain
is
ontological revolution
At this point, Marcuse falls his intellectual his
own
the message in Marcuse's calls for autonomy and the unity of
subject and object.
end of
101
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom
and
least has
mechanisms and
that there can
in
an
certain
of
be
an
apparently im victory but he
a chance to rebel
successfully.
He proceeds to create that certainty artificially. Operating speculatively, he fabricates his salvation myth with its already finished transformation of
being the
and
defeat
and
tasy
its
one
Thanatos,
powerful
work and
Reason
and
last
but not invincible Anti-Christ, domination, in freedom on earth. The stories of Eros
of which would usher
and
aggression, anarchy
by
all are sublimations
communism,
means of which
and
Phan
Marcuse's
un
"proof"
it desires, that there is a genuine possibUity of an order of freedom. The only thing gen uine about the result, however, is the wish that it be so. By accepting spec
happy
consciousness arrives at the result
ulation and sublimated wishes
just
props, Marcuse becomes
as psychological
"gnosis,"
the spiritual disease in knowledge become the opium of unheroic This being as it may, Marcuse still is not undone. If an ontological rev olution is uncertain of accomplishment, less than ontological revolutions remain possible. If being cannot be altered, society can. It stUl might be another
figure in the
which
which pretences
long history
of
to
souls.39
possible to effect a social change which
dom than he is rationaUy People do
now.
contrived to suffer
the Performance
Marxist to his
from the
Why by habituating
aggressive
need
for
revolution would
if it took
feet,
a
long
him to
political
have to
a peaceful
authority
abrogate
the
life
as
be.
could
competition,
chafe
in the
institutes
yoke
rational
to
each
according
teaches man to be less
and which
so-caUed
thereby
remain
having
might
As Marcuse admits, the American freedoms and,
of gratification established
time. But why would these rights be worth
39
his abUity,
the American rights would have to
freedom
it
as
and an approximation of the
gradually?
time to get the order
as much erotic
also
make a revolution which
weeks, co-operation,
be
not seem to
improvidence,
They
not make a revolution which
needs"?
lacked
of
aggression.
to erotic free
man closer
order of gratification
consequences and
Why not
shorter work
the
brings
time, society does
principle: "From each according to
lessen the
own
present
sustain
Principle,
of political authority.
planning,
At the
suspended
anyway in
on a
its
long
a world which
as possible?
Cf. Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, The Message of the Alien God and Christianity, 2nd ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963); Eric Voegelin,
the Beginnings of
The New Science of Politics (Chicago:
iv-vi;
and
Voegelin, Science, Politics,
University
and
of
Chicago Press, 1952),
Gnosticism (Chicago:
chaps.
Regnery, 1968).
102
Interpretation
There
be only
could
the American rights
freedom, name of pleasure
one reason
were means
be
then there would
no
for to
justification for
that he knew
such a
good, his
there
revolution.
If
transcends erotic
some good which
Eros. The question, then, is whether which the American rights do help
anyone said
Marcuse his
denying
them in the
destroying is any
good
higher than
Of course, if have to be sub
man to obtain. claims would
scrutiny as Marcuse's were. If the American freedoms hoped to dissuade Marcuseans from their revolutionism, his test would be even more severe, for he would have to appeal to the rebels as Marcuse himself does. The youth of the "now
jected to
an epistemological
as close
champion of the
generation"
seem
to distrust religious and
to
immediate,
are not
subject
directly
to experience
and,
hence, his
phUosophic
abstractions which
Marcuse
experiential verification.
rather than
opponents would
to Scripture or tired old
be
at a
appeals
ethical maxims
disadvantage if they
could not
do
the same.
The situation was equally difficult in the Athens of Marcuse's arch enemy, Plato. Plato's Socrates had to spend most of The Republic teaching young Athenians why they should not attempt to live like Gyges, a mythical character
who, like the Marcusean free man,
can
be
However,
arguments
an outline of an answer to
in
Marcuse
ventured.
Socrates taught his
students
in The Republic
spiritual experience which tells reason
that the
that
This is the
experience of what
experience
is like that
striving, but
of
"reason,"
calls
and
this case
the
soul
it is
knows
Beyond this, a problem arises. The the soul does want is unclear. Socrates
sure.
is
by
themselves are
not the
highest
good.
the Agathon (The Good). The
the appetites in that the
However, in
something.
Plato
there is something in
appetites
not the essence of consciousness and that pleasure
for
power
magic
a
be done to Plato's
to act out aU his fantasies. Justice cannot
the short space remaining.
acquired
not
soul
feels itself striving
the appetites which are
that what
it
wants
is
not plea
precise nature of the object which says:
"The
soul
divines that it is
something but is at a loss about it and unable to get a sufficient grasp just what it is, or to have a stable trust such as it has about the
of
rest."
Socrates thus finds himself forced to
discussing
its
certain that
"offspring,"
the
object of
this uncertainty
denly
and
challenges
it
i.e., its
speak
of
the Agathon
indirectly by
in his soul, and he remains un be possessed. Man cannot escape
effects
his yearning
can
this may be why the soul panics when Marcuse sud to refute pleasure as the highest good. Fortunately,
is unnecessary; the soul does not have to overcome its uncer "offspring" to answer of the experience Uluminate Marcuse, for the tainty "offspring" the right way of life. The soul knows just by virtue of the that the
it
panic
ought to pass
possess
its
existence
attempting to
approach the
Agathon
and to
it.
This right way of life is not inconsistent with the satisfaction of man's necessary appetites for food, clothing, shelter, and reproduction and so it is not inconsistent with pleasure. Plato concedes tiiis by putting the crafts-
Pleasure men in his itself to be
essary
ruled
the objects
Platonic
do
not govern
the
They
seem
As
polis).
the appetites acquire the
of
man.
compared with
character of
to be mere shadows,
man could gorge
would
not
satisfy the
himself
longing
fill up the abiding
by Eros, therefore, It
would
it
was
be to
be to
in his
soul.
nec
Agathon, for the
and substanceless
for The Good.
be happy, for they
to know the Agathon and thus
of reason
emptiness
would
offer
hungry; it
them and never
on
the
to allow the
unrealities
Ulusions,
wisps which are not worth the whUe of the man who yearns
A
103
Reason: Marcuse's Idea of Freedom
However, it is impossible for the Platonic soul by Eros (and so the craftsmen who symbolize
polis.
appetites
and
To permit the
soul
never would
to be ruled
it to unfulfUling unrealities (doxa). when it was thirsty and narcotics when
commit
the soul gaU
be to condemn the soul to the self-mockery Marcuse himself despises. There is a good reason why the Marcusean convert to Eros initially is pained by his choise; far from being afflicted would
which
with
"bourgeois
knows to be its
hang-ups."
his
soul
own assassination
by
is recoiling from what it somehow suffocation in nauseating, inconse
quential doxa. It follows that erotic, rational freedom would happiness and that reason ought to be sovereign, the better to
to
seek
rule of
not
be true
permit man
the Agathon. It foUows too that true freedom would not be the
Eros but the rule
of reason.
It is necessary to turn to Aristotle for enlightenment on what all this means for the American freedoms. Aristotle argues that the life of reason recommended by Plato requires choice. Since man is uncertain as to how he should approach the Agathon (or the nous, the ground of being) in his actions, he must deliberate about the matter from case to case and then do is best. Although the American rights do not guaran be so reasonable, they at least provide a context in which men can deliberate and act in this manner. This is why the rights are so sacred and why it would be foUy to abolish them with the intention of what reason
tells him
tee that citizens
wUl
instituting rational, It
will not
reform or zation
erotic
freedom.40
be denied here
that the
American
that its Performance Principle
may inflict unnecessary suffering
order
may be in
need of
and other principles of organi
on men.
Neither
wiU
it be denied
The materials dwawn upon for this skeletal argument are as follows: Plato, The Republic, 477a-480a, 505e, 506d-618d, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1968); Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, 1138b-1145a, trans. Martin Ostwald (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Library of Liberal Arts, 1962); Voegelin, Order and History, III, Plato and Aristotle (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, Anamnesis, Zur Theorie 1957), chap, iii; and Voegelin, 'Was ist Politische der Geschichte und Politik (Miinchen: Piper, 1966), pp. 283-315. To some it may 40
Realitat,"
be surprising that Plato and Aristotle are used to defend the American liberties. It is recognized here that there are opposing interpretations of the views of these "liberty." Suffice it to say here that, if the two were thinkers on the question of dyed-in-the-wool aristocrats, no one
he
accepts
them on one.
is
obliged
to
accept
them on every point because
104
Interpretation
that the American order occasionally various
perpetrates
terrible injustices against
groups; it would be surprising if this were not the case. From time
time, the prudential soul could be persuaded to suspend the American freedoms as a means to the eradication of such injustices. However, the prudent individual would know that it would be preferable, if at all possi to
ble, to carry
out reform without ever
denying
Americans the
their rights safeguard. He would not decide to to achieve a good
And he never
which was not worth
would accept
Marcuse's
the
suspend
evU
arguments
good which
lightly dictatorship
the rights
inherent in
for dictatorship. Marcuse's
critics are right. In proposing to force men to be eroticaUy and rationaUy free, he actually is proposing to establish a tyranny in which every human food.41 soul would be destroyed with unnourishing spiritual
Marquette
41
Paul Quirk,
University,
student
I
test the ideas in this paper. I
his
to thank the National Endowment for the
splendid
for the
a
help. I
political
also wish
could
summer stipend which made
this
at
Marquette
science
reasonable man upon whom
work possible.
am
University
as
the
grateful
for
acted
Humanities
105
FREEDOM AS AN END OF POLITICS Robert F. Sasseen
Political dom of
science
is
the policies and
Otherwise,
other.
institutions,
on
the one
hand,
and of
freedom,
on the
the efficient pursuit of what is thought to be freedom
in the
result
may
to determine the consequences for free institutions. This requires investigation both
called upon
of various policies and
establishment of what
in
is,
fact,
The deter
slavery.
freedom is, then, is that part of political science which the meaningful investigation and successful identification
mination of what makes possible of
those
This
policies and
paper seeks
institutions
to
which preserve or
understand
the freedom
destroy
which can
it. be
an end of
examining a dominant opinion of what this freedom is. Men speak of the freedom of falling stones, uncaged tigers or potent
by
politics often
It is evident, however, that freedom of these sorts is not dependent Its existence is a matter of nature, not of human action. The freedom men are for or against, on the other hand, the freedom many gods.
upon men.
have fought for and many have died for that freedom is a matter of human action. It is possible; some men and some peoples have had it. But it does not occur of necessity; many have never had it. It can be lost. -
That
freedom, then,
which men are
for
or
against,
necessary, and which requires common human keep that freedom might properly be regarded not
-
activity. secure
If he
It is
do
a man can
want.
a
Men
is
possible
to establish
but and
as an end of political
establish republican
institutions to
it.
wants
It is
an affair of politics.
which
action
Such is
an
starting
accepted
what
do, he is
to
of
wants
free;
ancient,
nor
to
do, he is free; if he
is he free if he does
cannot
what
freedom be
stated
as
fully
as
do
what
he does
requires
possible,
not
freedom.
yet current and widespread view of
investigation. The investigation
point of
opinion
he
not
that the
and
then
the consistency of its several parts, and in terms of its a conceptualization of the as adequacy condition men have been willing to fight and die for. Accordingly, we submitted to
may begin
Meaning both
dialectical
examination
in terms
of
an essay by Professor R. M. Maclver entitled "The Liberty and Its Perversions."1 The essay will be cited here introductory statement of this common-sense view of freedom, with
of
as an
and as representative of the opinion of no
meaning"
of
1
Robert M.
Its Meaning, 1940) p. 278.
many social scientists as well. Professor Maclver says, "about the universal "freedom". "The universality of usage sets it for
doubt,"
"There is
the word
Maclver,
ed.
"The
Meaning
of
Liberty
Ruth Nanda Ansen (New York:
Its
Perversions,"
Freedom, Harcourt, Brace & Company,
and
Interpretation
106
in the ability to do thinks fit. Everyone knows this. Freedom
us."2
The it
knows it
child
who
is
property
bars. The
prison
he
as
hindrances
he
wants
to play. The
property-owner
by
and prohibitions set
knows it
is
who
not allowed
to
use
his
worse, there
are
the will of others to that which we want to
do,
deprived,
are
knows
savage
or
liberty.3
the condition of which we are thus deprived is called
of which we
one
tribal customs. The criminal knows it who is
Everywhere in human society, for better
pleases.
and everywhere
And that
work when
from following his
prevented
behind
put
is forced to
who
to act as
as one wants or
consists
to repeat, is the ability to do as
we please. "perversions"
Professor Maclver identifies two that are to be
avoided
to speak of restraints
in the
as well as
is
of meaning and usage in understanding freedom. Though it is legitimate to doing as one pleases which originate in nature
will of other
a curtailment of
only in the interstices is the first the nature of
though
of social
hence,
and
would
be
a
Politics, it freedom
order", "a
liberty", law is
system of
seems, is
without which
to the
are created as well
not
nevertheless
"every
only
social order as
not antithetical
sustained
to
fails to
in
neces
society
see that
which we
by
that
freedom; it
live
order".4
also makes
possible.
This compatibility of law and freedom, however, Professor Maclver warns that it must for the
is lawful. That and more
freedom"
redefinition of would
dangerous
This identification ancient and
enduring
be to
pervert
of
law
compulsion.
fear
by
fulfillment
of
as a matter of
the meaning of
not
"be
be
mis
made
the
doing
only what freedom in a second
and
freedom
is,
moreover, one of the most
freedom. In Maclver's opinion, awareness of internal constraint, or
misconceptions of
psychological
forced
must not
way.
this misconception stems from our
or
"a
complex
which
understood.
ground
exists
Maclver,
regulating human relationships",
restraint"
of
we possess are relative measure
restraint
"liberty
that
to Professor
This, according
to chaos". It is a view of freedom
reduced
in large
to hold that "all
maintain
and
restrains some
"restraint
the "liberties and
law
"every
sary basis
to
the meaning of freedom. It "misunderstands the nature of law". It fails to see that, al
of
liberty
a mistake
a mistake
the law".
of
"perversion"
alike
men, it is
liberty". It is
habit. We
We
sometimes
often speak of
the things our hearts
desire."
speak
of
being
"hindrances in
compelled
ourselves
But, Professor Maclver
by
to the warns,
forget that the corresponding conception of freedom as the such internal constraint is an extension, or "analogical variant
we must not
absence of
the
of
2
3 4
5
meaning"
universal
Ibid., p. 280. Ibid., p. 285. Ibid., pp. 280-82. Ibid., p. 285.
of
the term "freedom".5 Such an extension of
Freedom be
accepted usage must not made
pushed
to support the view of
license
from
or real
do,
ability to
counterfeit
It is
diction",
of our modern sophists
do
desire
what we ought
.
.
(who)
.
what
-
in the
justify
proclaim
or rather what
-
that freedom consists in the
name
of
It is
error.
own contra
liberty
the
most
liberty". It is the view, Maclver continues,
extreme suppressions of
we ought to
from
as one ought.
Professor Maclver, is worse than "sophisticates liberty into its
to
be
cannot
distinguishing liberty
a view which
"enables men to
and
too far. In particular, it
liberty, insist but
107
End of Politics
those who,
all
not as one pleases
This, according sophistry.
as an
they
that we are free only when we do
think we
they
ought
to
do;
think we ought to desire.
only
They
what
desire
when we
liberty
say that
"law"
is self-realization, the realization of the true self in surrender to the our being, to the law of God, to the law of the State as the organic whole in ...
we are
fulfilled. They do
for
seek
some
apologists
liberty
say that
self-realization
will
good and
liberty is
good,
and
not
they
....
reject
the sake of those other things. That
liberty for
least be honest. Instead they
understand
perversion.
is
These between them. They say the one is the other face the issue that they value other things more highly than
relation
and that
would at
To
not
of
which
pervert
the universal meaning of
freedom aright, then, it is necessary to
It is necessary to
keep
clear of
position liberty.6
avoid
the two pitfalls of
such
identifying
hand, and of mistaking lawful behavior, It is necessary to cling instead to this for freedom. hand, view of freedom as doing what one wants. This view, Maclver insists, is an "immediate datum, something as ultimate as being warm or pleased law
with
unfreedom, on the one
on
the other
or
angry".
...
It is thus necessary
meaning"
universal
free"7
the state of
-
"simply (to)
"freedom"
of
being
able
unrestrained and unconstrained
as a term
There are, however,
"doing
This
universal
Maclver existed
have
from the
hand, Professor
view of
a number of reasons
meaning,
would
us
for the
after
beginning
is
Maclver does
of
the
being
freedom
as the
why it is
ability
of each
not possible
simply meaning of "freedom". universal in usage as Professor
universal
all, is not so
believe. The -
accept
things natural or human or divine. It
pleases"
as one
and
to act as one wishes, wants, or desires
by
is necessary, in short, to cling to the individual to do as he pleases. to take
recognize
signifying the "state
"perversion"
second
-
evidence enough of this.
not mean a
universality
of
If,
which
on
has
the other
historical
usage
the universal meaning of the term "freedom"; if he means instead not a universal but the generic meaning of the term, it is when
still
he
not
speaks of
possible
to accept it
necessary further to specify the comprehend
not
the freedom
of
6 7
without
qualification.
In that case, it is
After all, one seeks to just animal freedom but
generic meaning.
the genus but the species, not
the human animal. In any case, the definition of a word
Ibid., pp. 280, 286-87. (Italics in Ibid., pp. 279-80.
the original.)
Interpretation
108
from its
be
usage must not
Men may
word names.
One
mean.
they
always say well what
for the definition
mistaken
sometimes mean what
wishes
men, but the nature of the reality about purpose
this
of
is to
mentioning,
determination There is,
of
of
examination
of
the reahty the
they say. but they do not to know, not the opinion of
they have one may be
which
opinion,
opinions.
The
forgiven
for
say freedom is to the
proceed
from
what, in
fact, freedom is.
what men
moreover, still another reason
for
eventual
simply to accept "state of
a refusal
pleases"
as an adequate conceptualization of the
"doing being free".
as one
The refusal is born of the experience of psychological it is born of the experience of personal as distinguished compulsion; from environmental deficiency. The refusal is grounded in the experience. which Maclver mentions but precisely, of those "hindrances in
does
not confront.
Madness, disease, inhibition, fear, stupidity, ignorance, these surely are some of the intemperance, sloth
prejudice, cowardice,
"hindrances in
-
to
ourselves
fulfillment
the
desire"
which preclude acceptance of
dom
any
of
things
the
hearts
our
free
unqualified conception of
the ability to act as one wants, or thinks fit. Not many, after all, are wilting to call a madman free on the basis, merely, of his abihty to as
carry to do
possible, in short,
not
"freedom"
the term
as a
or to stipulate a of
question
common
either
"simply
definition
on the
desires,
basis
sense of
definition
problems
that
reveal
freedom, in
of
or otherwise
of
its
other
(in the
freedom
a
by
may turn to the study
Mortimer Adler
and
the
is
neither
adequate conception
to
its
(not
develop
of an examination of the
examination of
of
begging
question-begging
"commonplace")
basis
proceed
uncommonly its meaning as an adequate definition
concluded
a
nor unambiguous.
clearer, more
The
must
to be defined.
common usage and to
adduced to support
Philosophic
reality
sense of
on the
ambiguity.
words,
principles
examination we
a common usage meant
that usage, without
universally accepted)
It is necessary, then, to proceed to freedom. It is necessary to clarify a
to
of the
freedom is. Stipulation is itself
common usage
(in the
stipulate) of
definition
what
procedure, and
of
compulsive
what
It is of
his crazy schemes, to enact his he insanely wants to do.
out
an
the common
examination
acceptance and
\iew
of
the
to qualify
human freedom. For
this
the different concepts of freedom
of
his
colleagues
of
the
Institute for
Research.8
n
This that
common view
concept
which
of
freedom
as
Mr.
Adler
calls
doing the
8 Mortimer J. Adler, The Idea of Freedom Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1958-1961).
what one wants
'"circumstantial
(2 vols.; Garden
is
basically
freedom
City, New
of
York:
Freedom
as an
109
End of Politics
He describes it
as "a freedom which is possessed by any favorable circumstances, is able to act as he wishes for the sake of the good as he sees it."9 This description is meant to make explicit two distinct points in the insistence that freedom is always, at
self-realization".
individual who,
bottom,
under
doing
a question of
is that freedom is a matter that he is forced to do by action.
For
a man
voluntary
by
another
must
of some
way
another.
to be free his
It
action.
or not
doing
as one pleases.
This
The first
point
individual himself does,
of action that the
point concerns
be
action must
self-originated;
be "action proceeding from form of Let us coercion.10
not
the origin of an
it
must
himself,"
not call
be
from
this point the
principle of self-origination.
The
pleases
quality of the action itself. in the insistence that freedom is a question of what one distinguished from, perhaps even in opposition to, what
second point concerns the nature or
This is the
point
to do as
to do. The point is that what is done must not only be voluntarily done. It must also be the enactment of what the individual actually desires to do, not merely what law, obligation or duty requires one
ought
him to
do.11
Let
us call
this second
point
the principle of self-realization.
The two points, of course, are distinct but inseparable aspects of human freedom. Each principle, in other words, is a distinct specification of the single view that
freedom is essentially an individual affair, essentially a is the individual's own action. The two principles
matter of action which
of
self-origination
action can
be
said
and
self-realization
specify two
in
ways
which
to be one's own: The individual himself acts; and
an
what
he does is characteristically his, bears the stamp of his being and personal ity, constitutes the realization of his individuality in being and in action. Freedom is thus seen to be a question individual. What is at stake in the issue realization of
himself
individual is the and
must
his
good. which
act,
and
his
according to the
this,
not
that
of
freedom is the individual's What is
person.
ahenation or realization of
the action
achievement of
act,
as
of a person's uniqueness as an
himself
-
at stake
that
is,
for the
the loss or
To be free, then, the individual must himself must be what he desires to do. He
he initiates
action must constitute what
uniqueness of
his
is his good, his
what
is
good
self.12
situation and
According to this opinion, however, the internal world of the individual what it is, the constitution of its parts and the hierarchy of their inclinations, in sum, the condition, character, and nature of the person is basically irrelevant in the conception and issues of freedom. (One -
-
remembers
ourselves
Professor Maclver's warning
lest
we over-extend
its re-definition.) So far Ibid., II, 5. Ibid., 1, 173-74. " Ibid., 1, 184-87. i2 Ibid., pp. 173, 183-89. ">
not
to
peer
into the
world within
the meaning of freedom and end up with
as the conceptualization of
freedom is concerned,
In terpretation
110
whole.
One
must
person
who
does
the person is taken as identical with the individual as a not speak of whatever
he
and against,
distinguished from the
The only self is the named Tom or Dick who and
separated
everjthing
actual
else
in the
from
other,
The
external world.
individual, the
everyone
self, so understood, freedom.13
be
of
circumstances, of
factors
indmdual taken The
relevant
he does,
only it is
the
It is
individuaTs
essentially
the
as
a matter of
environment.
of
relation
the
issue is
not whether the
he is
issue is
individual is
necessitated
the
whether
necessitated
to action
by
mdividual can enact
to desire
his desiring. The
his desire however
by.
come
.And
viewed
in
has
Self-origination
as a whole to the world without, not the world within.
nor whether
relevant
"free will". of coercion.
present or absent
in himself. Freedom is
not
or
forms
"free
a matter of the absence of external
short of what
stops
principle of self-origination, accordingly,
been termed the issue
as
understood
an equivalent way.
The is
else
is the
The derivative
principles of self-origination and self-realization, then, must
in
psycho
stands over
"I", and who
says
distinct from the
that counts in the conception of
self
only
as
wants.
physical whole
and
true
a
that ability to act as one desires is conceived, in turn, as a matter It is a question, at the very least, of the absence of external
of situation.
force
conditions of obstacle,
the individual's desire,
contrary to according to it. For many writers. the presence in an mdividual's enrironment
or threat which compel action
or prevent action
this ability is a question also of of a
and
multiplicity of means and a wealth of opportunities (economic, social pohtical) for enacting desire. Freedom requires alternative courses of
action.
For
some,
circumstances
improve his
-
freedom is
moves
all
him
and
adherents
self-originated
indmdual
better
"reach
if it is done in
view
of such
For
of
others,
freedom
more conscious of
freedom,
individual to
the
able to choose apt means
this
of
even,
inside"
as
mental and emotional condition.
such aids as would make an
actuaUy But for
a question of the presence,
for instance
schools
an
requires
the desire that
for its
action
is
realization.
said
to
be
the presence or absence of the relevant ex
ternal circumstances. Thus it is held that the condition and character of the person
are
ignorant
irrelevant in
the
conception
learned
men as well as
are equally free if similarly This irrelevance of the internal world
men
freedom
understanding -
let
us call
of
the
it the
important
also
mdividual
question
question of the measure.
self-realization tries to state the measure
according to
to be judged as one's own, from the point of
14
freedom. Men
of the principle of self-realization.
short of adequate consideration of an
of
of
-
situated.14
-
terizes the
issues
and
men, vicious men as well as virtuous
Ibid., II, 76-87. Ibid., I, 111-33, 174-S7; TI, 533-61.
in the
The
charac
It too
stops
conception
principle of
which an action
view of what
the action
is
is.
Freedom from the point be accomplished as forced to do. The
not
as an
of view of who
End of Politics
does it.
111
Self-alienation,
after
all,
can
does voluntarily as by what one is principle of self-realization, then, declares that the individual not some external agent nor the command of some divine or human law must be the measure of his own good, the measure of what much
by
what one
-
-
constitutes the alienation or the realization of
individual
himself. The standard the in taking this measure of a possible deed, however, is left That measure is merely said to be his desire, his pleasure,
uses
unspecified.
his
his
wish or
preference.15
The individual taken
as a whole, then, is the only self there is in this freedom. He is the real, the actual self. The desire he or actually has, not that corresponding to some metaphorical "true to the command of some law, is the only relevant measure of what the individual must be unrestrained from doing if his action is to constitute his good, to be his own, and if he, himself, is to be free. What the individual desires to do is, according to the principle of self-realization, conception
of
self"
the individual must be able to do; and he, according to the principle self-origination, must do it if, according to this view, he is to be free. It is not difficult to see that an individualistic concept of the person is
what of
the basis stands
of
this
falls
or
individual
view of as
whose
that is the
an
freedom,
adequate
of
"subjective"
his
of
lies in the
self-realization
object
the fundamental ground upon which it
concept
freedom. This achievement
desire is
also
of
view
the
of
the
"good"
the ground
of
a
correspondingly individualistic conception of the nature and function of "subjective" government. The necessarily aggressive pursuit of individual desire in the condition of scarcity means that the golden rule is, in fact, do
unto
others, first.
Life,
accordingly, is
"poor,
solitary, nasty, brutish
short."
Government is necessary to end the war of "every man against man."16 Or, in a less blunt version, the golden rule is no harm to every But it is not possible. The unregulated pursuit by others, if and
possible.17
individuals his own
of
their
case."18
"subjective"
It
received and allowed
wrong,
means
by
desire
common consent
and the common measure to
quently, is
characterized
means
that there is
by
"great
that "each
man
is judge in
"established known, law, to be the standard of right and
decide
no
controversies."19
inconveniences,"
full
of
Life,
conse
"confusion,
"
Ibid., II, 173, 183-89. Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1950) Part I, Chs. XIII, XIV. The famous quotation is from Ch. XIII, p. 104 and 6
p.
103. 17
John
Locke, Second Treatise
on
Ernest Barker, Social Contract, Essays Oxford U. Press, 1960). is ii
Civil Government, Ch. II, Sect. 6. Found in by Locke, Hume and Rousseau (New York:
Ibid., Ch. II, Sect. 13 and Ch. Ill, Sect. 18. Ibid., Ch. LX, Sect. 124.
112
Interpretation
disorder, partiality
injuries
"mutual grievences,
violence,"20
and
and
wrongs."21
Government is necessary, in short, to
becomes,
warfare.
Its
speak, the activity more
establish the condition of
of
chief
and pohtics
conflict of
yours,"
so to
the matter
express
this
ameliorate
interests,"
domestic function is "to harmonize the
"getting
peacefully.
and peace
order, security
in
Or,
to
is necessary to
government
euphemistically,
the coopera
which
tion of many individuals is both possible and of benefit to all. Or finally, to express the matter in the language of this view of freedom, government
is necessary to establish the conditions in which the private pursuit of "subjective" happiness becomes productive of abundance and of those other circumstances which concretely confer upon each individual "the
ability to This is
aware of
end
freedom
altogether rejected
of the
inheritors
among many, those
concept
of
and see of
his in
and more
other,
concept
individualism, of
state of
consequences.
as
though
freedom
this
under
accept
it
as
in
conception
freedom
of
of
problem
sees
with
estabhsh
in
existence
state of
it,
nature,
as
its
each
though in
without at the same
time
suffering its nasty and brutish the individual is as naturally needy as he is
life,
since
he
the
through
politics
as an end of politics.
is to
imagined
an
one
merely
reconciling its require necessary ends. But the kinship of the task
of politics
good as
of such a
However,
without
may with equal title say that, for individualism, the is power. Its aim is to cure that natural impotence which
naturally selfish, end of politics
the
end
acting for the
suffering the fate
leaves
the
acceptance of
a specific end of government.
the individual. The final aim of politics is to enable
individual to live the
this view of
the individual and his
the person points to a serious
of
even a qualified acceptance of this
dream
view of
to the
as
view of politics
freedom to that
of
individualistic For
it."
sees
everyone who accepts
its foundation in this
persuaded modern men
originally
ments with
this
he
views
standing,
Many
sake of the good as
Nor is it to say that everyone who accepts this view of freedom as an end, let alone as the end of politics. Hobbes,
government.
who
for the
wishes
to say, of course, that
not
freedom is freedom
he
act as
one
solitary individual
prey
to
nature
and
its
creatures
by
maintaining the power of Leviathan over both. Simply is to cure the impotence of the individual by means of the
and
establishing stated, its aim
relative omnipotence of
individual lives
the
State,
and so
to create the illusion that the
god, obeying only himself. This is perhaps the greatest irony of individualism. It points, as many have noted, to a totalitarian fruit of the liberal seed. But if this is true, and
as a
if it is true that in
2 21
freedom partially accepted often becomes is forced to ask whether a totalitarian fruit
politics
freedom totally accepted,
one
Ibid., Ch. II, Sect. 13; Ch. IX, Sect. 123-27. Ibid., Ch. VIII, Sect. 91, n. 4.
Freedom might
as an
End of Politics
113
eventually be the ironic product of the acceptance freedom as an end of politics.
not
of individ-
ualism's characteristic view of
in
Before
were to accept or reject
one
self-realization"
as accept
it
the
as one end
to be
its adequacy
examine
end of
as
politics,
"the
however,
reconciled with
a
concept
of
freedom
of
one were
to
circumstantial or
before
others, he
do
would
human freedom. To
well
recall
to
the
beginning
of the essay, he would do well to ask whether this individualistic understanding of freedom adequately expresses that human condition which men have established republics to secure and have given their lives
to maintain. If one wishes to understand freedom it is necessary to avoid arbitrariness, and to submit this widely accepted opinion of what freedom
is to
an examination of the consistency, at least, of its several principles. The "circumstantial freedom of is deficient on both counts. It is in its and inadequate as an under principles, contradictory standing of the condition of being men have sought to achieve through politics. More precisely, this view of freedom can be made consistent, but self-realization"
only to
its adequacy as a concept of the freedom politics aims For it is impossible without contradiction to maintain that the
at the cost of
secure.
are irrelevant in the conception of time, to maintain that some particular condition of the person is a constraint that deprives him madness, for example of freedom. One cannot have it both ways: The contradiction is on the level of principle, and that is the domain of "Either/Or". Either the internal world of the individual is relevant, or it is not. If the
condition
character of the self
and
freedom and,
at the same -
-
the person are not relevant, then freedom may "the ability of an individual to act as he wishes for the good as he sees it". Then too, neither insanity nor
condition and nature of
indeed be
accounted
the sake of
imbecility thinking
can
be deemed hindrances to freedom. Then
oneself
free, is
the same as
account, freedom cannot be to
an end of politics.
help Besides, everyone is free in aim
individual
literally
conception of
the
individuals
mad or criminal
foolish,
dragged
this sense
it in the
-
Politics,
enact mad or criminal -
everyone
that
is,
the
intemperate,
everyone acts as
circumstances
in
-
not
desires.
except
the physical force of another.
by
that
and on
surely, does
freedom is thus politically irrelevant. Everyone
the
Such
the
a
idiot,
insane, the diseased, the primitive, the duped, the depraved or the deprived, for
the
superstitious, the cowardly, the example
feeling free,
being free. Then too,
he
wishes
which
for the
sake of
the good as he sees
he finds himself. If the internal
world of
is irrelevant in the conception of freedom, there is no ground for saying otherwise. The individual, it is true, may wish to exist in different circumstances. But that is another matter altogether. It is a matter, not of the
self
doing
what one
wants, but
of
existing in
circumstances
that accord
with
Interpretation
114 wish, in a reality that
one's
The issue here
irrelevant in the and immediate
indi\idual's
concerns the measure of an
The
self-alienation.
to one's dream.
corresponds
point
is that if the internal freedom then his
conception of
actual
or
realization
the individual
world of
desire in his
is
present
is the only possible measure of a deed individual does can be the only possible indication of what he really, what he actually desires to do. Hence he always does what he wants. If the internal world of the self is irrelevant his
as
circumstances
But
own.
what
the
if one really means that the actual indhidual in his present condition (whatever it may be) is the only self that counts in the conception of desire or wish or freedom; if one really means that his preference (however originated and whatever it may be) is the only relevant measure of his good, of his self-realization as distinguished from -
"subjective"
"other"
what some
(person
or
law)
it
means what one says and maintains
does
must
be taken
There is that the of
as what,
he
nature and character of
what
he
the
eliminate
inner life
is,
that
irrelevant in
one
individual
It is
assertions.
to do.
asserted
the conception
to be free the indi\-idual
must
be
able
to do. These two assertions taken
from the of
if,
-
what an
wishes or prefers
these
person are
asserted that
wants
the
do
consistently, then
"subjectively"
together, effectively tion between
ought to
in fact, he desires,
no alternative consistent with
freedom. And it is
to do
says
the
problems of
freedom any distinc "subjective"
(between his
person
or wish or preference) and its outward manifestation in action. Given these assertions, a person who acts at gunpoint, out of his desire to avoid threatening death, acts as freely as the person who acts in conditions
desire
of
civil
out
peace,
of
his desire to
immortal fame. Each is
achieve
to act upon his desire. Given these assertions,
able
desire
nor
even today's wish to
be in
taken as relevant for the issue of freedom.
They
the appropriate measure of self-realization, as a
desire prompting
deed,
a
without
denying
yesterday's
neither
circumstances
yesterday's
cannot
be
substitute
one
or
the
can
be
summoned as
for the other
present
the
of
assertions.
Such is the logical individual
consequence
whole, in his
a
as
standard or measure of able
his
of
the
unqualified
"subjective"
desire
self-realization, of what,
or
assertion
that the
preference, is the
therefore, he
to do to be free. His good must be understood to be
what
must
be
he desires.
What he actually does must be taken as what he actually desires. And the individual himself must be said to act, since he is not literally moved by the
physical
force
good worth much
commonplace,
a
of another.
coercion
and
consistency.
Few
duress
often thought
common characteristic of almost
every kind of regime. It is doubtless true that of
Thus freedom,
to be a
rare
to achieve and in need of constant care, turns out to be
the
of
by
reason
both
linguistic usage,
willing to say that a man acts threatening his life. In order to
are
of a weapon
one wishes,
habits
every human deed in
to
of
the experience
reject
freely
such
mad
even under
the
avoid that conclusion
Freedom and stiU maintain
insist that the obviously do
of
"want" -
the
addict,
do
they
what
to maintain it
possible or
that freedom is
drug
not
as an
whatever one
wants, many
the man
and
psychotic
want.
by
only
doing
an
115
End of Politics
But this is
would
duress
under
not obvious at all.
equivocation
on
It is
"desire"
the
word
equivocation, moreover, that amounts to a contradiction that the internal world of the person is irrelevant in the
an
the assertion
definition of freedom. The avoidance of that conclusion only if one distinguishes among a person's desires between his his wish. With such a distinction, it may be well said that the
conception and
is
possible
desire
and
addict
desires his
but
drug
to be
prefers
his
rid of
desire;
that the
victim
his money but prefers to be rid of the bandit; or does what he desires madly, but prefers to be rid of his
chooses to surrender
that the psychotic mad
desire. With
freedom
as
distinction, however, it is necessary to speak one wants or desires, but as one prefers
such a
doing,
not
as
of or
wishes.
But why introduce clusion that the
such
addict, the
then, it is necessary to or preferences.
the accepted make
real and
a
victim act
unacceptable
usage of
not
in
the term
avoid
the con
freely. But why the
accord with "freedom."
Well
further distinction. It is necessary to
unreal,
After all, if it is
free, it is equally
the
Obviously, because it is
avoid that conclusion?
experience of coercion or
distinguish between
distinction? Obviously, to
a
psychotic and
reasonable and unreasonable wishes
unacceptable
in the light
to call the
victim of
duress
of that experience and usage
to call the contented prisoner free who loves his prison as his good, and prefers
above all
to remain there.
By
the
token, it is just
same
acceptable to account the man unfree who cannot square a as
the
call of
youth
the prefers once again to be.
the absolute tyrant
his
mad
as un or exist
Similarly, it is unacceptable
unfree who cannot
re-create man
dream. If, then, it is necessary to common sense of freedom, it is
to
in the image
avoid conclusions
to the
absurd
circle,
that are
necessary to distinguish
as
between reasonable and unreasonable wishes as it is to distinguish between a person's preference and the desire that actually moves him to act in his immediate circumstances.
This, however, is of
the
person
ignorant
to
in the
men and wise
virtuous men cannot
respect attempt
to
to
external
avoid
be
said
an
standard of self-realization.
"the ability of good as he sees
an
it."
sane and
This, general
To
admit
freedom. It men,
It
such
the
he
admission means at
wishes
with
distinctions in the constitutes
"subjectivity"
altogether changes the notion of act as
that
means
vicious men and
conclusion, in other words,
original assertion of
individual to
The
of
to be equally free if similarly situated
absurd
the
definition
mad men and sane
men,
circumstances.
radical qualification of
as
the relevance of the condition and character
admit
conception and
for the
least this: The
a
of the
freedom
sake of
wish must
the
be
the judgment sound.
of
course, raises again the issue of the measure, though in more
terms. What is the standard or measure of soundness and of
Interpretation
116 health
of
sanity,
and of
he
about which
always a particular
particular
judgment
the
mutandis, the
less
of an
individual's
opinions and
desire
opinion, wish,
individual's
good,
actual
may be
mistaken?
can
be the
the same token,
mutatis
nor
By
self-realization.
be the traditions
measure cannot
judgment
of the community.
''denominator"
it be
can
of a
particular
of an
measure
has
opinion, a particular wish or desire, and a particular individual which must be measured,
Since it is neither
is,
well-being, that
as much as anyone
individual
of
some cross-cultural
Even
opinions
and communal traditions.
In the last human
analysis
being,
the measure can only be the nature of an individual's remaining. Concerning this
this is the only possibility
since
may everywhere have disagreed. One man may be as ignorant Both may be as partial or as mistaken as the spirit of the their regime. It may well be that a man can come to know this
measure men as another.
laws
of
"subjectively,"
measure
human a
only
being
is
which
achieved
man, to the degree that he
only through a kind of participation in in the fact of the individual's existence as brute.
exists as a man and not as a
may be the specific character of the measure and what selfever may be the way in which it can be known, the measure of in the sense of the principle of realization cannot be But
whatever
"subjective"
self-
It may be true that a person's good is whatever enables him to realize himself in being and in action. It is not true, however, realization.
that
doing
him to
himself. Suicide
self-realization analogous
confronts
himself world,
happens to
whatever a person
realize
if
-
form
Paris
us.
with
words still
of
his
suicide
with
upon
rash
a realization of
arrested
"psychedelic"
slothful
man
prefers
his
art
by
the
real
the knife
ease
and
realizes
lustful man, acting upon his preference, realizes only would be the judgment of Hitler which saw his life as
of
one's
preference
self-realization
whatever one wishes
If, however,
it to
-
or
or
unless,
in
life,
one's
of
the world is full of cases
desire is
course,
one
as absurd
bring
the
means
mean.
self-realization consists
is forced
to
seen
self-realization
in
whatever one
happens to
therefore means whatever one wishes it to mean, so too
Then
in
life which, in his
prefers a
himself. In literature
following
opposite
and
or
thereby dooms
whereas a
his lust. And where
in life
and
afar as the executioner twists
"hippie"
in his heart. A young case, results in madness. A nothing,
experience
which
his love for Helen, Joseph K. prefers not to be
acts
city.
scarcely be imagined to constitute mean anything. The same is true of the
up watching from
and ends
to desire will enable
prefer or
can
wish
does freedom.
once again to accept those conclusions rejected above
to the common sense
of
freedom. For (as it
was
the purpose
this essay in citing the Adler study to document beyond the possibihty of reasonable denial), self-realization is the hingeprinciple in the conception of freedom. The principle of self-origination of
the
second section of
declares that the individual self-realization
defines
what
must
it is
himself
a man must
act,
but the
principle
of
himself do if he is to be free.
Freedom
Self-realization is because it
as an
the cardinal principle in the
in
specifies that
freedom
which
117
End of Politics conception
freedom
of
consists.
If, then, self-realization means whatever one wishes it to mean, it is necessary to recognize that freedom is not a matter of being anything, but of believing oneself to be realizing oneself in whatever one happens to do. It is then necessary to recognize that the contented prisoner is as free as the man is unfree whose discontent rests in the fact that he cannot be the god, the angel, the bird of the snake he prefers literally to be. Indeed, it is necessary to recognize that the slave wholly in bondage to and wholly in the service of another is free so long as he prefers his slavery, and that for him slavery is freedom. At this point, however, -
-
absurdity triumphs over intelligence. Discourse must cease the moment it is believed that opposite conditions of being become identical in fact when
they
The
subjectively held to be the same. is that to avoid absurdity, it is necessary to
are
point
and
definition
of a
of
freedom. The
threat to his life
or
man
acting be
can
deliberately
conception
the duress
under
to act unfreely though
said
property between his desire
by distinguishing
voluntarily only
the
recognize
in the
relevance of the condition and character of the person
and
his wish,
and
changing the concept of freedom from doing as one desires to doing as one prefers. But the experience which makes this distinction necessary
by
and
legitimate demands the further distinction between real
unreasonable, additional
the
and
unreal
distinction is it
psychotic,
the
and
for their
preference
possible
fool
nevertheless
despite their
point
"subjectivity"
it. Perhaps he
sees
is that the
wishes
and
is of
this
not
free
conviction
admission of
despite their that
they
are
the distinctions
judgments necessary to avoid as the decisive thing
of the
standard
must
alone must
be
of
self-realization.
able to act
judge. But the
It may be
himself for the
good as
admission means
that he
judge
rightly, and with the right measure. The point is, moreover, that the admission of
must
and
with
"objectivity"
element of
that to be free the individual
he
reasonable
Only
to maintain that the prisoner, the slave,
are
among a person's desires, absurdity thus introduces an the
preferences.
or
condition and
realizing themselves. The
within
wishes
the
the necessary distinctions
the relevance, but above all, of the primacy only and character of the person in the conception, itself, of
an admission not nature
human freedom.
The
of
person's
good,
his
condition
of
real
and
not
imaginary self-realization, is thus declared to be the measure of the content of freedom, of its matter, of that which the individual must be able
to do to be free. This
understood
as
a
matter
of
means
that freedom cannot be primarily
environment.
It
cannot
be
conceived
as
essentially consisting in the presence or absence of external circumstances. The absence of guns and threats and tyrants as well as the presence of a city's advantages
But the
presence
neither as
the
may indeed be necessary if or absence of
an
individual is to be free.
these circumstances can be
sufficient condition of an
individual's
freedom,
understood
nor as
that
Interpretation
118
in
it
which
The
consists.
standard of
self-realization, however
"objective,"
individual, not in the external world of environment. In fact, this measure, because his constituting it is the measure of what freedom is, is the ultimate ground of any judgment concerning what environmental circumstances are even relevant, is declared to be
the
within
circumstances
let
destructive
alone
of
freedom
for its
or requisite
establishment.
short, that the distinctions necessary to avoid the conclusion that everyone acts as he desires or wishes, or to avoid the
The
is, in
point
conclusion that everyone
is free
believes himself to be free,
who
establish
his well-being, in the individual, conception and definition of human freedom. The point is that the neces sary distinctions among a person's desires, between his desires and his
the primacy of the
his
of
and
nature
-
wishes, between his
thinking,
his
his
opinion of
unreasonable,
his good, between being lead to and mad
sane
and the
-
much it may require an environment essentially of the nature and quality What the individual does must be in the nature of action as
individual's
of a certain
of
and
that freedom is not so much a question of the condition of
recognition an
good and
reasonable
environment
kind),
action.
as
it is
(however
a matter
distinguished from
mere movement. He must act, not merely re-act, not merely be moved to disrupt in some way the arrangement of things in space. And what he does must be action of a certain kind. It must be
action according to the measure of a person's good, in virtue of which individual exists as a man and realizes himself as an individual.
Either the internal If the
world of
indeed be
conceived
because
this
of
wants.
in the
as
a
irrelevance,
Given the
then,
or
it is
conception of
of
matter
doing
then freedom may
freedom,
whatever
one
wishes.
the individual must be understood to do
"subjectivity"
of the
standard
of self-realization
arguing, revealing,
being
must
he actually desires or wishes he really wants. Everyone is
what
to do. Everyone accordingly does what always free except in the one instance where he is the
wind.
Everyone accordingly is
-
what
-
as
But what
because the individual's desire is then unqualifiedly the measure of he must be able to do to be free what the individual actually does be taken
not.
the person and the character of his desire
condition and nature of
or wish are not relevant
he
the individual is relevant,
an
almost always
moved as a
free
and
leaf
upon
freedom
is,
as
Hobbes maintained, merely voluntary as distinguished from involuntary action. Freedom so conceived is thus politically irrelevant. It comes to the individual with the mere fact of his existence. It exists in any regime; it is dependent upon pohtics neither for its establishment nor for its security.
If,
It is the starting
on the other
hand,
point of
the conception and definition of
vidual
to
can no act as
not
its
end.
then freedom may perhaps be But in that event
freedom,
taken as a reality politics aims to
freedom
politics,
the internal world of the individual is relevant in
establish and secure.
longer be
conceived as the
he
for the
wishes
then necessary to qualify this
sake of
conception
ability, merely,
of an
the good as he sees
in the light
of
"indi
it."
It is
that world. It
s
Freedom
119
End of Politics
as an
necessary to qualify this conception both with a view to the problem of internal constraint and deficiency, and with a view to the problem of the "objectivity"
being
of a person's
and self-realization.
It is necessary, in
short, to qualify this conception in light of the determination of what makes an action both genuinely self-originated and genuinely self-realizing. Freedom, everyone admits, is a matter of the nature of an action as
its
well as of
double
It is
source.
sense that
he
Freedom, in
not another's.
it
and
other
is both
matter of action that
is
a matter of action that
originates
that it
be
still
words, may
self-originated
a person's own
conforms
and
conceived of as a
interior
and
world
origination, accordingly, an
individual is
force. It
necessitated
be
must also
does
which a person
must
able
of
the
of
be
by
able some
The
person.
to distinguish
internal
But the
self-realizing.
into
principles of self-origination and self-realization must take
the nature
in the
to his own aims,
account
movement
self-
of
principle
to
which
as well as some external
to distinguish such movement from action
himself;
distinguish,
to
and
as
such action
well,
from merely conditioned or instinctive reaction. It must, in brief, be able to distinguish choice from voluntary response, and voluntary response from involuntary movement. The principle of self-realization, on the other
hand,
must
be
able to
distinguish
individual believes to be
what an
self-realizing from what is self-realizing in the uniqueness of his situation and his person. It must be able, so to speak, to take into view the aim of
being
a person's
to that measure
for its well-being, to
are crooked with respect
If, then, ception of
ability
the internal
freedom, it
of a person
thinks fit
-
that
hitting
world
appears
of
is,
be
to distinguish according
able
that
straight and which
mark.
the individual is
in the
relevant
desires,
whatever
he
wants, wishes,
It
pleases.
likes,
prefers
be conceived, instead, as the ability of a person to act merely as he desires but also as he chooses, and to act for the
to act
not
sake of
the
-
only
that freedom
as
he
must
sees
be
it, but
also as
conceived as the
it is in fact. In short, it
ability
of a person
choose, and to do what is really his good, to do him to realize himself.
what will
or
that freedom
appears
must
good not
con
that freedom cannot be conceived as the
to do as he
to do
and to
the person has taken are
which aims
to
appears
desire,
in fact
to
enable
IV
It appears, however, that with this concept of freedom the investigation what freedom is has become impaled upon the other horn of the dilemma of adequately defining it. If the common opinion of freedom as of
doing that
up, if consistently maintained, in the assertion because he does what he wants in his circum
what one pleases ends
everyone acts
stances, this
equally
freely
seems
to lead to a conclusion
common experience and
the habits of linguistic
sophisticated view of
unacceptable
to
freedom
Interpretation
1 20 to lead to that
usage.
It
which
Professor Maclver
seems
identity
of
the good man and the free man
enabling "men to
condemned as
the
liberty
of
name
clarifying the
most
in the
ambiguities
common sense of
in the
justify
liberty."
Far from
of
supression
extreme
the investi
freedom,
to end up in that dangerous sophistry which "proclaims that or rather what are free only when we do what we ought to do
gation seems
-
we
(others)
think
we ought
to do
(or)
...
to
desire".22
If
a man
is
a good man
to the degree that he actually desires, chooses and does what is good, the argument seems to end up in the unacceptable if not dangerous conclusion that only the good man is free. The issue at bottom of the objection to this identification "objectivity"
asserted
of
the one
on
of popular
the human states
hand,
and the
that
is, both
-
of
"subjectivity,"
on
being
the other
humanist
positivist and
concerns
hand,
at the core
conceptions of
-
the
free
being
good and
free
"ought"
implies both obligation and dom and goodness. It may be that "ought" commanded good. But for viewed as a that the can be authority, the
"subjectivity"
the
positivist
of
projected object of "ought"
the
is
individual desire
the good as the groundless, merely or
accordingly, is to do
has
what someone else
to serve the interest of another. At best
Maclver
points
it is to
out, "a basis
serve one's own
That, however,
well
identification
ought"
order"
and a
as one
ought,
is
is,
or
by
ipso
restraint"
of coincidence.
condition of a well-kept slave who exists master's
aims.
Thus the implied
"doing
as a
servants
indoctrination in the belief that their freedom in
facto,
Professor
as
sophistry characteristic of tyranny. It is to the dream of the cunning tyrant who would
rejected
into willing
citizens
It
"restraint
interest only incidentally,
defines the
thought to correspond
their
gained
the good man and the free man in the notion of
of
as one
make
has
because law is
of social
to serve not his own, but his
as such
law. To do
commanded.
-
that
means
always reducible to some private preference that
authoritative status as social custom or public
-
preference"
"subjective
obedience to the
of
his
self-interest
goodness consists
laws
of
his
regime.
through
their
in lawfulness, and It is the sophistry
the tyrant who would, in a vulgar understanding of Rousseau's phrase, free." "force men to be Thus it is believed that "doing as one must
of
ought"
be
rejected as an adequate concept of
The basis
if
not
of
human freedom.
this rejection is the reduction of the good to private interest
"subjective preference"; the
consequent
denial
of
a
public
or
a
the corresponding equation of law with the interest good, of the stronger. This view of politics as the struggle of individuals (singly
common
or
and
in combination) for the
the
counterpart of
therefore
subject
power
to realize their
the view of freedom as
to a
similar
doing
"subjective"
interests is
what one wishes.
dialectic. Either this
view
is
It is
correct or
it
If it is correct, then politics is indeed "the struggle for But is power, not freedom. Freedom its end if one can still speak of an end
is
power."
not.
-
-
22
See above,
p.
107.
Freedom
as an
End of Politics
121
the ability to do what
as
one wishes remains the starting point of politics. that is, the power to make citizens the only be victory servants of one's private interest and to make a world that corresponds to one's dream. It thus appears that this view of freedom is no less dangerous than the alternative view it rejects as a tyrant's sophistry. It is, in fact, a far more dangerous view since its teaching that man is by nature
Its
end can
-
what a man
subjectively prefers even Auschwitz. But it is simply a mistake to the ability of a person to "objectivity"
fundamental basis in the first intelligible out
ground
legally
there is no the regime
freedom
doing
of
the
good
is
not
-
the concept of freedom as
measure
condition
of
of
what
is really his
this
good
self-realization
tyranny
"objectivity"
Without that
there
for the distinction between the legal
distinction there is
that
part of a
what
place.
tyranny in
to choose and to do
the distinction between
of
tyrant. If the
soul of a
wishes, then nothing is forbidden
see
desire,
human
the
of
or
"objectivity"
In fact, the
good.
him the
and selfish confers upon
solitary
no abuse of power
its
the
opposite
is ultimately no the just. With
and
at
-
and
the
-
is
-
least,
not
on
the
procedurally correct sovereign. And if "tyranny" abuse of power, is merely a name the loser gives to of the winner in the struggle for power. The alternative to
as
constituted and
doing
what
pleases, in short, may
what one
But this
one ought.
the tyrant pleases. It must
individual's desiring to do what is in reality good.
This, however,
well
be freedom
be rightly understood as be understood instead as a matter justice
what
demands,
of
of
the
his pleasing to do
implies the troublesome identification
still
as
doing
cannot
of
the good
the free man. The ability of an individual to act for his good implies prudence at least, if not wisdom. The ability both to desire to do man and
and
to
choose
development virtues
is
and
(hence,
difficult task. Few
of
succeed.
implies the these
of
Both their devel
good
the part of the
implies
individual, but
good
parents,
good
teachers and
good
-
the good man and the free
of
virtue as well as
circumstance,
is this good
The trouble, in short, is that freedom only the good man is free, it
concept of
that only the fortunate man has the possibility of
good or
man
circumstance as well as virtue.
if according to this appears
up-bringing,
in brief, good laws. What is troublesome
and other circumstantial advantages as well
implication that if freedom implies
being
either
free.
"objectivity"
stantially dependent
of
freedom
condition
"subjectivity"
the
good
acquisition
these virtues ordinarily require not only a certain
then about this identification
This
is
what
But the
the ability to act according to their requirements, moreover, within the power of the individual. Both the acquisition
the actions
opportunity
ness
do)
virtues.
entirely
natural endowment on
nature,
to
please
the other moral
a constant and
opment and
are not
to do
of
essential
in
of
as
an
acquired,
and
in part,
circum
the person seems to run counter to
popular
-
this time
humanist,
not
only
122
Interpretation
positivist
the free man. The slave
notions of the good and
-
is
martyrdom
who chooses
thought to be free while on the rack. Though
difficulty
with
courageous, he need not be thought of as particularly temperate, or just, or prudent. Yet some men would admire his integrity, and many would
him
consider
dictates be
good
his
of
life's
of
By
death,"
his obedience, "even unto his faith. The slave's martyrdom
the supremely free act that token, the same slave,
similar
necessities and
his
master's -
charity in the turning of his hope that the Living God a
darkness to
valley The issue here
see the
and
lash,
in the dust
free
even life,"
-
his
of virtue of
his
lead His beloved through many
will
blessedness.
of eternal
the
issue here
concerns
freedom,
and ashes of
his
"authenticity"
else, in the
or
of a
whereby some men Job in the steadfastness
submission
his life
of
and
to the Will of the
his
"subjectivity"
the
and
of conscience
suffering.
The
as the
integrity
human goodness, and so also, as the measure of freedom. is apolitical in the extreme. It describes, in Whitehead's
of
measure
phrase, "a freedom
circumst
In Professor Adler's
beyond
lying
words, it describes a "freedom to live as one ought a
freedom
to
will as
of the
he
inner
life,"
a
(that)
freedom that "consists in
is essentially
a man's
ought,"
who
he
enact what
therefore "remains free
wills."
The issue
whether or not
ability he can
"subjectivity"
concerns the radical
of a
that makes goodness and freedom essentially a matter of
measure able
in
and
by
considered
his lot in
of
master's
be
them to be
his faith (whose inscrutable Providence
lines")
and perhaps
Almighty; measure
life
a
to his
would
of
his
yoke
concerns the nature of the measure
goodness,
his faith
This
of
straight with crooked of
of
cheek
in the double
laboring
commands,
might even
confirms
or
establishes
and by a few many Christians to be good in virtue of his humility in the "acceptance
"writes
to the
virtue of
conscience and
considered
goodness.
in
"being
to will as we ought, whether or not external circumstances permit us
to do as
will."23
we
This integral freedom dictates
of the
human
will
in
to the
steadfast adherence
conscience, it must be noted, is not that quality of the
of
will
issue in the debate concerning a person's freedom of choice. in the sense of not being The question of free will in the sense of choice which
is
at
-
necessitated
by instinct, by training
to all one's acts either
or
desire
by
-
concerns that minimum of responsibility for one's deed that common sense and common law have always assumed as the threshold of human
action, as the hallmark above, free
23
the moral and political world. As was noted the problem of
Adler, Op. Cit., I, 250-54. Adler of
by
men
those
ought
who, through
this
in conformity to the
See above,
p.
110,
as
self-origination.24
notion
moral
and p.
119.
law
of
"a freedom
acquired virtue or wisdom,
Ibid., II, 6. 24
calls
He describes it
self-perfection."
freedom
they
of
choice concerns
or
an
ideal
are
It is
a matter
freedom the "acquired which
able
is to
possessed will
or
befitting human
only
live
as
nature."
Freedom of what makes an action and one might
distinguishable from
or an example of a species.
the nature,
debate is
itself,
of
This
mere response or
distinguishable from
what makes a self
add,
question of
free
is
choice
movement,
instance
an
a matter of
the person and his act of willing. The issue in the
is
whether man
of such a nature as
to have
If he is, he has; if he is not, he has it terminology, it is a natural, not an acquired nor of choice.
"Neither
123
End of Politics
as an
an
inherent
power
In Professor Adler's
not.
a circumstantial
circumstances nor acquirements of
freedom. freedom
confer this
any sort If there is such
deprive them of it."25 a freedom, natural as breathing is natural, its existence is obviously not a matter of human action. As a natural freedom, it cannot be understood as an end of upon men or
politics.
The
issue in the troublesome identification
relevant
the free man is thus not the issue
of the good man
responsibility for his deeds or his condition. The assertion that only the good man is free does not necessarily mean that only the good man has choice. But neither does it mean that a man is free simply in virtue of his ability to and
of an evil man's
either
he
will as
ought.
It is this
freedom to the inner
restriction of
"subjectivity"
that is at issue here. That is the
person
humanist
measure
"subjectivity"
human
of
goodness
The radically
it
as a
the
issue in the
human freedom. It is
and
that makes freedom essentially
stances and eliminates
world of
at
independent
of
a
circum
political end.
specifically
this freedom is most easily seen, perhaps, in its specifically Christian version. "The good that I would, I do not; but the evil I would not, I do." That is the unfreedom apolitical or subjective character of
St. Paul describes in the famous
which
the Romans. "Wretched
thing I hate
the very within
me,
death."
servitude
-
....
It is
no
...
point
subjective, that
seventh chapter of
that I am,
in my flesh, is that this
...
The
man
is,
I do
...
do
not
longer I that do it but
in my members,
"slavery not
to
in the
.
is
.
.
his Epistle to
what
I want, but dwells
sin which
(in)
this
body
of
sin"
a
purely
vulgar sense
of
subjective
imaginary
or
fictitious, but in
the sense that it is a wholly interior servitude. The slavery to sin is a matter of the person's inability to rule himself because of the "spirit"
war of
his
duality
and paralysis within
But just
and
his
"flesh,"
his
not also
because
of some
terrible
itself.
is radically subjective, so too is the freedom it. That freedom is, as it were, an ability to turn up another
as this servitude
which replaces
cheek, to break the "reign of life." brought from death to It
sin,"
25
if
spirit
Adler, Op. Cit., I, 156. The
of this controversy
"to
means
freedom
concept of
concerning free
choice
yield
is
oneself
to God
as a man
that "sin will have no dominion
called
which
is ordinarily at the root the "natural free
by Mr. Adler
self-determination."
dom
He describes it
of
men, in change
virtue
his
own
become."
shall
of a power character
as
"a freedom
which
is
possessed
by
all
inherent in human nature, whereby a man is able to creatively by deciding for himself what he shall do or
Ibid., II, 6-7.
124
Interpretation
He has (the Christian) since (he is) not under law, but under "The of been "set free from and has become "a slave comes freedom This return is sanctification and its end, eternal grace."
over
God."
sin"
life."
...
to the
as
person
"free
a
from
gift
potentially, "to walk in newness of Christ." in Jesus (Romans, 6 : 4-23).
The himself
enables
him,
least
at
sin and alive
to God
is that according to Christian belief this is a subjective give, and a freedom that only the individual destroy. The point is that this new life of freedom from sin
which no man can
can
in Grace is
person.
be
and
"dead to
point
freedom and
God,"
life,"
As
a
not of
this world, but of the
subjective,
not
to say a
understood as an end of politics.
humanist
of stoic or
versions of
The
same
freedom, it
is true,
mutatis
cannot
mutandis,
this freedom.
It appears, then, that the basic trouble in the identification man and the free man on the one hand, and the main
determining
the
subjective world within
"supernatural"
of
the
good
in
problem
the freedom that can be an end of politics on the other
turn out to be one and the same. The problem seems to be in the
hand,
notion
turns up at the root of the concept of freedom. If a insists that freedom is a matter of doing what one wants, it is
of goodness which positivist
because he
finally
taste;"
or
and
the
(not
the
good as
albeit
merely "subjective
inconsistently,
preference
a person's good as
subjective) object of his private interest, or projection of his desire. If a Christian insists that freedom is essentially a matter
at all
singular of
understands
because he sees,
as
willing
unmediated
individual's
ought, it is
one
union
with
God
finally as
steadfast adherence
because he
understands
the supreme good;
and
to His Word in Faith
essential element of personal goodness.
If
and
thus
a
direct, the
sees
Charity
the
as
an ancient stoic or contempo
rary humanist insist that freedom is an affair of the individual with himself, it is finally because he conceives of goodness as essentially a matter of self-mastery, or personal integrity. And if one asserts, as this paper
has tentatively done, that freedom is a matter of doing what is a goodness is viewed as the perfection of a nature
good, it is because nature, good
to
is
that is specifically political. Accordingly, a person's his ability to live and to act as a man among men, and thereby a special excellence of his own being.26
moreover
seen as
achieve
A
conception of goodness thus appears
freedom. It
26
This is
excellence
every two
-
great
spells
not
in
out,
as
it were, the
to be the basis
a man are
incompatible
notions.
Famous
Christian theologian from Augustine to this
day
issue here. The two as
argued,
are
concepts quite
of
different
being? The goodness, notions.
success of
and
the
the attempts of
materially the
"Love"
excellence and perfection of a person's
are,
states
to demonstrate that the
formally different concepts of goodness are nevertheless demonstration, can a God who is
freedom,
It
to say that goodness as adherence to God's Will and goodness as
being
After all, begins that
at
of a concept of
principle of self-realization.
will
same.
anything but the
the theologians
correlative
is
concepts
not
of
End of Politics
125
realization or alienation.
It declares the basis
Freedom the measure of a person's of
judging
whether or not a
as an
deed
or an aim
is
one's own.
A
concept of
is thus "warp and of a concept of freedom. It defines what freedom is by specifying that activity or ability or quality in which a person's freedom consists. Thus the chief problem in determining what freedom can be an end of politics reveals itself as a problem of deter woof"
goodness
mining the
nature of
the human good. For to be free is to
participate
in
the activities of goodness.
If, then, freedom is as
the abUity
not
its
end.
an end of
of a person
Everyone does
qualification of
this
politics, it
cannot
be
understood
to do as he pleases. That is the
makes
what
he
freedom
wants
start of
in his circumstances,
another matter altogether.
the freedom which politics aims to establish and secure be
merely
politics, and
any
Nor
can
conceived of
as the ability of a person merely to will as he ought. Since that is an it is a essentially subjective freedom which is "beyond freedom that is beyond politics.
circumstance,"
It
would
thus appear that the freedom
which
is
an affair of politics
to engage with his abUity fellows in those activities which will achieve the particular excellence of his being, and in virtue of which he can exist as a man. And to take this understanding of freedom as an end of politics is to say that politics aims must
be
understood
instead
as the
to discover such solutions to common
forms realize
of common
for himself
life a
as wUl
of a person
problems
assist each
person,
life that is both truly human
and
to
so
far
and
his
construct
as
such
possible, to
own.
126
ON LA ROCHEFOUCAULD: PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS J. E. Parsons, Jr
I
George
Saintsbury
La Rochefoucauld: ".
on
in his
writes .
each maxim
.
is the text for
any corollary It is in response to this generous
write."1
the task
approach
a whole sermon of
one of thought and experience can
which
application and
in the Encyclopaedia Britannica
article
of
spirit
invitation that I
introduction to the study of is not to be overly sanguine in
an adequate
of
providing La Rochefoucauld. Yet my first care minimizing the difficulties that beset my
subject. In particular, it is not Rochefoucauld's Maxims belong. literature entirely For example, according to Montesquieu: "The Maxims of La Roche foucauld are proverbs for persons of intellect."2 Whether by this he means
clear
to
which
to dismiss them as
for the wise, is that
they
reveal
they
outgrowth of an
elude
the
the
of
mind
motive
comprendre,
they
statesman
the prosaic. On
may less than
reflect
the endeavor
with
himself, they
balance the Maxims
are
aphoristic prudence and rules of practical
as well
separates
proposed
c'est
A among Rochefoucauld's endeavor from
demarcated
is clearly
Kant's. For the former of tout
else
assume
as aphorisms.
distinction between
difference in
however,
nowhere
we
moralism, and
familiarity
(precepts)
rank of precepts
At the very least, they avoid the facile (to speak in Rochefoucauld's behalf)
cultivated man.
best described
Now,
enquiring
the internal dialogue of a
of preceptive
perhaps
reason
as
highly
a
iteration
them to the
or elevate
than proverbs or epigrams and something
are more
instruct;
to
epigrams,
sufficiently explicit, for Montesquieu
not
As the
precepts.
mere
of
to the Maxims. Provisionally,
directly
refers
kind
to
by Kant,
kindred
assist
others.3
spirits on the grounds
tout pardonner, whereas the
latter
sought
to
giving itself its own laws. The earnest of this is that La Rochefoucauld is harder on faults or deficiencies than on vices.
inculcate
an ethic of the will
Indeed, he hardly respond
to their
concerns
secular
himself
all, except as they cor is, to excesses of amour-propre. Kant still further, we observe that the
To carry the parallel with distinction between maxims and
1
with sins at
counterparts, that
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
precepts
corresponds
seventh edition, vol.
16,
s.v.
to a disjunction
"Francois de La Roche
foucauld."
2
l'lntegrale, (Paris, 1964), "Mes
Montesquieu, Oeuvres completes, 978), author's transl.
ed.
La Rochefoucauld
acquainted
Pensees,"
898 (p. 3
Moralia between
was
probably
apophthegms
epigrams
(indirect
judgment
and aim
precepts),
and precepts: while
to influence the
precepts
will as
with
Plutarch's distinction in the
apophthegms
themselves
resemble
directly
hortatory injunctions.
anecdotes,
appeal
to
or
the
127
On La Rochefoucauld
between subjectivity and objectivity, or to the wUl as revealing each Kant individual's intentions distinct from objective rules or to juxtaposes "maxims which each person bases on his "precepts which hold for a species or rational beings in so far as they agree in certain inclinations."5 Evidently, mankind in all its diversity does principles.4
inclinations"
qualify as Kantian "man", beings". Besides, Kant's prime
not
legislate for himself a
kind
of
if he
as
misanthropy6
not
were
that La
Kant's
and
life
of
from
maxims of
La Rochefoucauld duties
discover
capable
logically
remain maxims which are utter strangers
It
would seem not unless
be
must also
As
so
Kant,
those of
it follows
independent
logically
only if
we
of experience
We may ask,
to the
whose
moralists ancient or
can understand moral conduct
contradiction."8
of
to be no mediation between
known before to
rules or principles which are are
most reproach
in La Rochefoucauld (timocracy)
are at variance with
never
In short, for Kant "we
which
in his
even
programme.7
modern.
and
must
mankind, bodes forth
ethics. For La Rochefoucauld morality life's uncertainties; for Kant it is to be Hence the of a methodical
within as part
principles assign
all
in
and
prescribed
first
seems
point of aristocratic moeurs
spirit
for
Rochefoucauld,
meliorist principles
breathes the
purely "rational
turned precept, that each
legislating
ful moments, utterly fails to match. From the above considerations, there the departure
such
constituting
maxim
can
experience of
maxims
the
good?
that maxims, to be authentic,
capable of contradiction.
far stated,
Kant's derivation
such a
likelihood is
of a misanthropic
more
ethic
than dubious.
from
maxims
Accordingly,
is tendentious,
to say the least. Still less is his ultimate successor, Nietzsche, plausible in attempting what Karl Lowith called a philosophical "system of apho Whether La Rochefoucauld conceived of such a possibility will be investigated in the sequel. It suffices here to note that his suspicions risms".9
See Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, (Library 1956) p. 68. 4
5
"the
Ibid.,
p.
69. Similarly, Kant
permitted and
suggests
forbidden",
the
that
of
the Liberal Arts: New
maxims pertain
whereas precepts pertain
to the
York,
ethical mode of
to the ethical mode of
duty." (Loc. cit) is contrary to See Allan Bloom, "An Outline of Gulliver's Travels", in ed. J. Cropsey, Ancients and Moderns (Basic Books: New York, 1964), p. 255. 7 See when the maxim did come into vogue of Kant, op. cit., p. 167: ".
"duty
and
that
which
6
.
carefully examining every step except on
world
the
path
.
which reason
of a well-considered
had to take
and not
method, the study of the
to let it
took an entirely different direction and therewith attained an
happier
Stephen Korner
result."
notes
that for Kant:
"To
proceed
structure of
choose
the
incomparably maxims
is to
(Kant, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1955, p. 134.) Introduction to Kant's Political Writings, transl. H. B. Nisbet,
policy,"
choose a 8
Hans Reiss.
(Cambridge, 1970)
p.
18. Kant
cites
a
maxim
of
La Rochefoucauld in Religion
Alone, II, iii. Nietzsche, Joyful Wisdom, (New York, 1960) Introduction,
Within the Limits of Reason
See Friedrich
p.
2.
Interpretation
128
the part of agents claiming moral rectitude for their deeds are, in most instances, all too justified. "Whatever the care one
imposture
of
on
takes to disguise one's always
become
by
passions
simulation of
piety
honor, they
and
obscurities."10
through such
apparent
II
Maintaining,
whom
they
imitating
should, that the
as we
empathy between the inclination of literate
men
live. In this, the
must
art of
aphorist somewhat resembles the
the whole rather than elaborating a part; for
the half can be greater than the whole
ly,
events, the
all
hand,
loosely
toward the
is like
art
aphorist's
textured
toward the fine-spun discourse
Before turning to
aphorisms requires
writing
his public, we but reflect the universal to ever better understanding of those among
aphorist and
examine
the
(which is beyond
a vehicle
rhetoric of
poet,
parenthetical
our
ken). At
that can veer, on the one politics, or, on the other,
of political theory.
to La
directly
our attention
similar
him,
Rochefoucauld, it
turn of mind in other great
remains
moralists who sought
truth in aphoristic form. Pascal's Pensees would serve as the best known prototype
of
unfulfilled
that kind
design
State"
Swift's
and even
interest
and of
as
being
"
broader
Reflexionen
mark of
it
not
for their disclosing, In a more
apologetic.11
Harrington's "Political
could example
und
were
fideist
of a
as
which
Thoughts scope we
on
inspection,
political
the we
vein
Aphorisms", Halifax's "Maxims Various Subjects". Of
could
(thanks to their
thoroughly
on
distinguish Goethe's Maximien
arrangement
meditated as
of
comparable
those just
bear every
by topic)
mentioned.
The predominating unit of thought with these moralists was the chapter, in their discoursive works, and subdivision by paragraph, sentence, or
only in appearance suffices to present their thought adequate ly. Hence La Rochefoucauld must not be expected to furnish us with
even phrase
a
finished,
except
synoptic system of
in his
maxims especial
by subject by their
thematic
writes:
to Rochefoucauld's
references
citations appear
he
cannot
be
understood
order of presentation, and certainly no On this point, a contemporary of the Duke, La "I remain in agreement that one will not find
La Rochefoucauld, Oeuvres completes,
All further
although
haphazard
development.12
Chapelle-Besse,
10
thought,
M. F. Zeller, for example, after classifying all his matter, concludes that Rochefoucauld intended nothing
entirety.
in the
author's
translation,
ed.
La Pleiade
maxims
will
(Gallimard, 1964),
p.
404.
be to this edition; these
unless otherwise noted.
See Pascal, Pensees, (Bordas: Paris, 1966) p. 17. 12 See M. F. Zeller, New Aspects of Style in the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld (Washington, D.C., 1954), p. 142 ff. Cf. W. G. Moore, La Rochefoucauld: His Mind u
and
Art, (Oxford, 1969)
pp.
8, 13,
42.
129
On La Rochefoucauld there
the order or all the art one could wish
all
who would
have had
better
sequence
with
more .
leisure,
would
On this
.
that La Rochefoucauld intended
instead
afforded such a series of
To
of
human
avoid
passions could
confusing the
maxims, I
no complete moral
insights into furnish.
supply it safely
teaching, but
man's nature as the selective
by treating
reader
and that a scholar
enabled to
and similar evidence we can
assume
study
for,
have been
ethical
in isolation from
forth my initial intent to follow in this matter the moderation of the ancients, notably Aristotle. For Aristotle the correct understanding of the good, prudence, temperance and justice must first be at least approximated prior to any worthwhile attempt to improve the political
quality
of political
will set
life. Aristotle
study of ethics, not only as far as some moral virtues
prefaces
the study of
a matter of appropriate
possible range
demand the say, magnanimity for their practice. In addition, there is the fact that
is
pre-condition of
a
necessary
worthy
with a view
-
to their end
Happiness, in turn, for Aristotle
of
being
rendered
human happiness (viz.
reaches
so
widest
-
philosophy, both
the
politics with
procedure, but in
politics choice-
eudaimonism).
its heights through the
experience
self-sufficiency, in contrast to awareness of social inter dependence. What constitutes this self-sufficiency par excellence is the life of
maximal
of contemplation
itself,
the "theoretic life"). For however
(i.e.,
the ethical life proves less autonomous
political
dependence
for example, in
others'
on
to
of
healthy
modes
and
intentions
of a
political of
moral
and
resolvable
only in terms all
in
and
cannot practice
life. The
a political
good
nature
life is
indissolubly
attached
-
.
we perceive
arrangement
social
themselves reflecting the first legislator or legislators. ". it is difficult to obtain orders
Aristotle's, to act in
attractive
its
liberality, Besides, virtue requires the right kind habituation, which can only be produced as an approval.
a right education without
Examining
of
reclusive solitude.
of education and moral
incidence
by
One
dint
laws."14 perspective
than
Society is by freedom
that the distinction between State and of official
cases except where
Society's
.
being brought up under right political life from another
moral role
morality
counterbalanced
the law expressly forbids. Under this education becomes the prime issue,
in
is as equally vitiated by mindless anarchists as by In consequence, the social balance struck between the "folkways" and intimidators and the libertarian voluntarists, or between whose
amelioration
waspish ultras.
"stateways",
remains
exceedingly tenuous. Jurists
would
tend to
see
a
La Rochefoucauld, op. cit., p. 388. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1179b32 ff. See Thomas Aquinas, Commentary the Ethics, Lesson XIV, sec. 2150: "He [Aristotle] says first that it is difficult for
13
44
on
anyone
he is
to be
guided
from his early days to virtue according to good laws, by which a kind of necessity impels a
reared under good
customs unless man
to
good."
1 30
Interpretation
solution
as
represented
(in principle)
Rechtsstaat.
"God", according
by
if only
and
men,
impartiality
the
all men united to promote
Novaya
make a paradise of
by
Kant, "wants
to
Kantian
a
of
to be
men
made
happy
their happiness we could
Zemlya."15
Perhaps so, but Kant is known for understanding happiness in a most curious way, since he accepts the Rousseauan position that men may become happy only by being forced to be "free". However, the promise human perfectibility can lead to the utmost misery, as well as to the happiness, as is sadly indicated by the dystopias of our era. To see this in all clarity, we need not postulate a trahison des clercs. We have of
utmost
only to
law
the
perceive
of
inflated
their
and
expectations
reactive
aftermath.
Kant's "internal right"
be
can
fruitfully
in
a
to that
compared
"While the State constitution, citizens
the state erected on pure principles of
constitution of
by force
law,
of
of
or
Humboldt's:
custom,
its
or
own
power,
sets
the
relationship to each other, there is another which is wholly
specific
distinct from this [juridical relationship] chosen by their own free will, infinitely the various, and in its nature ever-changing. And it is strictly speaking the latter -
-
free
the members of the nation
cooperation of
which men
longed
when
What Humboldt's is
restored
dom is
in the
placed
political right. over
public
they formed
in
out at
libertarian
Rochefoucauld
a
as
-
the
benefits for
society."i6
expense of public conscience
His
private morality.
category prior to John Stuart Mill derived
life
which secures all those
themselves into a
leaves
statism
guise of a
-
and
ethos of
distinct from the
for
a similar preference
is found in La Rochefoucauld
as
free of
rules
private
But La
well.
this preference with absolute monarchy in the only way he can. For both he and Humboldt perceive the state as limited
by
prior
of
its
rights
subjects
without
an
reconciles
and
elite
Rochefoucauld's
15
human
its
own character as a regime which
of
birth,
on
Ethics (New
with
a
(like
competitive
indicate his
York, 1963),
role as
pp.
demands less
Venice)
civil
foremost
54-5. Kant
one
service.
once
La
politique
criticized
a
follows: "If we, however, incline to the opinion that we must listen to a long better be known in the civilized state
La Rochefoucauld
nature can
but
practical politics
Kant, Lectures
maxim of
by
than would a commercial republic
as
...
the remark (Maxims, litany of indictments against humanity [and to] ed. 1678, No. 583) that 'in the misfortune of our friends, there is something which (Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. is not altogether displeasing to New York, 1960, pp. 28-9.) 16 Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (Cambridge, 1969) p. 131. Cf. Hegel, The Philosophy of Right (New York, 1967) p. 161 (=111, iii, sec. 261):
melancholy
.
.
.
us'."
"Individuals have duties to the
state
in
proportion
as
they have
rights against
it."
131
On La Rochefoucauld
his
of
nation and
individual
when the operative
to the present
Common
politics.
magnanimous concern
(even
liberty
Further,
"morale"
be
his
day
reality
was
the
appearance of
subjection).17
discerns the link between the two in
sense
Rochefoucauld's times French based aristocracy
preserve
ethics are still considered propaedeutic
the civilian counterpart
or
to
with an
of
esprit
military
absolutism attempted
aristocracy-in-arms,
staff officers and naval commanders. But
to
corps.18
In
replace
land-
a
a vertical organization of
to say that its drawback in the ranks and bad finances. To resume briefly: La Rochefoucauld's high-minded indifference to the "verdict of history", his scorn of clerical influence and his profound patriotism all indicate an
lay
in dearth
amplitude
it
to
de
to
practice
suffices
of men
of
spirit
seldom
encountered
his
even
among
best
con
temporaries.
Ill In
reader
La Rochefoucauld's
of
possibly indicators regret
A
(and
La Rochefoucauld were
to frustation remain
do
his
and
both
concerns
maxims.
social
would
-
but to
aim
spare
relieve
testify
not so much
science,
his
as with
by
produced
our
moralist,
op.
each maintain
without obligations
no
pains
to be burdened
but
with
necessary
the
.
moral
own well-concealed pride. remarkable
suffices
for
us
human deficiencies, so as to would be otherwise. For the states
knowledge we
self-effacement,
(moeurs),
of
.
.
cit.
p.
505: "To
455: "The
render
society convenient, it is
his liberty; one must see oneself, or not One must contribute, to the degree that
care
reasons
court."
never at
his innermost
reveal
of
to preoccupation with today's "value-
of
such
a
live; but it is
why it
middle
should at
class
see
oneself
one
can, to
not always
necessary
Deference is necessary in servitude when it is overdone;
contribution.
society, but it ought to have limits: it becomes a
p.
to
those similarly inclined La Rochefoucauld's efforts to
the feelings
the diversion of those with whom one wishes to
Ibid.,
are
he was, the orectic constitution of man neces the use of disingenuousness to deliver men from
See La Rochefoucauld,
necessary that
are
maxims
such as
sitates now and again
18
of
-
Rochefoucauld's
than
render us more circumspect
there
While these
disUlusionment? Besides, from partisanship and self-effacing in his
because it helps clarify
all,
hopes
equally betokens higher motives on them). For who and especially
pride as consummate anatomist of morals
17
and with
aloof
The distance
man-like
-
we now approach some
perhaps reasserts
free"
at
moral
-
of
certain noble cast of mind
our author's part
thoughts
by
chief
foregoing
digressions
our
frustrated ambition, motives other than chagrin, disillusionment must have contributed to their initial con
and
ception.
his
to the
view of considerations similar
overly vexing the
not
least
manner
can
appear
free."
sometimes
(Emphasis added.)
be lost in the army,
132
Interpretation
illusions;
undesirable
and misconceived
these most emphatically include
and
of
systems
in Rochefoucauld's
as
nature,
According
to La
Rochefoucauld,
"Fortuna"
pejorative
limits.19
to Seneca. Yet even dissimulation has its
reference
self-diremption
in the Machiavelhan
nature
guise of
human life: "Our wisdom", This fortune than our
is arbitrary he writes, "is not less at the mercy of sense of human limitations is expressed in an equally skeptical opinion of our author's, as follows: "Moderation in good fortune is nothing but the apprehension of shame which accompanies the heat of anger, or the fear sovereign over much
property."20
all that one has."21
losing
of
of
nature,
nor regards
be
such can
ascribed
the
either
to
consequences
(ascertainable) Moreover,
imprudence,
of
ethics,
His tendency, if as concern for as
not
This is in full
constituting with his
accord
Christian "pessimism".
the further
we venture
to interpret Rochefoucauldian
its distinction between
the further we are led to remark
thought,
that Rochefoucauld
perception on extremes
moderation
explain
to be imitated in action.
paradigms
basing
seems
his
mean of nature as normative.
him, is
to
case, it
course of
others'
averting the
and
In
himself to the
neither commits
public
justified due to
and
life. This
private
what we
would
today
conclusion
call
our
seems
moral
politics
most
fuUy
"psychology".
author's
Indeed, the human affections, faculties and accompanying typify ethical as distinct from political conduct can be
virtues which
in
grounded
according to representing the positive supports inherent Rochefoucauld in the life of reason. Hence we will try to summarize
principles
-
-
certain aspects of
his
"psychology"
so
belonging
to human
kindness,
reasonableness,
that a sample of the good qualities
may be seen clearly by way of contrast with their corresponding deficiencies. On the merit side we can discern and enumerate six prominent qualities: nature
magnanimity (akin to On the demerit side, we discover though not necessarily corresponding deficiencies
Cartesian "generosity"), and must confront
sins:
"
selfishness
curiosity,
prudence,
and wisdom.
-
(amour-propre),2'2
See Pascal, Pensees, "Misere de I'homme", Nos.
J. Chevalier, (Paris, 1954) p. 1121: "What are principles to which we have become accustomed? .
destroys the first. But
greatly
is
afraid
that this
what
nature
is
nature?
119-20, in Oeuvres our
ed.
which
thoughtlessness,
arrogance,
.
Why is
custom
may itself be nothing but
a
completes,
principles, if
natural
Custom is
.
vanity,
a
not
second
natural?
first custom,
as
not
nature,
I
am
custom
(Author's transl.)
nature."
a second 20 21
La Rochefoucauld, op. cit., p. AM. Ibid., p. 487. Cf. ibid., p. 445: "People have
limit the
ambition of great merit."
means and
reality but say that 22
an
and
Rochefoucauld
idleness,
moderation
men,
a
tedium
is baseness
of
also
and
soul,
writes
a
lack
mediocre
of moderation of
whose elevation
as
to of
"being
that
nothing in
can justly (Ibid., p. 352.) La Pleiade, (Paris, 1964), such
courage,
is
one
ambition."
Compare J.-J. Rousseau, Oeuvres completes, ed. lxvii, where it is maintained that La Rochefoucauld
Vol. I,
of moderation
to their paucity
made a virtue
to reconcile the
alone prior
to Rousseau
133
On La Rochefoucauld
folly. We will be occupied at length in giving almost every its due, it sufficing to remind ourselves that the preliminary charac
avarice and merit
ter of this study
rules out a more exhaustive
treatment.
magnanimity and prudence, the balance of the positive "merit" dispositions (the side) belongs to ethics and the sphere of private life. We should likewise note the conspicuous absence of that greatest of
Excepting
all political
does
not
freedoms even
justice.23
virtues,
reduce
which are
personal
less
Accordingly, La Rochefoucauld, in the latter's
apparent
In
rectitude.
neither
endeavor
the
to
of each
and
politique
endeavor
not
Just
one.
every
politicize what are
confinement
does his insight falter
merited praise and unmerited reward of actions
best interests
he
where
to moral virtue, permits the former certain
political
essentially
to moralize
between
purporting to be in the
as the moralist
private what
to private, as
should
dispositions,
are
bottom
at
not
so should political
necessities. "psychology"
To focus is to
of self-sufficiency.
of man's
independence
conviction
an
and
"Fortuna"
that
Our
is
author
requisite
for
is particularly
autonomy,
heart
of
any conjoint the different kinds of knowledge
note
degrees
our attention on
this
and
solicitous
can
and mind
lesser
greater or
be
in behalf to his
ascribed
the whole of nature, which proceeds
not
economy of order and purpose rather than by blind chance. What seems to be indicated here is that the problem of the
between necessity and freedom is between theory and practice. Because
by
relation
in that governing the relation are not entirely free, it follows
reproduced
that
they
are
particularly
free
applies
the
difficulty
reduce
of
to their unhindered mental
to
and
theory
(as in Marx),
practice
faculties, in
co-ordinated.
are
the relation between
theory
men
the ambit of their unhindered faculties. This
another, but
not restrain one
to
within
so
far these do
Rochefoucauld discerns practice,
trying
without
or minimize the
intervening
distance. To La Rochefoucauld policy and contemplation have in common a is commensurable in itself only in so far as community and friendship make it so. Taken together, they deliver each individual
measure which
thinker from the self-imposed isolation of solitude
significantly
-
from
all, the society
in the bosom
alienation
of men
needs
an
of
integrated knowledge
clearly the thought that jealousy selfishness, or the doctrine of egoism.
expressed
can
even
outlast
Rousseau
of
more
Above
theory
and
love because it is the fruit avoids
egoism
through
his
de soi), from which he derives empathetic See Letters from the Mountain, First Letter and Julie, or the
conception
of
self-regard
compassion
(la
pitie).
new
and
-
of the social order.
(Vamour
Eloise, Bk. Ill, Letter
xlviii.
La Rochefoucauld reduced justice to "a lively apprehension that someone is from which derives "this respect for all the robbing us of what belongs to 23
us"
interests
of our neighbor
.
.
See,
op.
cit., p. 361.
134
Interpretation
Otherwise, faction and partisanship will divide human society into belhcose antagonisms, none of which wUl seem worthy of support. La Rochefoucauld, who had experienced at first hand the evils of civU war and intestine strife, professed to be no longer much "concerned which
practice.24
two parties gains the
of the
bear easy transformations
Man's dual
advantage."25
into
of malice
benevolence,
wiU
nature
not
into
or obdurate
complaisant.
Thus,
man's
dual
nature
the higher from the
is
lower,
not
best
served
perceiving mankind's indissoluble unity, behe Kantian "man". How else could common
humanity
wise and
ignorant,
were
one
subjects,
innocent,
While the higher is
and so on?
yet with
to
proceed
one
served by diversity to dignify man's
sufficient
to neglect the polarities of rich and poor,
agents and
women, the guilty and the
endeavoring to derive
by
it were; instead, it is better
as
warriors and
saints and
secularists, free
more vulnerable
than the
and
lower,
say is that a balance struck between them indicates At the very minimum it takes two to seesaw.
one can
men and
civUians,
slave,
the least
a reciprocal
relationship.
An approach to understanding such a balance is implicit in La Roche foucauld. If he does not invariably aim as high as the Christian state of grace,
or always take
standing",
decorum
and
his bearings
prescribe.
As
"the
peace
that passeth all under
sights
below
what common
by
does he lower his
neither
a politique
he
decency
observes the
invariably
rules
community and society viable. It has been ably propounded, [La Rochefoucauld] is very for example, that "as judge and lawmaker which make
.
At the
Thomas
Doubting
much a
same
time,
our author
are often given to
believe,
.
.
who grants no one the
is
and
not
his
half the
benefit
of the doubt."26
skeptic about politics
that
we
evident amphtude of mind accords
ill
the cynicism commonly ascribed to him. In due course we will come to the cruces of Rochefoucauldian politics.
with
Suffice it for the extend
jealousy
moment
modify the
and
of rank or pettiness of
absolute monarch.
should
be
foucauld Hence such a
24
2*
emphasizes
virtues.
26
that among the moral is the theological virtue of
in this
connection
be
pp.
for
which
La Roche
the ascent from virtues of
characterized as an
subject, he defines charity
p.
qualities charity.
un
to preternatural ones on the principle of superinduction.
with what can
Ibid., Ibid.,
characteristic of the court of an
no surprise
our author reserves praise
assisted reason
intrigue
For the meantime, it behooves us to detail a foremost have otherwise omitted had we dealt exclusively with
quality we would Rochefoucauld's secular There
to say that La Rochefoucauld desired both to of genuine aristocracy; his was not the
spirit
as
acute aptitude
for
passions possess
an
unusually
follows: "The
411, 417, 476, 505-6.
588.
Louis Kronenberger, The Maxims Introduction, p. 23.
of La
Rochefoucauld, (New York, 1959)
135
On La Rochefoucauld
injustice
and
a
has the
interest
specific
wound even when
they
privilege of
never
speak
them always offend and
makes
and
Charity
equitable.
alone
everything that pleases it, while lessens jealousy and envy, it seems.
almost
addressing
anyone."27
offending Another means
which
reasonably
Charity
expressing the same moral truth is to say that for La Rochefoucauld charity is best understood as "one virtue and the form and director of all the others."28 In such terms, it nowhere falls short of the
of
theologians'
caritas or agape.
What the
indicates
aforesaid
that his perspective adhesion to a
human
on
Rochefoucauld's
as
transcendent faith. This is borne
"To
man's post-lapsarian culpabUity:
let him divinize his
and
by
out
for
punish man
is
general orientation
is both fortified
affairs
his
limited
his
by
statement on
original sin
God has
that he may be tormented by it in all actions of his life."29 Our author does not seem to subscribe to that selfishness
thought of proto-modernity
impartial
olence and
more
which recasts
He
tolerance.30
Pascal in this
respect
approaching in general. The Rochefoucauldian doned
and
left to his
Rochefoucauld's
is
which serves
addition, this interest in of mind.
as
world
evinces
a
correlative
our
author
For example, he traces
beautiful in
evidently be thought
is
the
not
love
groundwork
discloses
a connection
of charity.
distinctly
a
aesthetic
between the true
cause
and
of
perfection
ought
and
perfection
and the
is primarily
is the
Nothing,"
beauty.
be beautiful
can
In
turn
Such perfection, under of charity in that it is
the moral is inseparable from the beautiful. "Truth
author, "whatever its nature,
everything it
he may be, La
truth and contempt for
of
our sense and pursuit of perfection.
kind,
else
to his appreciation
ordered
of a moral
world of man aban
Whatever
rightly, is much akin to the performance to an awareness of the divine order. As
stood
as
of
not an anthropomorphism.
Now, La Rochefoucauld
improbity
impersonal benev
than Montaigne and the politiques
own resources alone.
deity
as
charity
should
or
perfect
adds
our
that is
not
to be and has not all that it ought to have."31
IV
To
return
La Rochefoucauld, op. cit., p. 314. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (Eyre
27 28
1966) Vol. 46, it
.
.
29
a
.
p.
118. Cf.
charity is the
ibid., Ia2ae, 64, 4: "A
root of all virtues
La Rochefoucauld,
plain, 30
to the question of La Rochefoucauld's politics, we find that
op. cit., p.
sincere and upright action
See Howard B.
.
ibid.,
a result of
London,
what grows
from
p.
367:
honesty
"Only God knows rather
than
whether
improbity."
White, Peace Among the Willows: The Political Philosophy Hague, 1968) p. 21.
of Francis Bacon. (Martinus Nijhoff: The 31
Spottiswoode:
before
.
381. See
is
and
root comes
La Rochefoucauld,
op.
cit.,
p.
368.
1 36
Interpretation
he turned from the
interventions
moderate
assured,
hoped for his
aristocracy that
its
of
later
of
to
aspired
become the fulcrum
patriot, he
a
the
power of
encourage a
between
power
of
self-
to more
youth
Essentially
years.
He
upper echelons.
would
his
of
impugned the temporal
country's good and
clergy, especially
intrigues
conspiratorial
true
court
and people.
But this
solution
depended in
aristocrats'
the
great measure on
par
ticipation in local affairs, far from the Byzantine politics of Versailles. Moreover, such a landed aristocracy functions best when it follows a
deliberate policy
"One
of
the aristocratic concealment of
aristocracy:
be in society with those to whom one is superior by birth or personal who have this advantage ought not to abuse it: they must make it
can also
merit, but those
felt
seldom
it only for instructing others; they
use
and
For the
society as a whole, each individual his inclination to live at the expence of
can
only be
made viable
others
to
reason."32
must
others.33
to rely on himself and manifest some regard for the Such limited deference to others must follow the
society
by
welfare of
relinquish
induce
must
their own need for guidance, and then guide them
perceive
be taught to
Each
learn
must
sensibilities of others. recognition
that
civil
through each's willingness to sacrifice for
the common good: salus populi suprema lex. La Rochefoucauld's spirit
aristocracy is
of
oligarchs
to be confused
not
by
overshadowed
an
the
with
absolute
out
majority of his subjects. We have already mentioned La Rochefoucauld's life. This
over public private
motives,
regard
led him to
are
is
observe
some
to speak of
they are dignity, and
while
following
speaking
so
32
Ibid.,
33
See John
p.
for
private
much more
caution
At any rate, we "My intention
illustration.
of society: although
excellence than the
a
by
in this
they have
very different: the first has
in resembling it."34 far as La Rochefoucauld indicates
consists
However, his
of
touch with the
preference
such an undertaking.
nevertheless
relationship,
grandeur and
In
limits in
on account of the
friendship
of
that he elected to explain public affairs
than the reverse.
rather
indebted to him
not
means
administration
venal
prince
other,
preference, his
more which
evident
par-
505.
Locke, A Letter concerning Toleration in Works, third edition, (Lon don, 1727) Vol. 2, p. 249: ". the Pravity of Mankid being such, that they had rather injuriously prey upon the fruits of other Men's Labours, than take pains to provide .
.
for themselves, the necessity
Industry has whereby with
trouver 34
they may
one ...
of
already acquired,
another ses
acquire what .
.
Cf.
avantages
La Rochefoucauld,
La
aux
op.
preserving Men in the Possession and
also
of
preserving their
they further want,
Rochefoucauld,
depens des
cit., p. 504.
obliges op.
autres."
Men to
cit..
of what
Liberty
p.
enter
504:
honest
Strength, into Society
and
"Chacun
veut
137
On La Rochefoucauld to private virtues exceeds his concern for public
tiality he is
a
after
the
rural
retirement,
liberal,
was of
passions. minds of
of privacy.
As
ones.
In this
sense
liberal and, by anticipation, a Whig Sir William Temple, La Rochefoucauld opted for
manner of
we ought not
isms
lover
a
a
or semi-retirement, rejecting the life of a courtier. And forget that the audience to whom he addressed his aphor
those to
whom rank and preferment were not
For La Rochefoucauld's men of letters.
greatest
estate
all-consuming always
was
in the
Before passing on to further indications of our author's "privatism", we do well to note the emphasis he places on jealousy as a motive
would
to selfishness (amour-propre).35 Like
close
demotes
love
of
to
glory
ambition,
Machiavelli, La Rochefoucauld
a
more
more
private,
secure
the alternating extremes of human baseness and exaltation result from aiming too high. In the long run, accordingly,
preoccupation
since
is the
such a reduction
Rochefoucauld's
safest
analysis
of
policy for civil society. Indeed, this matches injustice (another near parallel to Machia
velli), especially in its assumption that the people prefer to stave off injustice rather than actively seek justice. "For Machiavelli the ruling
is
princes; the people are not a self-subsisting from the ruling class. They passively receive the imprint of the ruling class, and their function is to hold what they La Rochefoucauld's account of injustice thus partakes of a certain class
always a prince or
class apart
receive."36
Machiavellian reasoning, of extremes advanced
justice among own
good
eminence",37
judges
adherence
less
to
these
terms
political
"Pity
another; it is succumb that
a
on
in
and
is
clever
sees
not
ones
foresight
occasions
.
as
clearly
of
the
sufficient.
of our
any great political lies in its firmest
of private
Or to
characteristic own
of
property, this in
express
Rochefoucauldian
injuries in [those of]
the misfortunes to which we can
of
others, to
oblige
them to
Immediately,
.
as
state
the protection
and
an awareness
makes us aid
comparable
commendation
for its corollary, that "the love of moderate is only the love of their
salvation
personal security in themselves are
"psychology":
the cautious
avoids
are
who
Rochefoucauld
theorist of his time that the
albeit
it
although
by Machiavelli. As
return
the
same
we perceive
the
grounds of
a substantially negative golden rule: "Do unto benefactions which will oblige them in like manner to
others
only
reciprocate
to
to
us
those you".
Or as Rousseau, emphasizing the role of compassion, was to modify it in the Second Discourse: "men would never have been anything but monsters if nature had not given them pity in support of reason".
3' 38
Ibid., p. 363. Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., "Burke
Edmund
Burke, The Enlightenment
Ibid.,
p.
347.
Machiavelli
on
Principles
of
Politics"
in
Modern World, ed. Peter J. Stanlis, Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, I, ii. and
(Detroit, 1967) p. 66. See Machiavelli, 37 La Rochefoucauld, op. cit., p. 307. 38
and
the
1 38
Interpretation
The better
basis for
private
If La Rochefoucauld pohtical opinion
in
manner
negligible
it
which
he
would perhaps
as
Rochefoucauldian
be
to anticipate in
said
the
part
into
nowhere
school
he is equally to it. There is much to remark
compressed
be
dispositions is
estimate of magnanimity.
Whig liberalism,
anterior
insight into
disposition in
the
can
known
thinking
with ethical
certain of man's pohtical
in
exemplified than
of
well-acquainted
a single aphorism
his
about the
by
no means
disposition. To be specific, to say that he understood the
a most equivocal moral
for
more correct
question
-
us
as an unqualified good
magnanimity
in
private
life, highly utility in pubhc life. However this may be. La Rochefoucauld defines magnanimity as a disposition that fits a man for public and private life alike. "Magnanimity is a noble effort of pride by which it renders man master of himself in but
equivocal
as of
things."39
to render him master of all
order
aim of
This
assessment of magna
Aristotle's definition, which emphasizes honor as the the magnanimous man in contrast to Rochefoucauld's definition
nimity falls
short of
orientation even Augustinian stressing ambition. His Christian perhaps be taken to credit pagan virtues as no more than "splendid -
-
could
vices."
Accordingly, La Rochefoucauld explains that liberality is an ephemeral pursuit. "Liberality does not exist, and [if it did] it would be only the bestow."40
to that which we actually than magnanimity (which we might less only expect), because it is needed to reassure the donor of his own worth, but because, surprisingly enough, it provokes ingratitude. This, in turn,
vanity
of
giving,
which we
Liberality, then, is
prefer
not
supplies us with greater evidence than we
foucauld's Christian produce
ingratitude; to them
evil appears
"pessimism."
submitting Reflections ou Sentences
of
Moore
calls
Proceeding
to we
a
more
his
men] a bondage to which they have We should not forget that the author in
what
W. G.
circle"
of acquaintances.
universal
come to the
The Rochefoucauldian opposite of
La Roche
of
et maximes morales moved
his "Augustinian
magnanimity,
of
and self-interest everywhere
the determination to reward goodness and avenge
[the majority
themselves."41
difficulty
have before had
"Arrogance
basis
analysis
of
affect
than
the
of man's orectic
love
soon
proves
analysis of egoism or amour-propre. 42
one
underlying
constitution, love. to be the direct
At the
same
time,
equally avoids the error of confusing love and charity. love to Rochefoucauld is selfless in the same sense as friend
such recognition
in
far
so
ship
39
can
Ibid.,
Adam 40
as
be. It is
p.
not sublime through
496. Compare Rene
being
a
Descartes, Oeuvres
theological
virtue.
completes,
(11 vols.,
ed.
C.
P. Tannery, Paris 1967) XI, 453-4. La Rochefoucauld, op. cit.. p. 306. and
41
Ibid.,
J!
See above,
p.
340. note
22 for
a comparison
between
amour-propre and
Vamour de
soi.
On La Rochefoucauld
To be
brief,
139
the capacity for love corresponds to honestly impassioned Indeed, in the Rochefoucauldian world there are
yearnings of the soul.
many lovers as there are appropriate objects of love (laying aside the love's insalubrious realizations). La Rochefoucauld recognized "true" love as existing in the form of what we would call love. as
problem of
today
"Love is to the
Nothing
the lover as the soul is to the
soul of
body
it
animates."43
else can
qualify as such, not only because there exists a God of love than whom nothing is worthier of the soul's impassioned yearning. It is also because La Rochefoucauld unequivocally stigmatizes fear and the hatred fear breeds as such a low, degrading passion. "There is no disguise which can long conceal love where it exists, nor simulate it where it does A sense of growth in love, paralleling the same in growth of knowledge, brings with it a wisdom that can be defined as knowledge perfected by love. No one could mistake love thus understood as the chief element not."44
by
to overcome the particularity of human life in its ascent toward the divine, or toward that which is akin to the divine. However, which eros seeks
La Rochefoucauld God
stops short of this pursuit for the reason that none but judge the probity of such endeavors.45 Man as a finite being finite mind cannot penetrate what it means to experience love that
could
with a
surmounts
his
own nature.
La Rochefoucauld is such an
awareness
words, clarity
obscurity
on
Like Aristophanes in the Banquet
reluctant
to enlighten man as to his
bids fair to issue in
about the whole
human
which
nature, if
absurd presumptions.
leads to the dissolution
existence
(189c4-d5),
own
depends. For
of the even
In
other
mystery
were
and
man
to
the human condition, the resulting awareness however complete it itself would not be a sufficient means for tran achieve
clarity
about
-
-
scending that
condition.
VI
To
recapitulate: we
"privatism", We
or
have already
liberal love
also perceive
his
of
reasons
seen
that La Rochefoucauld develops
privacy, in
to the political
contrast
virtues.
for placing the deficiencies of human nature Christian (even Augustinian) "pessimism".
squarely in the context of Further, his cautious stress upon
restraints
to prevent oppression patently This is the element
relies on an aristocratic concealment of aristocracy.
of
Rochefoucauldian thought that has
posterity.
For it does
not
a moral agent envisaged
43
in
affairs,
or
La Rochefoucauld, p. yn.
op.
agent
such
44
Ibid.,
45
See above,
note
29.
suffered
sufficiently satisfy
by
proto-modernity.
forfeit the hope to
cit., p. 377.
most
man's
act
And
freely
free
at
the hands of
use of
himself
man must act as
as
free
even within a narrow
Interpretation
140
"is
free
on
essentiaUy
be
"may
bettering
impulse to
the endless
adds,
condition,"
"The desire of
compass.
Joseph
he
violen
The desire to forestaU
the effective
by
satisfied
restraint
of
Cropsey,
it depends
add to the means of preservation, and
of powers.
use
avers
one's
all
and
others,
it
depends essentially upon a privation of the free of It is in the hght of these principles that La Rochefoucauld envisages the natural order to be one in which the human affects balance and check powers."46
another, but in
one
the effects are the
"However
Or to
motives
differ,
may
otherwise:
phenomenon
this
articulate
ill-harmonized life may seem, there is
and
uncertain
hidden
For "though
a productive way. same".
yet
a
order created
chain of circumstances and an eternal
ruling everything its proper place and which decrees its proper destiny."47 Such an order is the effect of defects and deficiencies, as well as of sound dispositions. We must not forget that
certain
by Providence,
his
of
some
assigns
which
The
bears
ipates
a
were
means
possible
or
meliorism
of
Our
state
of
"social
the
this
and of
by
Rousseau himself
bourgeois,
a
inclusive,
and
Both
phUosophers
seems
to have
models of
the
regarded
as
because his
original
sin.
served
of
analysis
For the
apart"
not mix with
with
by
reason
Hegel's
whose
the not
version of philoso
"an isolated
the world, and
is
he did
amour-propre
same
work
of
order
is to
priests,
protect
the
of Truth."48
author
escapes
categorization
as
coupled with an abjuration of cynicism:
becoming
Joseph
liberal
contract".
ones
a
nenberger, La Rochefoucauld induces in
46
into
either
grown
cynic
through his unmistakable moral earnestness.
of our
theological; durable. It antic
of execution from the aggravating it may, La Rochefoucauld did not share proto-modernity because he was acutely aware of
"a sanctuary
possessions
proper
temporary stay
Be
counterpart
who must
remaining theme in
one
society
regime
the disillusion of later modernity
as
phy
civil
aristocracy has
although
human imperfection
share
to the
thought possible
were
century,
of modernity.
secular
for making
Rousseauan
the latter as only a the
us
pohtical or economic rather than
whose
republic,
the
eighteenth
ills
bring
transformation of the ancien
commercial
into
the
on
referring ironically to the ("La Franchise").
to
given
Truthful"
that "which assigns everything its
as regards
This dispensation is
place".
or
as "Sir
aforesaid considerations
La Rochefoucauld
it
were
contemporaries
Due de La Rochefoucauld
better than
Cropsey, Polity
and
we
are,
.
frivolous
a
a .
certain
sense
of
for if there is any
it is through
man
to Louis Kro-
According
us
".
or
our
Economy: An Interpretation of
shame
chance
perceiving that
the
Principles of
Hague, 1957), pp. 71-2. 47 Louis Kronenberger, op. cit., pp. 128, 151. 48 G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (3 vols., London, 1968) III, 151. Compare Michael Oakeshott, Experience and its Modes (Cambridge,
Adam Smith (Martinus Nijhoff: The
1966)
p.
5.
141
On La Rochefoucauld we
are
perhaps
than
worse
think."49
we
for decent
grounds
does in fact
compare political
instruments
and voices
in
proportion and Tightness
Such mesure
political
in
For Rochefoucauld there
politics
harmony
music:
in
as
(despite
to that produced
one
can
well-performed
observations
reflect
pubhc and private matters
various
identical
an
music.50
chamber
A
tangible.
something
he
and
the
by
find in society
still
are
defects),
men's
certain
for hope. To be
affords reason
sure, La Rochefoucauld's statesmanship in this respect was not exerted over a broad range of questions. But his influence, for example, with
Adam Smith is
not
even
negligible,
from the
operated at one remove
though
must
we
it
that
grant
immediate influence
more
Spinoza
of
Montesquieu.51
On the other hand, the Rousseauan state of the "social contract", the alternative here, has a definite analogy in La Rochefoucauld's account of hypocrisy. As Rousseau chose to cite him and
in his
Reply
to the
who
This thought is
of him."52
worthy as Rousseau
crime,
Returning
its
of
Be this
would not
to the
subject
hypocrisy is
such a one of
his feet in
at
the celebrated name
more
[in]
yes,
himself
prostrated
greater sureness.
by
of Poland: "But
King
vice renders to virtue:
order
the homage that
Caesar's to
be
him
with
able to
illuminate; it
author
[La Rochefoucauld]: it is
can
he
as
assassins
slaughter
authorized
it may, hypocrisy is better than have denied.
not
open
as
the commercial republic, we note that
of
Adam Smith had originally included La Rochefoucauld among authors of "licentious of moral philosophy, only to withdraw his systems"
name on reconsideration.
The
other moralist with whom
he had
paired
La Rochefoucauld in this category was Bernard Mandeville, whose Fable of the Bees so scandalized both clergy and laity in England. Smith incorporated this of Moral
Sentiments,
one point on
John
alteration
in the 1790
incidentally,
which,
the power of love. (See Part
Rae, Smith's
biographer,
assiduous
edition
49 50 61
I,
3,
sec.
reports
a
such
view."53
that the an
power
[monarchy]
consensus
Rochefoucauld
And W. G. Moore
was
of
since
emendation,
as
with
the
system
of
the universe, in
which
that constantly repels all bodies from the center, and a power of them to
attracts
by its
very
action
it. Honor
connects
sets all the parts of the
them;
and
it is the
case
and
surely
body
politic
there
good,
while
of a
gravitation
in motion,
interest:"
common
is
and
that each individual advances
believing that he promotes his private transl.) Cf. Benedict Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus, VI, iii. 52 Quoted in La Rochefoucauld, op. cit., at p. 828 (author's transl.). 53 John Rae, Life of Adam Smith, (New York, 1965) p. 428. the
at
In addition,
ii.)
ch.
Louis Kronenberger, The Republic of Letters (New York, 1955), p. 9. See La Rochefoucauld, op. cit., p. 506. See Montesquieu, On the Spirit of the Laws, III, 7: "It is with this kind
government
that
support
Theory
La Rochefoucauld
scholarly opinion regarded this textual change as "there is certainly difference enough between Mandeville to
The
of
quotes
(Author's
142 not
Interpretation
in
error
he
when
asserted
the
foUowing.
"It
may
suggestions about the nature of man and of society,
foucauld handed
on
to Adam Smith and Bentham
weU
which .
.
.
be that
La Roche
whatever
their
intrinsic importance, help us to understand how the modern world was made out of the hierarchic society of the seventeenth We close by reflecting that La Rochefoucauld would deserve careful century."54
study,
even
if his
theory based other
54
findings
W. G.
sole contribution
on
self-interest.
of
Moore,
had been only to
As it
that capacious and
op.
cit.,
p.
67.
is,
we
are
critical
prefigure a pohtical
equally
mind.
weU
served
by
143
MACBETH AND THE TYRANNICAL MAN Howard B. White
That Macbeth is the Shakespearean play about tyranny will perhaps be widely challenged, though a case can be made for Richard III. Macbeth is also the Shakespearean play about mental illness and guilt, not
These
and about time.
is to
goal
my
"tyranny"
called
because
ignorance
of
to
some relation
little bit better little bit better. Macbeth is not called a
that relation a regime
have
subjects
tyranny
understand
one
another,
and
by
understanding "tyrant" nor is his
before the Third Act. This may be simply his
of
a
crimes.
Yet
even when
Banquo
says:
I fear Thou
Banquo does
clarity
identification
the modern and the
In
identifying
tyrant
a
a
Macbeth
not call
as to the
play'd most
pre-modern
Macbeth
usurper
tyrant.1
Hiero
rule, or, if
you prefer modern
Consider the
charge of
tyrant.
authority, in the
considered
a
tyrant. There is certainly not perfect or even the distinction between
tyrant,
tyrant, Shakespeare
as a
royal
of
a
of a
Tyranny
seems rather
giant's
brief
tyrant. Or
rest
to
consider
Xenophon
in the quality
of
excellent
strength, but it is tyrannous
use
it like
a giant.
(I, one
to
that
Isabella in Measure for Measure:
To
For
seems not sense
the use or abuse of power.
terminology,
O! it is To have
falsely for it. (Ill, i, 2-3)
moment of
consider what
delegated
Pericles
n,
107-109)
and unusurped
says of
power, Angelo is
a
Antiochus: tyrants'
fears I knew him tyrannous; and Decrease not but grow faster than the years.
(Pericles I, ii, 84-85.) Yet
we
the
i
do
rulers
not
of
know that Antiochus is
Antioch
makes
it
unlikely.
an usurper.
There
fn. 7
family
name
for
Tyranny (which includes a translation of the Hiero by Kendrick) Ch. IV "The Teaching concerning Tyranny", especially p. 126,
See Leo Strauss: On
Marvin
The
are a number of cases of
and citations
therein.
(Cornell, 1963, 1970).
1 44
Interpretation
John (the
in Shakespeare:
usurpation
Holinshed), Henry IV, If
prescription.
one agrees
You tell
Of threescore To
in Shakespeare than in
more
how many subsequent with Warwick:
and
make prescription
their
the contestants were
none of
title which,
one
day
were
claims
had to
people who
perhaps,
equal
or
a sUly time kingdom's worth.
years,
for
a
They
usurpers.
92-94)
they hardly helped
unequal,
John
a tyrant or
his
Yet the
common
else again.
tyranny. There are two
regime
a
whether
war.
Tyranny, certainly tyranny in Shakespeare, is something one calls
for
fighting
were aU
prescription might establish.
to a century of civU
submit
upon
a pedigree
and two
(Ill Henry VI, III, hi, then
depends
rulers
No
conspicuous
tyrants in Shakespeare: Richard III and Macbeth. There are others, hke
Antiochus,
who
are
the
not
It is true that
appear.
exercise of tyrannical rule
faUure
of
shown
by
"Not is
present-day Leo Strauss:
figures in the
central
usurped
easier, or,
political
and
authority
more
science
to
much observation and reflection
plays
despotic
precisely,
understand
is
needed
in
they
which
power make
more urgent.
the
The
tyranny has been
to
realize
that there
difference between the tyranny analyzed by the classics and that of our age. In contradistinction to classical tyranny, present-day as well as 'ideologies'; more tyranny has at its disposal existence of 'science', i.e., of a it presupposes the expressed, generally an essential
'technology'
particular
"It is
tyranny a
or
kind
of science
.
.
has failed to grasp it really is. Our political science is haunted by the belief are inadmissible in scientific considerations and to
as what
that 'value call
interpretation
no accident
that present-day
political science
judgments'
tyrannical
regime
clearly
amounts
to
pronouncing
a
value
judgment."2
Yet there
links, as Strauss shows, between modern and pre-modern Sometimes, though not always, the use of a common nomen clature may furnish a clue. Let met add parenthetically that the teaching regarding tyranny, even the definition, is by no means uniform among are
tyranny.
Greek
classics.
despotic. He
Aristotle's
rules
for his
complete own
tyrant is
not
only irresponsible and for the good of
advantage rather than
Hiero, on the other hand, is a tyrant simply because of the way to power. Here we distinguish usurper, despot, and tyrant as three distinct persons, though often related, and sometimes united in one. What is particularly important to us is the fact that we speak of the
the
people.3
2
Ibid.
3
Politics 1295
p.
22. a
22 ff.
Macbeth
"tyrannical may
soul"
or
145
Tyrannical Man
and the
the "tyrannical man", a man
who
may
not
have,
tyranny demands. There
never acquire the power that real
who
are, in
pictures of the tyrannical man: the Ninth Book of Plato's Shakespeare's Macbeth. The tyrant is the antithesis of the statesman, the statesman who, in fact knows how to rule, whether he rules or The way in which the tyran nical man comes about is described Socrates in the Republic. by "This leader of the soul takes madness for its armed guard and is stung to frenzy. And if it finds in the man any opinions or desires accounted
particular, two
Republic
and
no.4
admitting of shame, it slays them and pushes them out of him of moderation and fills him with madness brought
good and still
him
until
in from sense
it
purges
abroad."5
when,
Later he adds, "A man becomes tyrannic in the precise by his nature or by his practices or both, he has
either
become drunken, erotic, and The tyrannic man, certainly Plato's tyrannic man, may exist in almost any walk of life. He may not have the opportunity to become a tyrant in practice. Plato's tyrant, as we have seen above, is a man afflicted by many melancholic."6
passions.
The
afflicted with,
modern
tyrant,
beginning
fundamentally, only
security that is
to go
supposed
one
with power.
vice, the vice the Greeks called hubris. treats with scorn, even almost to the end:
Then And
mingle
Macbeth, is
perhaps with
a man
passion, the lust for power, and the
Perhaps he
Petty
vices,
has
one great
private
vices, he
also
fly, false Thanes,
with
the English epicures.
(V, iii, 7-8) Macbeth is as
not an
"epicure". For entirely different reasons, he
might
say,
Hamlet does:
Yea, from I'll
wipe
the table of my memory away all trivial fond records.
(Hamlet I, v, 98-99) Even Macbeth's Brutus
says
love, strong
as
it
is, is
surprisingly
void of
to his Portia:
You are my true As dear to me as
and are
honorable wife, the ruddy drops
visit my sad heart. (Julius Ceasar II, i. 288-290)
That
4
Plato: Statesman 259
5
Republic 573 b (Allan Bloom tr., New
Ibid. 573
c.
a-b.
York, 1968).
tenderness.
146
Interpretation
Even Hotspur's
Brutus
wife
Hotspur
and
Kate,"
is "gentle
and
writes
to her as
"my
to his
dearest
in love
some which those
To the
modern
private
as
well
as
vice,
singleness of
and
tyrannic
purpose.
virtue, is
private
a
Would to God that
With Macbeth, the beginning of disease. To Plato, too, the
drunkard
a
refers
All trivial fond records,
greatness."
in
might not consider trivial.
tyrant,
luxury. It impedes the Hitler had been
the prophecies of the witches, he
wife about
partner
scenes are touching.
records."
their marriages are not "trivial fond
contrary,
their love
dangerous, doubtful courses, but When Macbeth, on the
are embarked on
and a sodomist.
somehow in the beginning disease.7 Long tyranny, in the desire to have no master, is a before tyranny itself, before the murder and the usurpation that followed
of
tyranny is
beginning
of
that she and her husband even required disease:
it, Lady Macbeth knew
Thou Art
would
not without
be
great
ambition, but
The illness
should attend
(I, If
even
ambition
must
be
without
it.
v,
illness,
attended with
18-20) what
shall
we
say
of
tyranny?
The
problem
important
of
a
when
political problem.
tyranny really becomes a tyranny is an When Macduff flees to England, leaving his
in Fyfe, he thinks he knows that Macbeth is a tyrant. know, however, the extent of Macbeth's irrationality. There
wife and children
He does fore he
not
makes
dealing by political
with
the mistake,
tyrants, the
which political men
mistake of
considerations,
rather
sometimes
make,
when
supposing that tyrants are still guided than by irrational and enraged pas
Perhaps it is fair to say that Macduff's error in dealing with Macbeth was comparable to Chamberlain's error in dealing with the sions.
Nazis. Chamberlain German
of
We
assumed that
need and
return
to the
Even before the
is before the
Hitler
still retained some antique notion
German interest. problem of
murder of
the development of Macbeth's tyranny.
Duncan,
though
we cannot
be
sure
kingship:
The In
service and the
doing it, Is to
pays
Are to throne
and
what
duties:
state,
they
Safe toward
loyalty
itself. Your
receive our
Which do but
part
and our
duties
children and
should,
your
I owe,
Highness'
love
servants;
by doing
and
everything honour.
(I, iv, 22-27) 7
Ibid. 563
e.
that this
that murder, Macbeth gives his views of
consideration of
Macbeth
As
theory
a
kingship,
of
and the
147
Tyrannical Man
that the throne and
state8
nothing to the
owe
the people owe all to the throne and state, this passes
people,
and
bounds
of reason.
It may be
that Macbeth is
said
flattering
all
Duncan. But
I have learned to take
what tyrants say seriously. No really serious for monarchy, and there have been serious apologists for monarchy, like Thomas Hobbes, would ever have made a speech like this one. It out-Filmers Filmer.
apologist
When Macbeth kills
Duncan, he
has the impulses
the reality of tyranny.
The reality
of
Banquo. Macbeth has
such power
With bare-f ac'd
power
of
the
tyrant, but
tyranny begins with the that he says he could
sweep him from my
sight
.
.
not
murder of
.
(IH, i, 118) He
despotic
hints, has
they
are
element
not yet shown clear
meaningless
Macduff
Yet the
power.
course
her
and
of
tyrannical rule, is
The
children.
"Machiavellian."
In
in Macbeth's tyranny is his
some sense
irrationality
"English We if
still
not
they
in
murder
are political.
crime.
In this he
will to power and
the
of
Lady
enough, but
are criminal
The
ultimate
comes closer
insecurity
of
his
the raging of little passions, like the
epicures."
Macbeth's development into the tyrannical
can see
we explore
opment of
have two
him,
guide
in the
seen
other murders
to the pre-modern tyrant. Yet the own power
for the
cruel and arbitrary but open in tyranny at which Lady Macbeth symptoms. The restless course, and the
uses secret murder as a substitute
use of
Macbeth's
his
one
manliness.
words
for man,
virtue, courage,
Unfortunately, as
or
manliness,
the devel
the English language does not
Greek does. We
could
belonging humanity from aner, a man When Macbeth speaks the well-known lines: to
a man
man perhaps
and
of
distinguish anthropos, manliness, a he-man.
I dare do
all that may become a man; Who dares do more, is none.
(I, he is referring to his
common
vi,
46-47)
humanity. He is calling himself a man in Two acts to Brutus: "This was a man."
the sense that
later, the
terrified
same
Antony by Banquo's
so refers
thing, but he
ghost and
means
something
What
man
8
Note the
use
of
arm'd
rugged
rhinocerous,
the word
"state",
own
quite
guilt, Macbeth
says almost
different:
dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the
The
his
of
Russian bear,
or th'Hyrcan
which
tiger;
Elizabeth disapproved. Compare
Francis D. Wormuth: The Royal Prerogative (New
York, 1939)
p.
11.
Interpretation
148
but that, and my firm ShaU never tremble.
Take any
nerves
shape
(Ill, iv, 98-102) What he
is probably true, but he is
says
humanity. He has
one virtue
longer testifying to his
no
that of manliness, and he brags
left,
about
it,
in terror.
even
From the beginning, Macbeth's bride
of
to be
Mars.
Strangely
enough, the
other valor
Rosse
unquestioned.
refers
words, the bridegroom of the of Lady Macbeth is supposed
(I,
me,"
"Unsex
masculine valor.
is
manliness
bridegroom", in
to him as "Bellona's
she cries.
41)
v,
And Macbeth
pleads:
forth
Bring For thy
men children only!
undaunted mettle should compose
but
Nothing
males.
(I, Manhood even
If
from
moves
ever was
but, apparently before that, humanity, becomes manliness. a
even
virtue,
the play. It
end of
explore the
significance
perience of prehensible
contact
differs
It is
wanes
in
the influence of the not possible
here to
the unearthly in Shakespeare, but the ex the weird, the unearthly, the not fuUy com
of
with
different
with
that virtue
wanes under
whether superhuman or subhuman.
unearthly,
73-74)
to manliness,
is indeed
courage or manliness
Macbeth before the
is
humanity
womanhood, if it
vii,
characters.
We
forget Oberon. He
can
human and can hardly be overwhelmed by powers he can control. We can forget Bottom. His experience as the paramour of Titania is at once too elevated and too degraded for him to understand. Horatio, not
however, monsters
is
sirrular
believe Part
a ghost.
and, in to the
fact,
He
Hamlet
evidence
ruled
difficulty
seems
to
required.
have
them. I submit that the of
Macbeth.
required
Prospero
They
none
accepted
difficulty
of
spirits
with
the and
Hamlet
are not sure whether
they
or not.
of the
doubt that
must recall that
King
face
could
corroborative
John
uses
comes to
Hamlet
historical inversions
Protestant
by long
are
arguments
tants. The drunken porter talks about an synonym
for
a Jesuit,9
in the Eleventh
and,
Century
as everyone
in Inverness
and
Macbeth is
no means rare
before there
religious.
One
in Shakespeare.
were
"equivocator,"
any Protes Protestant
often a
knows,
there
were no
Protestants
As for
Hamlet, he
or anywhere else.
only half believes in the ghost and turns the play into a test. Had Macbeth truly believed, he would have acted on his own solicitation:
9
See Act II, Scene III, Kenneth Muir
ed.
Arden,
p.
61, fn. 9
and citations.
Macbeth
If Chance
have
will
and the
149
Tyrannical Man
King, why Chance may Without my stir.
me
crown
me,
(I, iii, 144-145) Had he
gone
bridegroom, what
that way, there would have been no tyranny. But Bellona's the man who can face the Hyrcanian
he does
tiger, is
unnerved
by
not understand.
To say this is not for a moment to suggest that Shakespeare believed superstition. Nor am I sure that superstition would have been salutary
in
to Macbeth.
Macbeth had ambition at stake
Indeed there is considered
before the
is that
some
evidence
ways, presumably
that Macbeth and
weird sisters appeared on the scene.
valor
is
not enough.
It does
not
Lady
ways, of achieving his
criminal
bring
What is really
the resources
which
virtues, like wisdom, justice and moderation, might bring. Unnerved the uncanny, Macbeth has become mentally ill, in the sense that Plato
other
by
Shakespeare saw tyranny as mentally ill. It may be said that Richard III is a more complete tyrannic man than Macbeth, because he is untroubled by the uncanny, the unearthly. I submit and
that Richard III is the same kind of tyrannic man that Macbeth the species is less
fully
developed in the
There
earlier play.
is, but
are no witches
in Richard III, but there are ghosts, the ghosts of those whom the king has murdered. Even before the ghosts appear, however, Queen Anne complains:
For
never yet one
hour in his bed
Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep But with his timorous dreams was still awaked.
(IV, i, 82ff) The
ghosts who appear are
but in
Cold, fearful drops
dreams,
stand on
perhaps,
yet
Richard
says:
my trembling flesh.
(V, iii, 182) and
he
adds
By Have Than
the
apostle
struck more
can
Paul,
shadows
tonight
terror to the soul
of
Richard
the substance of ten thousand
soldiers.
(V, iii, 217-219) Let
us return to a passage
Art
already quoted, returning to Macbeth:
not without
ambition, but
without
The illness
should attend
it.
(I,
v,
19-20)
1 50
Interpretation
Shakespeare
It is difficult to know
whether
the Twentieth
psychiatrist means
there is a speaks
but I
by
pathology related to that crime. And, while it first, it is Macbeth who is most tormented
mad scenes of
his may
succeed
him,
Macbeth
a
it. I know
by
a question about that statement,
to those scenes. Consider a few
shah return
no son of
Lady Macbeth raise
what
crime, but Lady Macbeth
it. Murder is
moral
of
that the
Century
Ulness just
by
means
Fearing
passages.
that
says:
If't be so, For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my mind; For them the gracious Duncan have I murther'd; Put
rancours
in the
vessel of
my
peace
.
.
.
(Ill, i, 63-66) The fact that Macbeth malignancy.
Macbeth
To the
refers
to
refers
to
of
than
rather
rancours
potential murderers
Banquo, in
guilt
suggests
the same scene,
"us"
Who
health but sickly in his
wear our
Which in his death
life,
were perfect.
(Ill, i, 106-107) Macbeth him to
wants to
eliminate
insecurity
three things: the
which
compels
practices, the pathology which this power has tomorrow. The terrible improbabihty of succeeding in the
continue tyrannical
brought,
and
first two is
he
clear when
says
to his
But let the frame
of
affliction of
That
the
suffer,
we will eat our meal
In the
disjoint, both
things
worlds
Ere
wife:
in fear,
and
sleep
these terrible dreams
shake us nightly.
(Ill, ii, 16-19)
For the moment, mind and sees
he dwells on the the last thing he refuse
at
least, Macbeth has
a
given suck.
There other
are
chance of peace of
Persistently
asks
prophecy that Banquo's heirs shall the witches at their final meeting. And
to answer, he curses them.
diseased fear
up his
witches'
Macduff, Macbeth has have
given
that Duncan's state is preferable to his own.
no
children,
(IV, i, 105) even
But
why?
reign.
It is
when
they
According
to
Lady Macbeth claims to I, vn, 54-55.) Yet there is
though
(Compare IV, iii, 216 with the succession of Banquo's line.
of
other
instances
of mental
thanes what Macbeth has
illness. When Cathness tells the
done, he
adds:
Macbeth
and the
151
Tyrannical Man
Some say he's mad; others that lesser hate him Do call it valiant fury.
(V, ii, 13-14) Later in the
Before
scene, Cathness
we can see
must note
is
same
that
refers
"sickly
to the
(line 27).
weal"
the most decisive evidence of the diseased mind,
Lady Macbeth,
to the
an accomplice
murder of
we
Duncan,
(at least, before the fact) to no other crimes, as far as have knowledge. That does not make her a very nice woman, but it "Machiavellian" makes her a prince, not a diseased, pathological agent an accomplice
we
Of Banquo's
of massacre.
Be innocent
murder she
of
the
Till thou
has
perhaps a
knowledge, applaud the
hint:
dearest chuck, deed.
(Ill, iii, 44-45) Of the
unholy murders of all, those of Lady Macduff and her Macbeth makes it quite clear that he will seek no counsel: children, most
From this moment,
The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand.
(IV, i, 146-148) Macbeth has a conscience, with a shame for what she has done, horror for what her husband has done. Together they make her mad. When she says:
Lady and
The Thane
What,
of
Fife had
will
a wife: where
is
she now?
these hands ne'er be clean?
(V, i, 41-42) first to her husband's guUt, then to her own. That brings us to what may well be the most important discussion mental illness in Shakespeare, the question Macbeth asks the doctor: she refers
Canst thou
not minister
to
a mind
diseas'd,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And
with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the
stuffed
Which
bosom
of
weighs upon
that
perilous stuff
the heart?
(V, iii, 40-45) and
the doctor's
answer:
of
Interpretation
1 52
Therein the Must
minister
patient
to himself.
(ibid. That many one
imperfect
analogy.10
English
of the
accosted
by
an
When Malcolm
and
sick.
king,
the
asks about
The
and
Macduff
meet
in the
palace
king, varying between alhance and animosity, they are Enghsh doctor. Dramatic reasons have been employed
to explain this scene, yet the the
is interesting,
differently today
would answer
discount the possibUity that Shakespeare believed that become so. However, we have no proof. What we do have is
should not
that might an
doctor
a
45-46)
strangeness of
doctor
and the
the scene
that the
rephes
remains.
king
is Edward the Confessor. Malcolm
king
The
mere
despair
of
surgery he
Malcolm
continues
to heal
says:
cures.
(IV, iii, 152) That
king
a
healing
can cure what a surgeon cannot cure suggests
powers.
Now let
that rule has
back to the Scottish doctor's
us go
answer
to
Macbeth. The doctor has
no
healing powers for the
has, in his situation, English doctor has, in his
than the
mind
body. But Edward the Confessor
body,
the logical
and
powers
for the
mind.
inference is Let
mind.
Or,
to be more specific,
healing powers for the situation, healing powers for the does have heating powers for the that Macbeth should have healing
the Scottish doctor
me quote
no more
Macbeth's
to the doctor's
response
answer given above:
Throw Come
Seyton,
physic
dogs; I'll
to the
put mine armor
send out
-
on;
Doctor,
none of
give me
the Thanes
my
fly
it.
-
staff.
from
-
me.
-
Come sir, despatch. If thou couldst, Doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I
would applaud thee
That
to the very echo,
should applaud again.
(V, iii, 47-55) Macbeth is cure
longer
no
Lady Macbeth,
that she
is
Macbeth,
more aware of after
discarding
turns to his readiness for
Can the doctor i
This analogy
cure
the patient is. He wants the doctor to
sure who
whose mind
is
more
it. Perhaps that "physic"
battle,
Scotland? But
was pointed out
to
because it
and
me
by
Lady Macbeth, disease, Scotland.
cannot cure
then finds
what
own only in her less diseased. But here
diseased than his
makes
another
is Scotland's disease? The Doctor Irene Scheuer.
Macbeth
1 53
Tyrannical Man
and the
should cast the water of the
land, which is clearly impossible. But to what purging the land to a pristine health. He later speaks of a purgative (ibid, lines 55drug to "scour the English 56). But everyone knows that "scouring the English hence" wUl not purge the land. The pristine health is not the realm of Macbeth but the realm of Duncan. Macbeth, however, no longer knows the difference between health and disease. Macbeth
goal?
speaks of
hence"
The Thanes
the English are
deserting;
are
difficult. The English doctor cannot
cure
land,
The analogy is imperfect because ministered to the mind of Scot
cannot cure the mind.
to the
ministered
Shakespeare's cation"
not
the Scottish doctor
body;
tyrant. Could Duncan have
a
Edward
as
The inference is
arriving.
the
the mind. The English monarch can cure the body. The
Scottish tyrant Macbeth is
cannot cure
has been the
body
of
England?
time, showing "intense intellectual
concern with
source of critical
concern,
and
the
reader
is
appli
referred
Learning."11 specifically to Frank Kermode's essay, "On Shakespeare's What Shakespeare got from Augustine's Confessions which is here at
issue is that, but
should
the present always be present, it would
This very problem Kermode that "If it were done eternity.12
in time
moment
lines
following
have
should
make this
But here
upon
'tis done
when
jump
the life to come
does Macbeth imagine that he
with
tomorrow, I
add, to
can make
evidence
is tenuous. Yet
that it has thirty-two lines.
seem
Jesus
one should
and
probably
far-fetched, but I have
be
.
.
one
should
notice
a
The
time,
vii,
today
6-7)
eternal,
look
at
day
and
do away The
eternal?
the famous dagger speech
(II, 1, 33-61)
Thirty-two is
one
less
the anti-Christ. This may tried to show something of the
represents
elsewhere
lines.14 common significance of soliloquies of thirty-three which
"wish that
a
eternity."13
.
the one chosen
make
and note
years of
is,
this bank and shoal of
Why
than the
is
.
agree with
certain:
(I,
should
.
that
-
be time
not
throughout Macbeth. I
no succession
fairly
We'd
runs
Another thing
in the dagger soliloquy is the
well-known
beginning:
11
Center for Advanced Studies, Wesleyan University, Monday Evening Papers:
Number 12
2,
pp.
7-11.
Augustine: Confessions
praeteritum
transiret,
Ibid.
Copp'd Hills
Hague, 1970)
XI,
iam
xi praesens
esset
tempus,
autem si semper esset praesens nee
sed
aeternitas.; Kermode
ibid,
p.
in
11.
10-11.
13 14
pp.
non
pp.
towards
Heaven: Shakespeare
75-76, 100.
and
the Classical
Polity (Nijhoff,
Interpretation
1 54 Is this
a
dagger
I
which
see
before me,
The handle toward my hand? (Ibid. 33-34) But if the dagger is
dagger is
an
of the position of
handle before Macbeth's hand, the
placed with the
And, if it is not an inverted cross, why speak the handle? Macbeth may be the anti-Christ, and he
inverted
cross.
"giving"
admits some simUar role when
he
his "eternal
speaks of
Jewell"
to the common enemy of man (III. i, 67-68). Apart from the divine, who could convert tomorrow into eternity save the anti-divine? Macbeth, however, renounces that goal. He knows, in the most famous speech on
into
time, that he,
at
least,
cannot convert either
today
or tomorrow
eternity:
To-morrow
and to-morrow and to-morrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day. To the last syllable of recorded time. And
all our yesterdays
have lighted fools
The way to dustv death.
(V. The
passage seems too well-known to
raises
quote, but there is
line
one
which
a particular curiosity:
To the last The
19-23)
v.
philosophers
concerned with
before him,
and
writers
the first
saw
syllable of recorded time.
of
early
modernity
syllable of recorded
the old myths as the
history. If there
veil
first
were
Bacon,
time.
between
very much Boccaccio
and
the unknown origins
syllable of recorded
time, why
last? Macbeth has apparentiy given up the idea that he the present eternal. But he takes comfort in man's folly, for
can make
and recorded
was a
not a
time
recorded
He
was
will
be
barbarism
no more, and the new
saying, much more eloquently,
what
Hitler
some
day
take its
place.
said, "If we go
down,
will
us."
we shall
take the whole world with
The Macbeth tyrant is modern
tyrant.
closer
Yet he does
to the
not
modern
tyrant than to the pre
have the techniques
which
modern
technology has devised. Nor does Macbeth have what is popularly a word susceptible of several interpretations. Let us say
called
"ideology,"
that the
he has
modern
a cause:
tyrant does to
power.
tyrant
a cause.
For
a moment
Macbeth imagines that
the pristine health of Scotland. Like Macbeth the modern
not recognize the
He too has
there is no
has
rather
difference between his
a point where
tomorrow,
when
history
today is
stops.
eternity.
cause
He too has
And that
day
and a
his
day
will
when
justifies his
ruthlessness.
That there is
no such
day
in this-worldly history,
most reasonable men
Macbeth
and the
1 55
Tyrannical Man
believe. To believe in other-worldly eternity is a matter of faith, as it Augustine. To believe what Macbeth and his followers have believed is an arrogance of human history, an arrogance of left and right, will
is
with
crippling In was
and
seen
in
flow. A
hoped only
In
another
He is incapable
peace
goal,
apart
of
that
treaty
would come out of
one
reasonable and political center.
the tyrant is the political man
antiquity.
political man. and
maiming the
one sense
of a
means
are
subordinate.
justice,
the
excellence, and so he tyrant is the least
understanding the give and take, the ebb last for fifty years, such as ChurchUl
own power:
tomorrow
The love
inviolability
meaningless
to him. He has
the secularization of Augus
which will
the elimination of the future tense in the all
par
modern
will
World War II, is
from his
tinian time, the creation
sense, the
day
of
human
have
of eternity.
learning,
life,
the
no
tomorrow,
To that
goal
protection
of
the sanctity of personal confidence, the very language of love, the glory of hospitality, the grace of life all these shall pass, waiting for the last syllable of recorded time. procedural
-
of
